A good week for the MasterMind. He seems to have found his missing rushing game, as Reuben Droughns rushed for 193 yards on 30 carries out of Denver’s total of 210 yards on 37 carries. On the other side of the ball, the Denver defense is currently ranked 1st in the AFC.

Meanwhile, Clinton Portis rushed for 53 yards on 25 attempts. With opposing defenses focusing on him and the anemic Washington passing attack ranked 14th out of 16 in the NFC, his life isn’t going to get any easier any time soon.

One game doesn’t mean that the offense has turned the corner. But I have confidence in the MasterMind’s offensive prowess and it looks like the defense is going to give him time to fix things. Right now, the trade is looking pretty good.

Here is the latest update to my comment and trackback package. This version allows comments and trackback pings to be blocked based upon the host name of any outbound links. Here is an example that blocks comments containing outbound links to this site:

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#!/usr/bin/perl

use lib '../cgi-lib';
use comment::service;

sub my_banned_links {
    my ( $link ) = @_;
    return ($link =~ s/ideoplex.com$//);
}

$tb = new comment::service(
    BANNED_LINK_FUNCTION=>&my_banned_links,
    DATA_DIRECTORY=>"/full/path/to/data/directory",
    RSS_FILE=>"/full/path/to/rss/file",
    BLOG_NAME=>"Your Blog Title",
    BLOG_URL=>"Your Blog url"
);
$tb->handle();

exit(0);

Features

• Composite Trackback RSS feed
• Composite Comment RSS feed
• HTML Sanitization from Brad Choate’s Sanitize Plugin for Moveable Type.
• Tag Moderation for Trackback and Comments – trackback pings and comments are immediately available with most html tags removed (p allowed for readability). Sanitized tags are displayed upon approval.
• Outbound Link Blacklist – trackback pings and comments that contain outbound links to banned sites are blocked. The user is responsible for providing a function identifying banned sites.
• Trackback and Comment deletion (unfortunately, this does not propagate to the RSS feed)
• Comment Editing

Requirements

• Web Server capable of running cgi scripts
• Perl with the following Perl Modules:
  • File::Spec
  • Storable
  • CGI
  • CGI::Cookie I believe that these are core modules as of Perl 5.6.0.

Download standalone trackback and comments.

03 Dec: Updated to reject items with excessive links.

The Bronco’s running game continues to misfire with 111 yards on 35 attempts. Quentin Griffin’s qualifications as the feature back remain in doubt as he rushed for 66 yards on 21 attempts. The MasterMind is still looking for his missing rushing attack.

On the other side of the trade, Clinton Portis rushed for 58 yards on 20 carries with a fumble in a Washington loss to Cleveland. He’s not looking like the running back that rushed for 1500 yards in his first two seasons with the Broncos. And he’s not looking like a 50 Million Dollar Man.

Right now, the trade of Portis for Bailey isn’t looking so bad. But the loss of Gibbs to the Falcons looks huge. With the rest of the AFC West falling apart, the Broncos are still in good shape. But the MasterMind needs to find his running game soon.

Knock on wood, but I’ve just taken the first set in my contest with the spam-master. I’ve modified the comment and trackback package to analyze the body text and automatically reject trackback pings and comments that link to known bad sites.

The spam-master seems to be pulling ahead in our little contest. I’ve been able to limit the spam to tens per day (down from hundreds per day at the peak). And the tag moderation update to my comments package means that it isn’t getting a single link out of me. But it is forcing me to spend more time cleaning this site then it spends defacing it. Advantage Comment Spam.

But the game is not over yet. And my next counter measure is a doozy.

The Broncos rushing game was missing in action against the Chargers. The 37 yards rushing was the lowest total in 11 years. And it came against a Chargers defense ranked 17th in the league against the run. Feature back Quentin Griffin gained 7 yards on 12 carries with a fumble. Meanwhile, Clinton Portis rushed for 94 yards on 23 carries in a losing effort against the Cowboys. The trade [and the MasterMind] aren’t looking so good right now. Everyone assumed that Denver could mount a quality running attack by plugging a new back into the system. But they were 1 for 3 in 3rd and 1 situations against the Chargers - right in line with their 3 for 9 for the season. Simply not acceptable.

Now that I’ve survived the latest comment spam attack, I’m releasing an update to my homebrew standalone comment and trackback package that includes support for Tag moderation. This allows trackback pings and comments to be displayed immediately, while masking outbound links until the ping or comment has been approved. You may optionally approve all pings and comments as they are made.

Features

• Composite Trackback RSS feed
• Composite Comment RSS feed
• HTML Sanitization from Brad Choate’s Sanitize Plugin for Moveable Type.
• Tag Moderation for Trackback and Comments – trackback pings and comments are immediately available with most html tags removed (p allowed for readability). Sanitized tags are displayed upon approval.
• Trackback and Comment deletion (unfortunately, this does not propagate to the RSS feed)

• Comment Editing Requirements

• Web Server capable of running cgi scripts

• Perl with the following Perl Modules:
  • File::Spec
  • Storable
  • CGI
  • CGI::Cookie I believe that these are core modules as of Perl 5.6.0.

Download standalone trackback and comments.

5 Oct: blocking based on outbound links

Argggh. Stanford had a big time win in its grasp and then let it slip away. What a roller coaster. When USC went up 10-0, I thought that it was over. When J. R. Lemon ran 82 yards for a TD and a 28-17 lead as the 1st half ran out, I dared to hope. And when the defense turned back USC to start the 2nd half, I thought it was there for the taking. But the Stanford offense was stuffed in the 2nd half, the defense was worn out, and USC emerged with their win streak intact.

I think that I’ve fought the spam-master to a draw – the comment spam assault ended early Friday morning. Now it’s time to prepare for the next assault.

Looking at my server log, the organization and thought behind the assault is apparent. Attacks from a single IP address are spread out in time, indicating that the attacker is rotating through several independent targets. And the spam itself seems to vary slightly from comment to comment.

For my next counter-measure, I considered an IP throttle. But it looks like the target rotations will defeat that. I thought about detecting duplicate comments, but the spam-master has got that one beat as well. I may need to start working on outbound link and anchor text blacklists.

The comment spam assault has begun anew. In response, I’ve modified my commenting system to use Tag Moderation. Comments are immediately posted, but the contained html tags are subject to moderation.

I’m hopeful that the spam-master will call off the minions once it realizes that links will never make it through. Unfortunately, that means I’m going to have to leave the spam up long enough for it to notice.