Matthew Cline wrote:
LiveJournal, a combination of blog (web log) and web forum, has recently gotten spammers, who leave comments saying "Take a look at this link". The LiveJournal admins have anticipated this, and just recently put into play some anti-spam techniques:I'm on another list, frequented by a variety of users of older systems. One such user is blind, and has frequently lamented about the lack of usability imposed by such schemes. Section 508 for government agencies in the US and other similar policy require(s|d) that such mechanisms make adequate accomodation.
* Anonymous posters are only allowed a small number of posts per time unit per IP address before they have to prove that they're human through captchas (see http://www.captcha.net/). Registered accounts are allowed a higher rate of posting before they have to prove their human.
* When journal owners delete a comment from their journal, they now have the option to mark the comment as spam. Comments so marked can be reviewed by humans, who will delete the posting account if it really was spam.
Are the journal owners not human?
* If someone posts a burst of comments to many different journals, as opposed to the same journal (where a burst of comments would just be someone participating in a discussion), this will be brought to the attention of humans, who can determine if it's spam, and delete the responsible accounts of it is spam.
This sounds very labor intensive on a busy system!
See
* http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_biz/219024.html
* http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_biz/219332.html
Sounds almost like... nah. :)
Spammers seem to thrive (under whatever rocks they live under) by pumping out volume. It sounds to me like it would be better to block/verify on sign-up -- even if verifying "human-ness" -- to avoid automated blast tools. After all, a spammer will have no qualms about posting ONE message to a bunch of lists, then leaving.
If nothing else, at least most mailing lists require a verified sender address. Not perfect (and not foolproof) and perhaps not as open as many would like.
I'm not sure if you're looking for suggestions, or making them!
- Bob
