Friday Forfend
Spamming MT. I got more spam in the "Comments" section (I use MovableType (MT), the content management system for my blog) yesterday. This, even though I had turned off comments so it should have been impossible to create anything new. So I made some other changes to try to keep the spammers away. Unfortunately, this means past comments will no longer be viewable.
I am very disappointed that MT has apparently done nothing so far to close these obvious security holes. Others, stepping in to try to solve the problem for MT, have added modules that blacklist IP addresses but as we know from trying that with e-mail, you are fighting a battle you can't win because the addresses will change as fast as you can block them. As Simon from American Idol would say; "Pathetic."
But what is really strange is I don't know why spammers are focusing on blogs because, so far, the comments are showing up in posts months old. Hence, no one would see them unless one were to go back that far and, in any case, I delete the spam within 24 hours. So, it is highly unlikely anyone would read any of their drek, even if they wanted to.
However, if the spammers leave any more comments I will stop using MT and go back to how I did things before as this is really making me angry. They have no right to post their commercial crap on MY site. I decide what is posted here, not them. This shall not stand.
Speaking of Spammers. Wired has a chilling story of how a Polish group of hackers is claiming to provide untraceable websites. Don't ask me how they are supposedly able to do this since, as far as I know, this shouldn't be possible. But apparently, if the story is correct, they have a way of screening their spam sites from the usual tools used to identify who is behind a site (e.g., traceroute and whois). See the story here.
Almost Home. The repairs to our bathroom is almost complete. The painter came and repainted the drywall of the ceiling below the shower that leaked. Then, the floor guy came to patch in some flooring where the old shower/tub used to be. The last thing to do, which has not been scheduled yet, is to patch the scratches the tile guy put in to the new tub when he was setting the tiles.
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!