February 2, 2005
TrackBack Spam Attacks
From Brian Lamb:
"Today also was distinguished by an aggressive wave of Trackback spam attacks (including ones on this weblog). Quoting Stephen Downes: "this is the end of Technorati, Blogdex (which is already featuring some of these sites in its top ten) and the rest."
I too was hit by trackback spam on a massive level yesterday. It seemed to come in two waves. One about 2:00am to 3:00am EST and one about 8:30am to 9:30am. I have my site set to notify me when comments or trackbacks are posted and I had about 54 notifications when I opened my email.
This is unfortunate and one of my weekend projects will be to install the Blacklist plugin. Upgrading to MT 3.15 has stopped comment spam from making it to the blog but now the fight shifts to a different front.
Don’t mistake what I am about to write as support for spammers but part of me thinks that this is part of the "wild west" of the digital domain. Some of what makes the new era of information publishing so appealing is that it is open and untamed. For those who feel that this gives a voice to many heretofore unheard people, there is an air of subversiveness to the whole business of open information. It breaks down the walls the power once held by media moguls to share and produce information.
The same is true for spammers. It is a part of the whole package. Kind of like having freedom but not wanting responsibility or claiming to be tolerant but not tolerating the intolerant. Most spammers are people who had no voice in the capitalist order and the ability to latch on to the openness of information, tagging, etc. has given voice to them as they make their way in the world too.
But now, it’s off to do everything I can do to maintain my information-producing power (as little of it as there is) and squelch the power of others to infringe on my new-found digital voice with their various inducements for poker and sexual enhancements through whatever means I can find. 
Posted by Rovy at February 2, 2005 7:55 AM