…they keep trying. The bots keep trying. I’m assuming they’re bots, since once they do get on, they don’t seem to do anything but sit there. I’m getting pretty good at certain phonemic sets that don’t even try to vary, and if I have let one through, because I search by phoneme (smallest pronounceable unit of langage) I am almost certain to turn it up again. I’m getting a real feel for the set in use. So tiresome. I’m a little suspicious of some sort of bot network operating out of Nigeria but routing through Romania, or vice versa, and I’m wondering if it’s a software connection, a bot that was written in Nigeria. It’s really amazing how the same phonemes keep popping up in Nigeria, Romania, even China…and puzzling as to what they hope to do, ultimately, since somebody with a server named (one of the funnier ones) handbagsforyou is not too likely bent on world domination. But you never know how such things, allowed to sit there, could behave. So I faithfully boot them off.
If you are a legitimate reader who just happens to be using handbagsforyou as your server, alas, I am sorry. And if your name really is xiohgoaqg, again, I do apologize, but I am highly suspicious. And I have no desire to wait and see what these accounts ultimately do when the Evil Overlord sends the command down the network…
A website I run (wellbeingaustralia.com.au) gets about 30 of these signing up per day, but all they do is sit there (until I delete them). If I made commenting easier for humans, they’d start leaving comments BUT the comments they then leave don’t make any sense, just random collections of scavenged text (though with surprisingly frequent mentions of Dr Dre Beats). As a world domination plan this isn’t in the Dalek class. I guess they are simply hoping that other users will click through to their website (usually called, as with yours, cheapuggboots.ch or louisvuittonsale.whatever), but even then some of them sign up with google.fr or the like as a url. Why? Who? What? Duh?
So sorry about the fish. I have a raised small pond, only about 5 feet wide, that my daughters’ BIG dogs LOVE to jump in! At least they are not after the fish!
As for the vinegar as treatment for weeds, you are actually supposed to use horticultural vinegar, which is a much more concentrated version of vinegar. Vinegar is an acid and the horticultural vinegar will burn your skin so wear protective gloves. It has to be applied more often than commercial weed killers, which I refuse to buy. There is a particular company whose products I refuse to buy (starts with M) because they seem to be determined to drive organic farmers out of business.
Sorry, my post went on the wrong reply section!
S’okay! We’ve all been known to do that!
Different, I take it, than SiCaptcha…?
Apparently there are fears of a huge super-botnet that may arise from these global targeted attacks on WordPress sites. Gah…
SPAMMERS!!! THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!
I’d post a link to the article, but I don’t know if that will get me filtered out by the spambots. It’s on Arstechnica, the article title is “Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet”. I kind of hope that they’re wrong…but keeping the software updated and the passwords superstrong can’t ever hurt.
Sorry, I’m missing something here, not running an internet server. Phonemes where, in the user names chosen? How does the server ID come into the picture? That is if you can mention these things without giving people ideas–but don’t they know them already?
Oh, no big deal. Just as ETAISON is the alphabet in order of the most frequent use of letters in English, this varies with the language. Hausa is the largest language group in Nigeria. Though English is the dominant official language, most people speak something else. A phoneme is somewhat like a syllable: it’s the smallest unit of the language, and you can construct a language by just juggling content of the phonemes, or sound units. Vietnamese and African, probably Bantu, names use Ng as a vowel. English doesn’t. Arabic names don’t use a u after q, and treats it as a k. English does use a u, as a kw, but understands it as simple q, or k, so it’s had contact with the other usage. When you try to make up names, your linguistic bias may show in the output of your construction. That’s why I’m amazed to get identical construction in names coming out of Nigeria and Romania, since Nigeria is Hausa, and Romania is in the IndoEuropean family.
Sorry for the ‘Bren’ moment there, but language does behave by a set of internal rules that are almost as good as DNA when it comes to tracking origin.
I see what you mean. The Chinese spammers have distinct linguistic constructions when they choose their throwaway names; very few Western spammers use the letter ‘X’. There’s also a common core that uses the middle of the keyboard, some variant on hkdfgdk. I haven’t been able to sort out formats specific to Eastern Europe or sub-Saharan Africa yet, but I’m pretty sure that any name that resembles buylvnow is a scammer/spammer 🙂 Many of the rest just look like Zorro walked across my keyboard.
Romanian is said to be the most direct descendant of Latin, supposedly closer to Latin than Italian is. I have this from a Romanian computer boffin that I was once acquainted with.
No worries on the linguistics mode there. Go right ahead. I miss that; I know too few people who like languages.
The constructed names used for email address and site seem to be either a form of mix-and-match with a small glossary of common words, or syllabic like you and chondrite said, with certain preferences. Very unfortunately, former Eastern Bloc nations like Russia and Romania, and Nigeria and China, but the US too, are common for malicious activity. This is unfair to the decent, reasonable majority of people from there. (I’d say spammers belong in that special hell referred to by Shepherd Book. They ought to use any talent for something good and useful, or at least fun.)
It might be that because of the Rusalka books and the BRM series, you’re getting some undue attention, but honestly, I think the sources, the bots, are simply scouring everything they can get. At leat they are single-purpose, with no real motive other than stealing access, informatio, spread, and money, and control. But…ugh….
Sympathies. One is also reminded of one of the stsho reactions, that these beings are most inelegant, disharmonious, infelicitous. Hah, the hani or mahendo’sat, or atevi, reactions would be more direct and, ah, colorful. Not to make a pun at the expense of gtst distinguished stsho, who was quite right. I will never understand why anyone with even a smidgen of programming talent would choose that instead of doing something useful or enjoyable with their talent. If all they care about is money and power, influence and control, there is more of any of those to be gained by people’s good will than by brute force or deceit. …let ’em rot in a mahent hell.
I can picture Mircea constructing a bot which would literally sit there doing absolutely nothing, and snickering while the whole computing world panicked. He would laugh, snicker and feel infinitely superior to we peasants. I think him arrogant, but he does have compensating virtues.
A site that helps combat spammers:
http://www.stopforumspam.com
Recommended. They give all sorts of information, slightly tech-y, but comprehensible.
The site was recommended to me when I was a forum admin and dealing with inordinate numbers of gods-rotted spammers / bots.
This will likely also help you develop a sense of what’s fake and who’s real.
I really sympathize. Even with suggestions to block spammers’ entry/registration, that forum still got large numbers of attempts daily, and it was…highly obnoxious for me and for members, if something got through and posted. — Forum registrations now are usually deferred to an administrator to approve them personally, for that reason. Blogs usually do so also, from what I’ve read. — Separately, I haven’t tried putting in a blog yet. I’ve been reluctant to reactivate my own site’s forum simply due to the upkeep headaches.
You could try adding reCAPTCHA.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-recaptcha/
https://www.google.com/search?q=Huge+attack+on+WordPress+sites+could+spawn+never-before-seen+super+botnet&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=Huge+attack+on+WordPress+sites+could+spawn+never-before-seen+super+botnet&client=firefox-a&hs=pLR&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=univ&tbm=nws&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=5qRpUYK9HtHZigLwx4CoDA&ved=0CDAQqAI&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45175338,d.cGE&fp=1105e548e821baba&biw=1280&bih=651
This is what I’m concerned about. It’s hourly. It’s a bloody nuisance. I can generally tell, and a sweep on certain characteristics you will rapidly discover if you start purging your own sites will turn up others. Search by phonemes, not names, that’s all I want to tell you: significant snippets of letters that recur.
The idea of using phonemes to identify spam comments is very interesting and I thank you for posting it. I’ve found that Akismet does a decent job of identifying spam comments, but it is still a royal pita to have to screen and delete them.
Amen to letting the jammers rot in a mahent hell… Imagine what spectacular things could be achieved if all that brainpower were applied to things useful for the common good!
I somehow typed mahent hell instead of mahen hell. Now I’m wondering if there’s a bunch of mahendo’sat who add a T, or which hell is worse. Hmm, I suppose a hell without tea is worse….
Naturally I copied and pasted and gave your mistake new life…
I need coffee in my hell, thanks!
lol….
Apparently, and the reason we are suggesting everybody do some password updates, when ‘bots’ set up, they may lie ‘sleeper’ for months, years, but they establish ways to get into places they shouldn’t, to take over sites, and then at a given time, start pumping out spam or worse all up and down everybody’s lists and through the entire interconnected network, as far as the connections will take them.
Bad enough on its own, but there are also several political entities out there that have motives and money, and within computer ‘boiler factories’ in various unregulated computer Wild Wests of the world, there is a resource already being exploited by shady merchants: and most of these guys at the keyboards could think they’re selling knockoff Louis Vuitton, but what they’re really doing could be far more destructive.
If you’re mod or admin on any site, not just WP, and you’re getting some of these mystery-members, round ’em up and head ’em off a cliff.
Wars of the future may not be fought with tanks and bullets…and there is a need to keep a rotating set of good passwords: become a moving target.
For those of you who have trouble generating passwords and keeping track of them, there’s a plugin called Last Pass, search ‘lastpass’, —which comes in a freeware, and also in an advanced (paid) version. If you fear losing your passwords, go to the paid version, which has a storage: if you are organized enough to keep a little black book aside from your computer, which could be hit by a stray meteorite—you can manage quite well with the freeware. Hint: don’t let it auto-log-in. That helpful feature can get you in trouble on certain sites, since it’s faster than you are. Better to go just a little slower and maintain control and options.
My cross-eyed penguin avatar, now in his monthly personae e.g. Vitruvian Tux, refers to the Linux mascot.
Not only do I use Linux for being online and avoid using Windows at every possible opportunity, but these are systems I build myself from scratch! KISS is my philosophy. I know what goes into them. They have what I need, and only what I need. Fewer targets.
We don’t have .EXE files, eliminating one target. The one thing that will run on both is Java scripts. But not only the .EXE executables, everything else is different too.
Oh, Linux is not “immune”, but it makes life more difficult for ’em. 🙂
My blog seems to be popular with the Spanish spammers for some reason. I suppose I should take some consolation from that. At least it’s popular with somebody. . . Sigh!
Off topic, but CJ, have you ever needed to replace the paddle in your bread machine because it got too “wobbly”? My paddle seems to have quite a big of lateral “play” — am wondering if I may need to get a new paddle. Other than that, the Cuisinart bread machine was money well spent.
Every post I’ve seen about this botnet is cautioning *operators* of WordPress sites, NOT end-users like us (ok, some folks, like BlueCat and Resa need to pay heed!). The puppetmasters aren’t interested so much in collecting home pc’s as they are trojanning the server farms in the cloud where WP pages are kept. They are after the BIG horsepower, not the go-karts. There are techniques in which an ordinary account can have its privileges artificially escalated to equal an admin, but that takes time. What the black hats are after is easy meat, quick-and-dirty admin access, which buts them at the wheel of 18-wheelers on the www backbone.
Not that better password hygeine isn’t a good idea at all times anyway, but don’t panic. Unless you reuse passwords, which is bad hygeine.