Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Applying SURBL against blog comment spammers

[Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>]

On Thursday, September 2, 2004, 6:53:41 AM, Rob McEwen wrote:
>>SO I say, go ahead and add them.

> Chris... where have you been? We have had extensive discussions recently
> where we all concluded that we have to make getting the FPs down a priority
> and the only way to do this is to (gulp), allow some graymarketers loose
> (those who do a some or much spamming but who do have some legitimate uses).
> It wasn't an easy decision... but the need to get SURBL to a "set it and
> forget it" point is mission critical.

I agree about reducing FPs, but I'm not sure if adding blog
spammers would increase or decrease that.  I guess I'm not
familiar with them.

Are the blog spammers scammers and criminals like professional
mail spammers?  Do they advertise legitimate sites, or the usual
pill and mortgage sites in Korea, China and Brazil?

Jeff C.

Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Applying SURBL against blog comment spammers

[Loren Wilton <lw...@earthlink.net>]

> > Chris... where have you been? We have had extensive discussions recently
> > where we all concluded that we have to make getting the FPs down a
priority
> > and the only way to do this is to (gulp), allow some graymarketers loose
> > (those who do a some or much spamming but who do have some legitimate
uses).
> > It wasn't an easy decision... but the need to get SURBL to a "set it and
> > forget it" point is mission critical.

A side thought on this (not having been involved in the discussions).  I'm
going to assume that "lists are cheap", at least when it comes to multi.
I'm also going to assume grey spam domains are relatively few compared to
the multitudes.

Why not start a new grey spam list and move any of these sorts there, rather
than dropping them completely.  Then SURBL is pristine and 'set it and
forget it', but someone if they wanted to could also do lookups on the grey
list and give them half a point.

        Loren

Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Applying SURBL against blog comment spammers

[Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>]

On Thursday, September 2, 2004, 9:24:19 AM, Kelson Kelson wrote:
> Jeff Chan wrote:
>> Are they advertising legitimate sites or bad guy sites?

> Gambling sites, "pillz" sites, etc.  The usual.

Thanks.  Sounds like there are some definite bad guys
spamming blogs.

> More insidious are the ones that link to legit blogs that have already 
> been spammed, as described here: 
> http://photomatt.net/2004/08/01/weeds-in-the-garden/

>From that interview:

> Alex told me the other day about a new type of comment spam
> he’s been seeing: comments that link to normal blog entries.
> Well known blogs like Mozillazine. As advanced as tools like MT
> Blacklist have become, they’re pretty useless in cases like
> this. Are you going to blacklist Dave Sifry 

Hmm, we definitely don't want to block legitimate blog sites...

If we make a list of blog spams, how do we prevent that from
happening?  Whitelists of every legitimate blog site?  That's
probably nearly as hard to gather as whitelists of every
legitimate web site.   ;-)

Jeff C.

Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Applying SURBL against blog comment spammers

[Kelson <ke...@speed.net>]

Jeff Chan wrote:
> Are they advertising legitimate sites or bad guy sites?

Gambling sites, "pillz" sites, etc.  The usual.

More insidious are the ones that link to legit blogs that have already 
been spammed, as described here: 
http://photomatt.net/2004/08/01/weeds-in-the-garden/

-- 
Kelson Vibber
SpeedGate Communications <www.speed.net>

Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Applying SURBL against blog comment spammers

[Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>]

On Thursday, September 2, 2004, 7:08:47 AM, Raymond Dijkxhoorn wrote:
>> Are the blog spammers scammers and criminals like professional
>> mail spammers?  Do they advertise legitimate sites, or the usual
>> pill and mortgage sites in Korea, China and Brazil?

> Yes they are.

Are they advertising legitimate sites or bad guy sites?

Jeff C.