Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

I’ve been pretty busy at work, so I haven’t done much more work on my auto-firewall code in the past couple of days. But it seems to be holding its own pretty well. Normally, over the course of a few days, my comments database accumulates a couple thousand spams (I check it using Chris Davis’ Spam Nuke plugin). But since activating my new system, the spam comments are down to a trickle, maybe 10% of what it used to be.

This is because the system only allows a few attempts from any particular host before it blocks that host completely, eliminating any further attempts. And of course, it’s rare that any of the first few ever show up anyways, because at least 99% of those are caught the standard WordPress graylist/blacklist functions. (Side note: does anyone have any etymological info about the usage of “gray” vs “grey”? Just curious)

I think I’ve decided to name this project “SpamValve”, because it controls the flow of spam much like a valve controls the flow of water from a spigot.