Project Honeypot

[TheMelodyMaker]

(I couldn't find this one doing a search, so I figure it's all right to start a new thread about it. ^_^ )

If you have your own website that seems to constantly get flooded with spam from web bots and the like, especially if it's a message board or guestbook or anything else that allows user interaction, I very strongly recommend looking at Project Honeypot (link below).

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/

What it involves, basically, is that after you register an account there, you download a special script code (called a "honeypot") that you then upload to your site and manually visit once to activate. Then you place code on your home page that allows a bot to visit but that a human visitor won't even see or know about. The folks running the Project Honeypot site then log visits to the honeypot you've uploaded so that they can hopefully track down the source(s) and any spam robots that visit your site so the proper authorities can then be alerted.

There are also some helpful tips on the site about how to keep your e-mail address hidden from spam robots and yet still visible to real human visitors.


Incidentally, thanks to Shooraijin for giving me the link some time ago. ^_^

[TheMelodyMaker]

Project Honeypot made some announcements back during one week in the middle of May, a couple in which I figured you'd all be interested in. ^_^

First of all, they've instated the functionality of what they call QuickLinks, which are nothing more than hyperlinks to other members' honeypot scripts. That means that anyone can help catch spambots, even if they don't have their own server or domain to install a honeypot script to. See here for more info.

Second, Project Honeypot has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the spammers that it's collected information about over the last two years. More info about that here.