Tuesday, October 23, 2012

ANONYMOUS - SPAM-BLOGSPOT'S HORRRID CAPTCHAS

Hello,

Just to let you know that I have not been ignoring comments and replies.  I had noticed that there was  a void in communications, that is, until I saw that there were a number comments linked to my posts.  

I  have made spam reports on a number of emailed 'anonymous' replies to posts in recent times. Checking my spam box, I found all of the recent comments to posts in it.  Bar one, none of the comments were from 'anonymous.  There were 'anonymous'  ones, which, were spam,  and  there were more of them than I had reported. Therefore, in part, the mail filtering was succeeding.

                            

The email spam algorithm looks like it has severe limitations in recognising everything that is winging its way to my email address from commenters to my posts, irrespective of whether those commenters are named, and are actually from Blogspot.  I am not savvy in this department.  Does anyone know a work around the algorithm?  My own thoughts are to try embarking on a 'training' route on the comment grabs, rather like you train a personal junk/spam programme to recognise what is okay and what is not.
                                            

Thus far, I have not set up 'no anonymous comments' in the settings, as I do have genuine commenters from other sites, who, for some unknown reason, come through as anonymous, and seem unable to connect with me when restrictions are in place.  The Blogspot Captcha has been a particular bain being impossible for some to cope with.  My contacts have kept me informed of the hurdles they have experienced while trying to keep in touch. I have mentioned things like setting up open I.D on their sites.  I am grateful for their persistence.

The Captcha that Blogspot programmes in for our use is not user-friendly; I did use it on my site for a while and a number people I wanted to maintain contact with from outside Blogspot found it complex.  I find it very difficult at times when I comment on sites that use it.  The Captcha allowed for use here, not only filters out unwanted comments, it also filters out genuine users, including those with sight difficulties.  Not everyone who comments is a native English speaker and the sound option tends to be awful and is worse than useless for anyone with hearing impairments.  There are friendlier Captachs around, which, a large number of bloggers would be content to use, I am sure.  There are Captchas that are universally usable and they still effectively filter out robot spam, which is just what the Blogspot ones does.  I have attempted to install a friendlier third party Captcha without success. Why on earth are blogspot users  blocked from using something better?                        
                                                
                  
Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant.  In conclusion, I do not want to place restrictions on mail at this point; I would happily use a Captcha that was universally user-friendly, if allowed to.  Meantime, I will keep an eye on my spam box and test out the system's training capabilities, if any!

                                                   






6 comments:

TG said...

I have the same problem. These comments are mostly spam and sometimes they vaguely relate to my post, but often times they seem generic. At the end is always a link. I tried captcha, but it didn't make a big difference, so I reverted back to the original. Blogger does mark most of these comments as spam, but somehow the notification email comes through and since I have iPhone, iPad and iMac all with notifications, I get a lot of them during the day. It's annoying, but I guess it's part of the blogging. Spammers kinda find ways to trick Blogger, but Blogger is also catching up. It's a cat and mouse game.

ZACL said...

HI MKL,

Great to hear from you MKL!

There are some easy to use cat and mouse style Captchas that would be great for the blog, in place of the one we are given to use.

The anti-spam systems do not seem to work well for portable I.T equipment, I agree. Though if gmail continues to perform the way it has in this instance, it will bin everything that comes through before it gets to any messaging system. Or, am I mistaken in that belief?

It is very frustrating to end up downloading a load of spam/rubbish onto your phone, ipad etc. as well as onto your desktop. I sympathise, it happens to a lot of people. It is such a global nuisance.

Take care x

snowbird said...

I completely understand how annoying this must be. Personally I find the letter captcha almost impossible and can click away for ages until letters become readable.

I hope all is well and working now, I'm afraid I am of no use re offering solutions as a bit of a techie phobe.xxxxx

ZACL said...

Hello Snowbird,

Your Captcha is just so smooooooth! Third party ones are no good for this site, that is, unless someone knows of a work around. It would be really good to have something that does not screw up the eyeballs, is not verbally incomprehensible to a lot of people and that does not put off genuine people from commenting.

Flighty said...

Recently I've tried commenting elsewhere and have given up thanks to the word captcha.
I can't believe that whoever designed it also uses it. Flighty xx

Annie Monie said...

This is not a new problem. The idea of incorporating ISP specific rules under which an SMTP server would throttle email to specific domains has been incorporated into most of the enterprise class MTA's on the market. The idea behind these rules is that the MTA vendor determines the parameters by which a specific ISP prefers to receive bulk email. These rules are then used as the basis for sending email by the MTA during deliver to the ISPs.

email delivery