What about those of us that have casino dysfunction? Do you have a cocktail of products for us?

I can add three rock-hard inches to your flaccid texas holdem winnings, yes. Just send me your ATM card number and PIN.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Miriam Abacha

It's as if the spammers are running a denial-of-service attack on the entire Internet.

Bravo!
I never read those comments anyhow.

So your comments are only for people who possess a full-on power tool of love and already broke the bank in Vegas? Hey, count me in, baby!

A couple of weeks ago, I installed a new version of my blog software. Unfortunately, it had a bug: the blacklist function that blocked referrer and comment spam was incorrectly coded, so that any spam url with a hyphen in the name was allowed through.

I was flooded with 30 spam messages 5 minutes after it was installed.

I had no idea what was going on. I started blacklisting IP numbers, which blocked them...then a half hour later, another flood of the same messages came through with a new IP. Every half hour this bozo was cycling through another IP address and sending out his deluge of porn spam.

I lost track, but I know I killed a few hundred annoying messages that evening before the Expression Engine people sent me a patch.

It's kind of chilling, actually. There is a swarm of crap out there, constantly knocking at our doors, ready to rush in the instant an opportunity appears.

I hate these guys. I think we ought to have some central repository of information that, when some idiot decides to start spewing spam, their address is displayed, and everyone in the neighborhood can charge over to their place and start ripping out their network connection, and maybe slap 'em upside the head with a clue-by-four.

everyone in the neighborhood can charge over to their place and start ripping out their network connection

PZ: In a way we might already be able to do this. I would like to proclaim the first-ever Everybody Click the Links Repeatedly Day, during which every computer user clicks on every spam and popup link (repeatedly) in the hope that the surge of volume melts the offenders' ISP servers. Sounds good in theory. Do you think this would work?

The spam creator or distributor will just get a sizable bonus for all of those clicks. Unfortunately not a deterrent. Some portion of the idiotic population is also likely to stay a while and buy something when the server recovers (usually like 1%- 3% but these days I suspect something closer to 51%). Best to just black hole any spam havens and their IP blocks and continue to educate the public about not letting their system become a spam slave.

Ru: Damn. I was in the mood for revenge.

Oh me, too! :)

Apo, it seems that the spam parasites are now not only eating your "fancy spam-blocking mojo"'s lunch, but maliciously targetting your posts regarding spam. Surely that's taking things too far! Are you going to take this lying down?