[spam-stopper] A small akismet extension for updating htaccess

[rich boakes]

Dirk Haun wrote:
> rich boakes wrote:

>> Basically when you the user deletes an IP 
>> address based offender from Akismet they have 
>> the option of banning that address from 
>> connecting in future.

> A similar approach: I've ported Bad Behavior for Geeklog and when
> Geeklog's spam filter detects spam, it can optionally report the
> spammer's IP address to Bad Behavior. So it's Bad Behavior doing the
> blocking, instead of the .htaccess.

One possible advantage over (/assistance to) PHP 
based solutions (such as Bad Behavior) is that 
it works at the server level, so the 403 is sent 
before PHP is invoked.

This may be particularly useful where 
performance is important, but can also be 
considered a disadvantage because whilst the 
concept is portable, the htaccess file is not.

>> I think this potentially saves each server (and 
>> the Akismet service) from an awful lot of work.
> 
> It's not quite as successful as one may think, as spammers often use
> botnets or open proxies all over the place, so that identical spam is
> often coming from a lot of different IP addresses.

One thing that might mitigate this problem is 
that the IP addresses this plugin blocks are 
ones that are we know are targeting the blocking 
blog, so the success ratio should be "better 
than random".

That said, I have no preconceptions about how 
successful it will be; but that's what I hope to 
find out!

So far I've seen > 90% reduction in the need to 
ask Akismet for help.  Perhaps someone on the 
server side can have a look at the stats from my 
ID to see if the difference remains significant 
and useful over time.

Rich