Comment Spam (again) and More Creativity
Creativity both on the coding front and the artistic front.
First of all, I’ve been receiving a lot of comment spam lately - so I thought I’d revamp my spam checking system (I just counted the number of links before; if it was > 5, then the comment was blocked and the IP logged for potential blacklisting). The new system I’ve been hacking a little on is way more flexible and extensible - so it’ll be a lot easier to fight off spam later, if they find yet another way to spam me. If this turns out to be a success I might release it under the GPL, but I want to test it a little before deciding on it.
Secondly, I’ve been playing more with my tablet and now it works perfectly with Linux. Turned out that kernels 2.6.4 through 2.6.8 had some issues, so after upgrading to kernel 2.6.11 and recompiling mousedev.ko, evdev.ko and wacom.ko I finally got it working. (Thanks to the docs at the Linux Wacom Project and furrywolf from #debian.) So if you’re considering buying a tablet I can recommend the Wacom Volito (if you’re a beginner) - it’s cheap and it’s relatively easy to get working with Linux - just like the other Wacom tablets. Look them up on eBay - you can probably get a used one very cheap.
Oh yeah, bumped into this sign here in Århus - I can’t remember whether it was a hair dresser or some kind of shop. Also, take a look at this cake we made for a friends birthday.
May 12th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
nice cake. Wish i had a taste.
May 19th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Hi..
We talked about the solution of using an inaccessible image which lists some characters that you have to insert into to a form in order to get to post. That is a very effective solutions, however some people are excluded from posting then..
A solution to that is to add an audio file with the same information as the inaccessible image contains, then you open your site to more people and less spam-engines.. No?
May 20th, 2005 at 2:22 am
Yes, you’re right, that is one way to do it… But I’d rather not have this anti-bot image/sound-file.
Besides, my new filter seems to perform quite well. It’s easy to write new rules for and it’s very simple. It’s a score system, like SpamAssassin, and it’s aimed at filtering web-content. Once I find an even easier way to manage the scoring-rules, then I’ll probably release it under the GNU GPL and you can give it a go. But for now I’m just letting it filter the content here.
I haven’t gotten any mails from people who were wrongfully blacklisted, so I’m assuming that my filter has made close to 0 false positives so far. :)
May 20th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I see. I do find your blog a lot easier to comment on.
In fact I do dislike these sites where you have to register, copy text from and image, recite GPL 1.1 verse 4 and sacrifice a small animal to post a comment.
You could actually just open up the source, maybe someone outthere will have a better shot at giving you some pointers on how to better handle the scoring..
May 20th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
> … recite GPL 1.1 verse 4 and sacrifice a small animal to post a comment.
ROFL!
I’m glad you think it’s at least easy to comment here, ’cause there are a lot of things I’m not really satisfied with - like the missing mail-notice in comment-threads. Perhaps I should implement that… Soon… -ish…