I'm getting bombarded with comment spam on this blog, even after installing MT-Blacklist. Something I've noticed after a spot of log analysis is that the kosher comments come from the HTML form generated by Movable Type at the end of each post, and are submitted by POST method (i.e. in the HTTP headers); the spammers use the GET submission method (i.e. in the URL query string). Am I missing something here? Make MT reject the form fields by GET and accept them by POST only?
I'm going to upgrade to the latest version, have a twiddle with mt-comments.cgi and report back ...
8 comments
Paul · 14 April, 2004 at 11:08
Do any legitimate viewers actually submit the form using GET? I would have thought that practically everyone uses the comments form as it is on the page, so I can't see you losing any proper comments by disabling GET.
I think you can throw something like this into a .htaccess file (in the same directory as mt-comments.cgi) to stop it:
<FilesMatch "whois.php">
<LimitExcept POST>
Deny from all
</LimitExcept>
</FilesMatch>
Unfortunately, this will apply recursively down the directory structure as well, so you'll have to override it if you want to have a mt-comments.cgi without this restriction further down the tree (unlikely, but you can bet someone will want to).
I'm not an Apache expert by any stretch of the imagination, but the above code works for me. Your mileage may vary. :)
neuro · 14 April, 2004 at 17:17
verrrrrry nice - i'll give it a shot and report back :)
neuro · 14 April, 2004 at 17:36
Argh, I just realised ... mt 2.661 uses mt-comments in GET mode to redirect URLs to decrease Page Rankage ... :P
Paul · 14 April, 2004 at 19:57
Ah, well in that case you will need to hack mt-comments.cgi to only work with POST rather than both then.
Neil · 16 April, 2004 at 14:32
Change yo'ur life with V1a GR a! $17.28
$21.42
ksdjf roigh oidfjj oidvnoi
ORder ONline - GUARENTEEED not risK
$23.83!
Much enojyment!
http://rx34.dodgyasfsck.com/84579?neurosemailaddress_0wned!
dfoijgoi tpoiyjiu[o fsdiogspoi
neuro · 26 April, 2004 at 01:39
Some more weird spam yesterday coming from an Italian IP address and trying to get Google juice for a domain that doesn't even exist yet ... Comment spam confuses me more by the day :)
hateless · 27 April, 2004 at 03:17
can't wait til MT 3.0 is out!
neuro · 26 May, 2004 at 02:32
Well, it's out, I upgraded to it, and I just deleted about 50 comment spams left on my blog across various posts from various IP addresses. Thankfully, because I now screen comments, I just deleted them all and they never once appeared on my blog. But how much of a hassle is comment spam still? Blah.