General Discussions

**ForrestCroce** · 12-29-2007, 04:32 PM

I'm asking this here instead of in the blog forum because I'm hoping more people will share their thoughts.

A month ago, I posted a photo with some basic info about how I shot it, and got this comment:

Quote:

Idetrorce | idetrorce@mymail-in.net | IP: 88.216.54.227

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce

I just recently got an identical comment, except from 58.85.201.126, on a post on my software development blog about using html to syntax highlight exception/error messages. One IP resolves to RIPE Network Coordination Centre in Amsterdam, while the other shows as Asia Pacific Network Information Centre in Milton, Australia.

The comments don't include links.

And both of them are on posts that don't have much to agree or disagree with.

My best guess is someone has a bot running through proxies, leaving comments ... to build a list of blogs that just publish any comments they get? Or to get past moderation for first time commenters? For a future attack...? Google shows 27,500 matches for the comment text in quotes. Another blogger guessed:

Quote:

“very interesting, but I don’t agree with you.” That’s a comment I received on one of my posts from someone who may or may not be a person in the usual organic sense. I thought it was funny. there’s no link or anything to indicate spam. I did a search for the phrase and discovered that the person/non-person who left the comment, Idetrorce, has been leaving this comment on many blogs. I like to think Idetrorce is on a mission to keep the possibility of polite disagreement alive.

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-29-2007, 06:51 PM

Wow...a blog spammer that hasn't hit my blog yet. That may be a first.

Not sure what that's all about, dude. But I have seen similar behavior where users without websites post obvious spam comments. I just delete them and let it go.

**fastreplies** · 12-29-2007, 06:59 PM

I noticed identical **** used to test mailforms.
I think you are right about bots testing the grounds.
Hey, spammers get desperate and are trying new ways to spam.

fastreplies

**ForrestCroce** · 12-30-2007, 02:21 PM

This is bizarre. I marked the comment as spam in Akismet, twice, so it should already be harder for the bot to penetrate other sites. I'm not sure how its spam filter works, whether it takes note of the IP address, the message itself, unusual words in it, or what ... but it would make sense to drop all your links on round one before people catch on.

When I Google for Idetrorce instead of the comment he left, there are more than half a million results. The top is a pretty interesting Digg thread.

Quote:

My best guess is that its some kind of proof of concept spam program (maybe to entice a buyer), test of a program or benchmarking (see how many google hits appear). Otherwise maybe he just forgot to include the link and its getting past the spam filters because of it (when other spam is just nuked)

Idetrorce.com doesn't even resolve!