作譜

I've sort of held a bit of pride for not having to install MT-Blacklist since employing Movable Type back in 2003.

I tried to be clever -- I wrapped MT's comment script around my own account interface, which requires human approval. If bots tried to scan my pages for a comments script, they weren't going to have an easy time finding it.

Trackbacks, though, were a different matter.

Rather than link to the Trackback script directly, I publicized a URL for each entry instead, forcing users to copy and paste the URL into their textareas. I knew in the back of my head those publicized URLs would make me a sitting duck the day Trackback spam became a reality.

In the last two weeks, it became a reality. I started receiving Trackback spams.

Thing is, Trackback is so underutilized on my sites, the spam spurred me to do what I'd been considering (but too lazy) to do for a while -- remove Trackbacks from my sites.

Which I did. But the bots that send the spam don't know that. Isn't that dumb? Send spam to a site that won't even display the URL your spamming? So that meant installing MT-Blacklist, an inevitability I'm surprised I managed to stave off for two years.

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