Mmmmm, spam.

Sorry about the lapse in posting lately. There has been a combination of factors, as is usually the case when I don’t post for several days. One major factor, happily, is that we have houseguests, who are lovely and are taking up large chunks of time. Another, less happily, is that my employer has this week gone to a new controlling software program, which has been substantially less problematic than I expected it to be, but still has taken concentration and effort that has effectively ruled out tippity-tapping in a word processor for later insertion into the Tohu Bohu. And another, very crankily, is that there have been just hundreds and hundreds of spam comments over the last several days, so when YHB visits the controls, it’s all about the spam-killing.

I had gone through a chunk of time where my spam filters weren’t working at all, and I was able to get them working, so for the last several weeks, it was catching spam and not putting it on the web. And when I did get a bunch, I could spot the cues and tell the filter to stop any more of them, and it worked, and that was a Good Thing. My Gracious Host, Jed, helped with that, and it was working, and I was happy, happy, happy.

And then… these comments have been coming in with, as far as I can tell, random combinations of letters (and not long strings, either) as the email, URL and content. They are not from the same IP address, and they do not have any links within the body of the spam. There are no words or recognizable (and repeated) word-like things to alert a filter. And they have been coming more or less every five minutes for several days. If I am off-line for a while, and I often am, I come back to discover dozens of comments that have been published and are not only crudding up the Tohu Bohu but are bloating my aggregator—and your aggregator, too, if you are clever enough to be subscribed to the comment feed. It makes me cranky, so cranky. And I don’t like being cranky.

And, er, I am exaggerating a bit. I mean, it’s been three days, and a total of two hundred or so spam comments. A lot, and in my aggregator I get less than a hundred proper items a day, so adding another fifty spam items makes my aggregator useless as an aggregator, but not every five minutes, which would be, over forty-eight hours, let me see, twelve eights is sixteen and eighty, and four twelves is forty eight, which is, don’t tell me, carry the one, fifty and fourteen, a hundred and twelve, it would be five hundred and sixty-sumpin’ spam comments, when in fact, I had only a third of that. Not that much, really.

But still making me cranky.

So what I’ve done, for the moment, is put a hold on all incoming comments. So when you post, it’ll go to that famous moderation cue, and I will make it visible just as soon as I can distinguish it from the spam. Which should be easy, unless you are posting random combinations of letters. In which case, curse you (shakes fist)!

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.