How to harass SPAMMERS?

keep pounding message boards

[LifeinAsia]

For some time I've been seeing the posting URL (the page where users post messages) show up very high on my stats- much higher than the actual number of messages being posted. So I finally carved out some time and started more detailed logging.

As I suspected, SPAMMER bots have been pounding the page trying to post SPAM to the message boards. Rather pointless, since you have to be logged in to post. (And the Submit button from the posting page is only displayed if the user is logged on.)

So now I'm trying to figure out what to do next. If the poster isn't logged on when they hit the page, they already get a message saying you have to be logged on to post. But I'm wondering what else to do to mess with them.

I thought about passing a 404 header, but I doubt the bots are smart enough to update their SPAM database if the page doesn't exist. I also considered parsing out the first URL found in the post and redirecting to that URL.

Other ideas?

For reference, it's a hand-rolled board programmed in Cold Fusion.

[maximillianos]

Ha... I like your thinking. Maybe try this... if they come in to the comment page and are not logged in (ie - a a bot) then change the action of the form to point to THEIR IP address... then each time they submit it... it is dinging their server/system...

[LifeinAsia]

Oh yeah, I like that idea! Much easier than going through and parsing our a URL.

[DamonHD]

301 redirect to fbi.gov?

[LifeinAsia]

301 redirect to fbi.gov?

Most of the IPs are overseas, so wouldn't do much good.

[DamonHD]

Well, selectively redirect some of them to their country's equivalent, or a local US military base... B^O

Or just cia.gov...

Rgds

Damon

[DamonHD]

To follow up the earlier boomerang idea: one way I fend off the SPAMs that I *still* get from when my company was an early ISP many years ago (routing UUCP-based email!) is to have the old domains resolve to 127.0.0.1 which saves a lot of Internet bandwidth by forcing the SPAMmers to receive their own mail or not send it at all...

So, you could 301 redirect or make the form action go to 127.0.0.1 which might in any case cause some puzzlement and light comedy for the more clueless cases.

Rgds

Damon