It was waiting to happen and it has.

Regular readers would have read a few rants about my internet connection.
I have a “broadband” connection with Exatt.

It works using PPPOE and am assigned a dynamic IP everytime I login.

That is fine, but of late I have been noticing that the IP Addresses are all blacklisted in Spam Databases!

The first time I noticed it was with the latest version of Bad Behavior, when I got blocked out of my own blog. Had to downgrade.

And, today I noticed it with Digg.

A spam database lookup for my IP at DNS Stuff finds it in a good number of Blacklists.

I can’t blame Exatt here however, because I am sure that these IPs have been abused by stupid spammers and users with infected computers

I’ve been initiating removals of my IP Address from these lists. But, is there a solution of removing blocks at one shot?

Don’t ask me to contact Exatt for this, because they suck in Customer Care. I don’t think they even know if there is such a thing called Customer Care.

Update:
I wrote to Digg today about the IP address problem. Seems like I was totally mistaken about the reason I was blocked. The reason I was blocked was because I gave UserSubmitter a shot and after a single set of diggs itself, my Digg account was blocked. Digg was kind enough to let me off this time with a warning.

Lesson learnt. Am posting it out here so that all you folks out there will be careful before using such services like UserSubmitter.

I have faced a good deal of problem with sploggers.

While I had one who just stole every post of mine, another kept picking up all my posts because it had the content “copyright”!
And that is because my feeds include a copyright notice.

Owen has released a new plugin title AntiLeech which helps fight sploggers.

AntiLeech does not prevent the splogger bots from accessing your site. It produces a fake set of content especially for them that includes links back to your site (and mine, too, ok?) and sends it only to them. When they steal this content, it appears online just like normal, except now you’ve turned the tables on them and have provided them with useless content.

Read more and download the plugin »

I have seen a lot of emails from African scamsters and most of these usually land up in my Bulk box.
Today, my dad today received a similar scam email. However, what was surprising was the nature of it’s customization.

Firstly, the subject of the email addressed my dad by his first name.
Secondly, my Dad is in the Gulf and the “merchant” also happens to be from there (or so he claims). Mere coincidence?
Thirdly, my Dad is also very active religiously, and the person in the email is rather repents.

However, the contents of the email remain similar to most scams. Person being diagosed with cancer, has a lot of money, wants to give it to you … blah … blah …

Hello dear,

I am Mr. Lawson Rhodes, a merchant in Dubai, Arab Emirate. I have been diagnosed with Cancer which was discovered very late, due to my laxity in careing for my health. It has defiled all forms of medicine, Right now I have only about a few months to live, according to my Medical Doctor. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for myself but the oil business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance and heal me I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. I have sowed a seed for my healing I have willed and given most of my properties and assets to my immediate and extended family members and as well as a few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul and so, I have decided to give arms to charity organizations and give succour and comfort to the less priviledged of the Tsunami Victims, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in India and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this my self anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts in Saudi Bank and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization and to the less priviledged in Bulgaria and Sudan Africa They cashed the money but kept it only to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them already.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of twenty two million dollars $ 22 million that I have in the Vault of a Financial company in europe for safe keeping.

I want you to collect this deposit on my behalf and disburse it to the Tsunami EarthQuake victims in Asia for the less priviledged.

I will set aside 20% for you for your time and efforts. I need your urgent reply so that I will not have to go on sourcing for a credible person to handle this project.

If you are okey with the condition, do not hesitate to send me mail so that i can furnish you up with all the informations needed.

I wish to hear from you soon.

God bless you.

Mr. Lawson

—————————————————————
Universia – Esse e o seu Universo.
www.universia.com.br

Please note that this is a scam and if you receive something like this delete it immediately.

I had realized that a site CrazyFactor.com run by John Comokaz has been scraping my RSS feed for quite a while and publishing the content as his own.

He has been using a software by Elliot Back for this purpose.

I got a notification from a visitor that John is now trying to sell off CrazyFactor on SitePoint Auctions.

Read the rest of this entry »

While I do have Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2 running, I have always wondered on how to track down and stop spammers.

I asked Spamhuntress on how she finds spammers by going through her site logs and she was kind enough to write a detailed article on how to.

I too admit the entire procedure is quite complex, but I am going to give it a good shot.