You are not logged in.

#1 2020-12-23 3:12 am

nitro2k01
Member
Registered: 2020-12-19
Posts: 3

Submitting data without e-mail?

This is a bit of a niche use case, but hear me out. I run forums as well as blogs, and I've taken to adding comment spam posted to the blogs to the database. Wordpress requires an e-mail to be filled in for regular comments, so so far, so good. But occasionally there's spam in the form of a trackback, which is intended to be used for linking between blog posts. By its nature, a trackback lacks an e-mail address, but is otherwise very similar to a comment. Does such an entry have a place in the database?

Offline

#2 2020-12-23 5:06 am

Alex Kemp
Moderator
From: Nottingham, England
Registered: 2009-12-02
Posts: 2,420
Website

Re: Submitting data without e-mail?

There has never been any exception made to the three required forms of ID for all spam. I do not anticipate any change to those requirements.

Offline

#3 2020-12-27 1:46 pm

nitro2k01
Member
Registered: 2020-12-19
Posts: 3

Re: Submitting data without e-mail?

So, I'll simply not submit this particular type of spam to the database? It is as much spam as anything else, it just happens to be in a form that lacks one of the required data fields...

Offline

#4 2020-12-27 3:50 pm

Alex Kemp
Moderator
From: Nottingham, England
Registered: 2009-12-02
Posts: 2,420
Website

Re: Submitting data without e-mail?

Unfortunate, yes.

Offline

#5 2020-12-28 1:14 am

NeoFox
Member
From: WI, USA, Earth
Registered: 2013-09-26
Posts: 830
Website

Re: Submitting data without e-mail?

nitrok2k1,

It's like in all the superhero movies where they're chasing the red hoodie person  (in the crowd), finally grab them on the shoulder, about to punch their lights out and find out it's someone totally different. They're shocked, awed, and apologize.

That's what it would be like using just their report and IP and nothing else. Their bot software (I'm guessing) using generated emails because if you look at any evidence reports here, a lot of them have a commonality amongst themselves. That e-mail field then helps provide what we call (as amateur sleuths online) as a "soft fingerprint" never quite a full "fingerprint" of them but more and more data to catch the bad guys.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Although I would back the idea of it being a 'full' fingerprint based on what we provide in our reports, however, it's lacking a lot of other identifying information one could gather and make the edge-lineup of the artist's sketch into maybe a mosaic of sorts or at least a bust of the person (per se.)

Last edited by NeoFox (2020-12-28 3:43 am)

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB

Close
Close