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!

                                                   

THIS IS NOT AA....IT IS aa - IF NOT THEN WHAT?

It was really nice of this team to write to me and in pidgin too. At least this way I can read their notification and gauge all the nuances that underly it. There was a link contained within the email which, of course, anyone would chomp at the bit to deal with, wouldn't they.

In the circumstances I thought I would share this super[ficial] little email notification with lots of people so that they could spend as little time as possible figuring out the message contents and so that everyone who does see it, maybe even receive one of the same notes, can consign it to where it belongs. IT BELONGS WELL AND TRULY REPORTED AS PHISHING SPAM AND DELETED. 

"Your login Notification

Dear aalabels Customer,

As part of ensuring privacy of our customers login information, we, AA-Labels, has changed the password credential in our database in encrypted form. This means that you should be able to login with your current Login ID and Password but your password in our database will eb stored in encrypted (undecryptbable form). In case of any login failure, you can reset your password by using "Forgot Password' option.

Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at ... aalabels.com or [phone number last 3 digits] 390

Kind regards,

The AA Labels team"

WHAT THE HELL....GO FOR IT!

It's obviously that time of year again when all the would-be dissertation and essay writers start their scatter-gun spamming. (Should I have written these words, they can be tracked...oh dear, what the hell... Go for it!) These self-appointed writers flatter your blog in about half a sentence - I doubt they read it - and if they are really into brevity, they can flatter in three words! 

The the self-styled writers who try to dump their spam on me, do not seem to promote thesis production. Perhaps a thesis could be too challenging. Do any of them offer scientific writing including all the formulae? I don't believe this lot have the specialist skills for anything quite so esoteric. I would think that anyone wanting assistance in producing work at such levels, already has tried and trusted sources they use.

At least the wannabe who fired off the latest offer of work could write in regular English language, there were not any spelling errors, all of which leads me to be a bit more hopeful that the English language in its many interesting forms of daily use and practice, is alive, though, it is not always well.

Word Verification

Regretfully, I have had to introduce word verification, because I have been receiving spam on recent posts.  I am hoping this will be enough to deter future attempts at spamming.