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I'm new here xD

I'm thinking of developing a plugin to allow users to block ANY spammy traces (IPs, Email addresses, Website URLs, phone numbers, phrases, etc etc) from those evil spammers.

BUT, after some research, I've found that these evil idiots use random IP addresses, which means the plugin could result in blocking legit users (which isn't cool).

So, this is my idea:

The plugin is installed and activated on the domain bob.com.

Mr Robot then decides to pay a visit to bob.com and begins spamming (posting useless, silly comments).

The robot uses Website URL: www.mypornsite.com and email: jimmy@g_mail.com with IP: 123.123.123.15.

Then the victim (manager at bob.com) decides to block the website url, email address and IP used in the spammy content from Mr Robot.

But because that IP could be random, we could be blocking legit users. SO,

The IP does not actually get blocked. What actually happens is, a user with the same ip as Mr Robot's will be able to access the site just like anyone else would. BUT if ANY user visits bob.com and posts a comment containing the blocked email, website url or any other blocked material, then the IP of that user will be blocked for a day, and the comment will not go through (bob.com manager wont see it, as if it never happened).

After 24/hours of the comment being posted, the IP will then be allowed full access to the site.

Actually, maybe I shouldn't allow it to block complete access, instead, just to block submitting any forms on the domain?

Anyway guys, my question is, is there any other plugin out there that will do EXACTLY this. I know there are a few IP blockers, email blockers and so on... But any like the one I've described above?

Feel free to give any tips if you wish to.

Thanks

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  • I've known people who spam for a living and make money from it(in some cases - alot), it's a nasty place in the world wide web, it truly is, imho the best way to block spam whilst not harming legit users is to use some form of captcha, it's the only reliable method(though not full-proof) i've found that actually drastically reduces spam(yes it's inconvenient for real users, but it does a good job at getting rid of most spam bots - which are just scripts that run in an automated fashion, so require zero effort on the spammers part). Akismet also helps, in my experience.
    – t31os
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 15:40

1 Answer 1

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...is there any other plugin out there that will do EXACTLY this

Not a plugin, but yes - this is the standard behavior of the comment moderation system in WordPress.

BUT if ANY user visits bob.com and posts a comment containing the blocked email, website url or any other blocked material, then the IP of that user will be blocked for a day, and the comment will not go through

It helps, but doesn't completely eliminate spam posts. The same spammer can use a different e-mail address or website just like he can use a different IP. The victim still needs to black-list keywords as he gets new spam.

Here are some standard solutions for limiting spam:

  1. Akismet (I think it's a paid service now)

    • it's kind of like heuristic analysis in AVs; compares the newly submitted comment with a spam database. I don't know how efficient is now, but I used it in the past and got a lot of false positives, and some spam went trough
  2. A captcha system (reCaptcha seems to be the best)

    • 100% effective against automated spam, but some find it obtrusive (it's completely ineffective for manual spam)
  3. Honeypots

    • 100% effective for automated and non-targeted spam, completely ineffective for automated targeted and manual spam, but it's unobtrusive for users
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  • But the same spammer can only have a certain amount of domains (to use for website URL), unless they have a lot of money, right?
    – user11388
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 14:51
  • Right, but chances are you will get spam not only from mypornsite.com, but from anotherpornsite.com too. People are looking for a way to get spam deleted without their intervention... Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 15:00
  • hmmm, yeah I guess so. Maybe a remote database full of blacklisted content (domains, email addresses, ect ect) where certain content is blacklisted after a certain condition is met by multiple users (example: if 10+users mark a domain as spam, it gets added to the remote blacklist) so that other users wont have issues with that domain...just an idea though. But anyway, thanks for your awesome answer!
    – user11388
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 16:22
  • For the record, Akismet is a "pay what you want" service.
    – scribu
    Commented Dec 24, 2011 at 6:51

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