Todd Richards [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ink wired:
> Some of my sites lately have been experiencing a case of spammers > hijacking my forms to send ads and other crap. Yesterday we started > getting the same thing at work here from our recruiting website. > The forms are mainly "for more information fill out the form below" > so we need to be sensitive of not putting them through a ringer to > send the form. Obviously my bosses aren't too happy that they have > to put up with the crap, and I'm not very happy either! I have a > few other sites that seem to have been spared so far, so I'd like > to be prepared as it's just a matter of time. I had this happen and I figured for my purposes it was easier to do without any on-line contact: form, email or etc. The spam to actual customer ration was 9:1. Fortunately, all form data was written to a text file, so the attempts to invoke JavaScript or to redirect to some other web page were extinguished. Currently, I ask any serious inquiries to be sent via snail mail. We are receiving legitimate mail only, since spammers won't spend 39¢ to spam you. But this may be impractical for most businesses, so I would use the captcha to foil the bots. However, note that there are people who will manually type spam into a form with captcha (something we also experienced). I think President Bush needs to round up people with nothing better to do than to find web pages and type spam into their contact forms -- and have them do something useful, like serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. Hmm... perhaps we need a way to track down spammers and automatically draft them into the service? But back to the original post, the captcha is a great line of defense... But not 100% impenetrable. -- I made magic once. Now, the sofa is gone. http://dwacon.blogspot.com ____ The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ____ To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: [email protected] To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk ________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: unknown lmsubst tag argument: '' To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
