Microsoft have today unveiled a new Search Engine, which they hope will rival Google.

Out of interest, I typed in “Gay Scuba“, and lo and behold - the GLUG website is top of the list!

A relatively new phenomenon for sites such as GLUG’s, which make use of “Weblogs”, is comment spam. This is the practice of posting comments which advertise products or other websites, rather than being relevant to the original article.

The GLUG website is currently undergoing a fairly sustained attack by one particular Spammer - in the last 3 days, this person has attempted to add the same comment (advertising an online poker site) over 40 times, to various articles.

It’s doubtful whether Spammers actually read the sites they post on, but just in case…

The GLUG website has fairly sophisticated anti-spam protection:

1. Every comment posted is automatically checked against a set of known Spammer IP addresses, email addresses, URL links, keywords, etc., etc. This traps around 90% of the attacks, without any intervention by the webmaster. If Spam is detected at this stage, there is a long delay before the website tells the user that the post has failed - so not only does it prevent the Spam from getting posted, it slows the Spammer down as well.
2. If the comment passes these checks, then the email address supplied by the commenter is checked against a list of “approved” emails. These are typically the email addresses of people who have previously posted genuine comments (these addresses cannot be obtained from the website)
3. If the comment is not from the list of approved emails, then it is sent to the webmaster for approval. At this stage, if it turns out to be Spam, then the IP address, email address, URL links, etc. are added to the list of banned items, so that hopefully next time the Spam will be caught at Stage 1.

So, for anyone considering posting Spam into the website comments - don’t bother. It won’t work.

If you were a GLUG member in 2004, but haven’t yet renewed your membership, you’ll find that you can no longer post messages, or read members-only posts. The website will still accept your login, but you’ll see a message at the top of this page, reminding you that your membership has expired.
There’s an easy remedy - print off a membership form, and send it off with your subscription - we’ll reinstate your web access as soon as we receive your cheque!