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Spambot Scrapper?

  1. courtesanconnection
    Member

    Have an unusual situation and am not quite sure what to make of it.

    During the past week, I've had some rather cryptic comments left on various posts. No name or email address appears in any of the proper areas, and the only text in the comment that appears is the blog handle of a now defunct blog. Askimet currently does not catch them as spam. I have held them in the que just so I would have the IP addresses.

    All of the comments in question come from IP addresses associated with LAYEREDTECH.COM as below:

    OrgName: Layered Technologies, Inc.
    OrgID: LAYER-3
    Address:
    Address: 1647 Witt Road Suite#201
    City: Frisco
    StateProv: TX
    PostalCode: 75034
    Country: US

    (Kudos on WordPress's IP look up feature btw).

    Some searching on Google indicates LayeredTech is associated with some SpamBots and "Spam Scrapers" (new term for me).

    To make matters more interesting, I've had some one on the site for over 16 hours at this point, based on what I have come up in Meebo. Rather unusual, as I don't have that much info yet. And notable as the arrival of my long term visitor coincides with the time of one of the comments. Said visitor has also not responded when I attempted to Meebo them.

    As nothing else odd has occured at this point, (no noticable increase in page views or spam) I am not sure if this should be a concern, or just is some odd J. Random Behavior.

    Any thoughts on this anyone?

  2. timethief
    Member

    This is not random behaviour. You probably have your rss feeds set to full and you probably don't use the <!--more--> tag so they are sucking up your posts and will then post them on splogs covered with advertising in order to collect the ad revenue.
    You'll find other threads in the forum search box on this. Try searching for "bitacle". The bottom line is that the quick fix is to set your rss feeds to "summary" and or use the <!--more--> tag knowing when the feed readers hit the tag they stop dead in their tracks.
    Dashboard => Options => Reading
    now scroll down and look for this
    Syndication Feeds
    Show the most recent: ___posts
    For each article, show:
    ___ Full text
    ___ Summary
    Note: If you use the <--more--> feature, it will cut off posts in RSS feeds.
    Also I don't see a copyright notice on your blog or on your individual posts. You can place a copyright notice in a text widget in your side bar or on pages or on posts.
    (a) You can create an image for a creative commons license here http://creativecommons.org/license/ read the choices very carefully.
    (b) Or you can get a copyscape one here http://www.copyscape.com/
    (c) You can also search for copies of your writing appearing on the web.

  3. courtesanconnection
    Member

    Thanks timethief, have already made the change to the RSS feed, and am looking over the instructions on the <!--more--> tag.

    I had intended to get to Creative Commons, but had not made it a priority, now will do that.

    'Nother lesson learned!

  4. timethief
    Member

    I would recommend a copyscape image over creative commons. And didn't you say this was part of a dissertation project? If so then I would definitely slap a copyscape copyright image on each and every post.

    Here's a example of a blogger using both the more tag and the copyscape copyright image on every post http://davidbdale.wordpress.com/ IMO this is what you should be considering. P.S. His stories are terrific reading.

  5. drmike
    Member

    Um, no.

    I've had some rather cryptic comments left on various posts

    Are you sure you're not looking at trackbacks or links from other wordpress.com blogs that are linking to your posts or directly to your blog? Layeredtech.com is one of the datacenters that wp.com uses.

    Are any of these comments visable on your blog currently?

  6. courtesanconnection
    Member

    No Dr. Mike, the comments in question only appear in the Comments area, not on the Dashboard summary as Trackbacks or other links. They are clearly comments.

    I have refrained from approving them as they really have no content and make no sense.

    I can cut and paste them if you wish, but am hesitant to encourage this person.

    Dr. Mike, I have my Meebo up and running if you want me to send you copies of the comments in question there. Will be on for about an hour.

  7. courtesanconnection
    Member

    FYI timethief, the Ph.D proposal was shot down on Friday, I believe because the topic is not politically correct.

  8. timethief
    Member

    Too flipping bad. :(
    Copyright your material anyway.

  9. raincoaster
    Member

    If the material is original it is already copyrighted. And there are meaningful differences between Creative Commons licenses and Copyscape. Posting a notice is a reminder to law-abiding and well-meaning people that there you have specific restrictions on the use of your material, but not posting a notice does not mean that your material is not copyrighted.

  10. courtesanconnection
    Member

    meeboguest166119

    Status (meebome): Available

    Time on page: 1 Day, 13 Hours, 44 Minutes

    Seems a bit fixated, don't you think?

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    True, but it's possible they checked in from work and then went home, leaving the window open.

  12. engtech
    Member

    One note about LAYEREDTECH.COM

    "All of the comments in question come from IP addresses associated with LAYEREDTECH.COM as below:"

    This is a problem with wordpress.com's IP logging... I've seen some of my own comments get marked with the LAYEREDTECH.COM IP address.

    I tried banning LAYEREDTECH.COM once and lost around 30% of my commenters...

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