Thursday, October 19, 2006

Spammers, I hate you

I've not been able to use email addresses at my own domain name ajrdesign.net for over 18 months now due to spam. I get about 60 spam emails a day to my old address there. So I switched to a Gmail address, pretty much as soon as it came out. I now receive spam to that account too but Gmail is usually very good at filtering it all out.

On my website is a feedback form so people can contact me without me having to reveal my email address. It's worked well until last week when I started to get spam messages coming in via the form. More every day. This morning I received five spam messages from the form in as many minutes:



So now I've had to disable the form too, and until I can install a 'human verification' system (probably using my dusty but still present PHP knowledge and probably a small SWF file) it will remain that way.

But why should we have to adapt to avoid this crap? It's the digital equivalent to being forced to nail your letterbox shut and put bars on your windows. I have two words for spammers, and they begin with the letters F and O. In that order. I hate you. All of you. You should be in prison. In the communal shower. Bending to pick up the soap.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, the punishment fits the crime. Nice...

Zeno Cosini said...

It's a shame we can't retaliate with William Gibson-style Black Ice.

I guess that would be a tad harsh though.