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Hey bloggers: are you getting hammered by trackback spam at a rate that exceeds what we've unfortunately come to accept as "normal?"

I typically get one or two a week in a month, but starting about ten days ago, I find myself getting five or six each day. I have Typepad set to automatically hold all trackbacks for approval, so they're not making it through onto the live site, but it's increasingly annoying. It seems like a big pile of zombie computers just got woken up, or something.

This is also a public service reminder to everyone in the world: Did you know that putting your machine behind a simple router can make it virtually invisible to the bad idiots on the Internets? Responsible computer owners keep their machines behind firewalls and run spyware and adware removal software regularly. Yes, even those of us who run Macs and Linux.

Comments

[Shawn Powers]

We had a some couples over for dinner the other night, and one guy couldn't see our computer. Now I know why -- he's one of the bad idiots from the Internets!

In other news, Wil's readers must suffer through my over-tired sense of humor...

[morgan]

Wow I'm I the first to comment on this entry? All our computers are behind firewalls and all the computers are hooked up to one router. We also invest in buying the best firewall, antivirus and spyware/adware removal each year. I told them that it's worth it and even though we have to every year update to the lastest version, it protects the computers very well. It's a small investment, but it's worth spending the money. I advice everyone to invest alittle money in keeping the latest updated software to protect their computer. Oh yeah I hope you win Life Achievement for your blog! I voted for you!

[Keith]

I wish it were only 5 or 6! I get upwards of 30 a day, some days as many as 50.

Today I started getting spam that was informing me I have lots of spam.

I guess Thomas Pynchon has spare time on his hands, now that he's done with his latest novel.

[Chris]

Posts I did yesterday got hit by trackbacks from splogs this morning. That is the first time I have ever got hit that quick.

Nat router with SPI firewall, Outlook banned from all computers in the house, IE use not allowed, and freeware antivirus on all computers. It's really not that hard to be fairly secure, even when running Winblows.

[Spartica]

I have a Mac network setup I thought it had a pretty good firewall built in to it and its on a router system. Never can be sure though, bad idiots could be clever idiots.

[Shane Nickerson]

I killed Trackbacks for this very reason about 2 months ago. I find no real good use for them.

[Tim Wilde]

Actually, being behind a router doesn't help as much as you might think. Sure, it'll protect you from the automated exploitation of your machine if it's unpatched, but that's not nearly the only spread mechanism for this type of malware. A large number of infections of this type come from social engineering and exploits involving browsers or e-mail clients, which won't be prevented or hampered by a router.

[Rebecca]

Yes, yes, and yes. The number of spams/trackbacks/false comments has skyrocketed in the last 10 days or so. It is too bizarre.

[Grev]

I don't know about that, but someone is also spammin' up the video sites by putting up porn vids and putting in the description "This has nothing to do with--" and putting 10,000 random things there just to muck up the search engines... It gets really annoying really fast.

[ChazB]

I've been getting a ton of spam lately too but I don't know how much of it is trackback spam because Askimet has been catching it all.

[Icelander]

I was unaware of any spyware and adware removal software for Macs or Linux.

Oh, and Akismet rules the school. I get 300 a day caught in it and only one or two a week

Of course, you need Wordpress for it.

[Scott Alan Miller]

What about those of us running BSD? AH HA! You forgot about us!

I suggest Netgear ProSafe firewalls as they are close to the cost of the consumer stuff but have a lot of the power and security features of the commercial small business gear. A great compromise for the security conscious home computer user who wants more protection than consumer Netgear or Linksys will provide.

I am not aware of spyware tools for Mac and Linux either. I definitely have come across any Linux spyware yet (maybe I just didn't know?!?!)

I trackback to you sometimes. Don't hate me !

[Scott Alan Miller]

An important note: firewalls that come as software that go on your computer are just a marketing gimmick. They are good but they are NOT firewalls. A real firewall is a separate piece of hardware that sits outside of your computer. Like a physical firewall its purpose to keep bad stuff away from your computer. By definition if the "firewall" is software on your computer it has already gone through network stack of the OS just to get to the firewall software which means it is WAY TOO LATE for safety.

A software firewall is roughly like reinforcing the walls of your castle from the inside. Its a great idea but it is absolutely not a replacement for a moat (moat = true firewall.) The purpose of the moat is to keep the bad people from lighting your walls on fire or leaning ladders against them. Stronger walls do not keep the ladders away.

[Drev]

Maybe I'm not doing the same kind of things on the 'net as everyone else, but I've never really had much of a problem with viruses, et al.

I just have AVG's free antivirus software, which updates itself everytime you boot up, and I run AdAware and Spybot every other week or so. But I think one of the most important and easiest ways to battle malware is to just be a smart surfer.

[Stoner]

Even more responsible computer users set their firewalls to block *out-going* requests, too - only enabling those connections that are warranted. That way, if they do get a virus/trojan/spybot/whatever, they can lessen the impact to the rest of us until they clean their machine.

Hey Wil,

Well, Asian spammers are probably back in the loop after 6 of the 8 or 9 submarine cables between Asia/jp/us/ca, which got cut due to an earthquake just before new year, are back in business.

Same downunder .... sigh ....

[MaxHedrm]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Or something. I finally caved & disabled trackbacks on my blog. The spam just got to be too much work to filter through. Before I turned them off, I was getting 500+ a week.