Who the hell is she?
OK. I’ve Googled her.
Oh.
Is that all? An American sportscaster on ESPN. Ah. And there’s the “peephole” story. Right. Now it all begins to makes sense...
See, all this began about 2 weeks ago. Due to employing comment moderation I – like many of you, I suspect – get emailed whenever anyone leaves a comment on my blog. A fortnight ago I began to receive anonymous comments – quite lengthy ones – about Erin Andrews. Virtually gobbledygook. Cut and paste jobs with a couple of links to “her peephole” video clumsily thrown in.
The first two I deleted without a second thought. They weren’t even on a new post; they were on one I wrote last year about Torchwood of all things (you can read it here if you are so minded). Not sure why that post should attract the attentions of Mr Peephole Video Salesman but plainly it did.
And then I got the same comment again.
And again.
And again.
So many agains in fact that again must now be capitalized. Again, Again and yet Again.
I’ve lost count of how many I’ve received now. Always the same. Always on the same post. The same text entirely.
Dealing with it is easy enough. Reject. Reject. Reject.
But after the first 12 times it begins to get tiresome. It begins to get annoying. So I leave a comment on the post in question addressed to Mr Anonymous.
Please stop leaving comments on my blog about Erin Andrews. I’m not going to publish any of them so it’s a complete waste of your time and my time trying. Please desist and eff off.
I’ve had 4 more attempts since then. The same comment. On the same post. I can guarantee there’ll be another one tomorrow.
My goat has now well and truly been got. It’s irritating. I check my emails and look – I’ve got mail! A new comment on my blog! Hoorah! My spirits soar. Only it’s not a new comment. It’s the same old one. The same old one that I’m never ever going to publish. Doh!
Who is this guy? He most definitely can’t be working for Erin Andrews, the poor cow. Is he working for Mr Peephole? Is he indeed Mr Peephole in person? I doubt it very much but what the hell then is he getting out of his repeated attempts to sell the whole tawdry little affair on my rather superlative blog?
Up until his comments I’d never even heard of Erin Andrews! If it had been Erin Gray from Buck Rogers' fame he might have piqued my interest a little but a sportscaster from a channel I can’t even get here in the UK and wouldn’t watch anyway because I absolutely hate effing sports programmes?!
It’s hardly a useful public service announcement, is it?
So what do I do about it? Any ideas? Anyone?
P.S. If any of you have any peephole videos that you want to advertize on my blog please ask my permission first.
P.P.S. And please make them of better quality than Mr Peephole’s; his really hurt my eyes.
Toodle-pip.
35 comments:
It will be a bot rather than an actual person.
And to be honest there isn't much you can do about it
Dan: wow! That was a quick response! Nothing to do with the girl in the bikini I suppose...? ;-)
Thanks anyway. You're probably right though I have to say [touch wood] I've not had a comment from Mr Anonymous now for over 24 hours...
Is anyone else now seeing a rather odd looking Mr Peephole in their mind's eye, Roger Hargreave's Mr Men-style? No? Just me?
Being Me: what a fabulous idea. An alternative series of Mr Men. Mr Peephole. Mr Pervert. Mr Dogger. Mr Sex Offender. Mr Banker In A Nappy. Mr Nonce. Mr Gimp. Oh the list is endless...! ;-)
You've been thinking about this, haven't you Steve?
(mind you, I reckon you'd make a right killing if you got the right artist, just quietly ;) I'm just saying...
checking your setting - delete me
As you are on blogger comments. Change your 'settings', 'comments tab' (in dashboard) to use a word verification for a while. In the end the bot will receive failures back and (hopefully) stop spamming you.
PS - is this an excuse for a gratutious picture and I just walked into a trap?!!!
Two thoughts apropos doing something about them/getting rid of them (though I agree with Dan - it'll be a bot, not a person). First off, if you're still using Yahoo mail, if you go to your spam settings, you can create a filter which, if all the comments have something in common with each other (ie, the same word or words repeated in the text or subject line or to or from fields), will dump it into a folder of your choosing (I'd suggest making one just for that purpose. I've got several) and then you can delete them all in one go.
As for the comments in your blog moderation area... I don't remember the settings for blogger but on wordpress one can make filters that do much the same as the yahoo ones - select a word or words that appear in comments that are spam and then they automatically get put in the spam folder (Akismet is the spam filter on Wordpress - it's possible, but I'm not sure - that you might be able to add it as a widget on your blog here).
So, if there is some way that you can selectively filter spam here on blogger, select that.
Best of luck!
PS, if I were a bloke, this girl'd look hot! Sadly, I'm not!
;)
Don't despair Bloggertropolis, you CAN do something! I had a similar problem last year, except that the comments were all in Mandarin with the exception of the hyperlinked word 'sex'. It always seems to be older posts these bots attack, and you can close the comments on posts over a certain age - after all, real people rarely comment on them anyway; and if they're desperate, they can always tell you so on your latest missive. Worked for me!
Being Me: I've been thinking about it a lot since you made the connection. I'm up to 32 at the moment. Mr Phonesex. I'm aiming for 100. Anyone know any good cartoonists?
Kellogsville: delete you? Delete you? Never in a million years! Thank you for the techie advice - I will follow it up. As for the honey-trap. Of course it was and you did.
Val: a welter of techie advice and all of it good. Thank you for your IT support! :-)
The Dotterel: a simple solution! I should have thought of it myself (but it was far more fun writing a post to complain about it)!
Steve and Being Me...can I do the French version...please?
The fly in the web: absolutely! Go for it. I look forward to reading the tale of how Monsieur Perverti Sexuel met Monsieur Gendarme in the loos of the Paris Metro...! ;-)
Getting wacko comments was something that I didn't like the thought of, so that's why I use the word verification - I know it's a pain to some people, but hey-ho. I have still had a couple of comments where people have added links to bizarre websites at the bottom, but I just reject them.
It would drive me bonkers to have gone what you are going through - complete waste of your time and energy. Hope you sort it.
Suzanne: weirdly, since composing this post all the comments from Mr Anonymous have stopped. Maybe he's finally got the message? I bloody hope so!
popped back to reconsider the quality of the air brushing - it is isn't it?......ah bugger....back to the gym for me then!
I also feel in terms of equality you should consider the little Miss series...Little Miss Pert, Little Miss Binge Drinker, Little Miss Lead You On, Little Miss ....actually I've just deleted the rest I feel it was giving away to much of my warped personality
Mr. Banker in a nappy?!? Hilarious! Too much. Mr. Phone Sex. I can see him with a four-day growth of beard, gray filthy sweatshirt and sweatpants, rank old tennies and he's surrounded by a ton of food wrappers on the floor! Oh, ick! I think he's got food all round his mouth and moustache!!
OK Steve, I'm sold to the idea, now where can I sign up to see Erin's peephole?
Ah yes, Colonel Wilma Deering!! A goddamn sight more sexy than f*cking Tweekie, any road.
But Erin Andrews?! I'm with you there, Stevenage...Who she?!
Meanwhile...
You're been tagged!!
Is this photo a real human being or a pneumatic doll ? Looks rather pneumatic...
As for the sick idiots who program spam, I hope we can catch a few of them one day, and send them to Somalia, with a one way ticket...
Cheers !
And I'm sure you're happy to know now who Erin is...
Flipping bots. Thankfuly i've ot been troubled with them much. can you not block all comments containing certain words? Isn't there a 'blacklist' feature on blogger?
I'm loving the Mr Perverts series have you thought of Mr Peeping Tom and Mr Trench-coat?
Kelloggsville: oh yes, me like! I can feel a whole new post being spawned by this wonderful idea... watch this space!
Femminismo: Ok, once I get this project off the ground I'll be employing you as lead character developer... we'll need wardrobe and back stories for all of them I'm afraid...!
Löst Jimmy: damn! Some idiot deleted all the comments with the links in them! Oh. That was me. You may have to Google it...!
OC: a tag, eh? I take it you're not talking graffiti? I'll pop round and take a look!
Owen: I'm certainly sleeping easier at nights now that I know not only who Erin is but also what she look like and can correctly gauge the size of her keyhole...
Heather: thank you - another 2 for the list. I may well reach my target of a 100 new Mr Men by the end of the weekend! ;-)
Incidentally, I once saw a rather amusing cartoon strip at a bike rally (no pun intended) of Colonel Wilma Deering getting 'done' by Tweekie (beedlie beedlie). Buck would never have approved.
On to spam bots, well I have been receiving much attention from a Japanese one of late, a daily statement arrives - once suspects it is a nefarious lure, all rather tiresome actually
See here for the raving repetetive spam in Japanese characters
http://haggischorizo.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-hide-in-my-music-forget-day.html
Löst Jimmy: well, you gain points for an exotic typeface in my book...! ;-)
Well, she is pretty hot I must say.
i know nothing about bots or spammers. I never get any because my blog is not listed or googleable.
But I love the idea of the alternative Mr Men series. What a fab idea. You should go for that. They would definitely sell.
Gina: I'm currently negotiating the merchandizing rights with Faber & Faber...! ;-)
Sorry Steve, I can't help on this occasion, though seems like they're flogging a bit of a dead horse since you moderate all your comments first.
I don't bother, but have never suffered more than the odd random message, which I've quickly deleted.
Laura: yes, the guy's persistence in the face of impossibility puzzled me too. However - a happy ending: the comments seem to have finally petered out! Guess all I had to do was write a post about it!
Why haven't I had lots of spam about this person - I wouldn't mind but I don't use word veri or comment moderation.
FF: would you like me to recommend you? ;-)
I use comment moderation and word verification and still get all these Chinese ones in which the only English word is 'sexy lady' which I always reject but still they keep on coming.
Previously (Very) Lost in France: at least that's a little exotic! After a 2 days absence Mr Peephole is back and has made two attempts today. The text has changed in his comments though which suggests some kind of human agency. It's war whoever he is.
So annoying - I hate spam and robot comments. Just ignore; maybe try word verification for a while.
What a nuisance! So far (touch wood, during which time i scratched my head and got a splinter...)I have only had the odd weird unreadable script. I'm banking on the bots not knowing where we are down here....
I'm very impressed that merely writing a post about your mystery spammer made him disappear so suddenly. I'm off now to write a post about Glenn Beck. And that little extra roll of fat around my waistline. And my ex-husband. And, er, my credit card balance. This is fabulous!
Mark: I am seriously considering it.
Amanda: alas, they have a knack for finding us all out sooner or later!
Wanderlust: sadly though they disappear for a while... they have a habit of turning up again a couple of days later...! It seems there are no quick fixes! :-(
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