new form of comment spam

[pokeraffz]

I've looked at several examples of Wordpress blogs that are being targeted with spam comments of a particular style. I copied one of the comments and submitted it as a new comment. The comment was held for moderation, so clearly the blog is being moderated.

The only common element I could find is that all the blogs are running older installations of Wordpress.

My guess is that pamela has discovered a hack that some spammer is exploiting that appears to exist in pre-3.0 Wordpress installations.

The comments are sometimes malformed and sometimes the HTML code gets in correctly. I conclude that some themes and/or plug-ins may be interfering with the smooth posting of these hack-comments.

I did the same actually. Unfortunately, I've had these comments go through on my wp 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 : (

[pokeraffz]

Hi,

In April 2008, PocketFives underwent a major makeover. The site’s look changed a bit and the SEO changed a lot. Not necessarily too much for the better though. The site’s page theming is still very poor, the forum URLs are a mess due to the rewrite engine being used and things like XML sitemaps are not being used effectively. Not to mention occasional performance issues popping back up. That isn’t to say that PocketFives is unaware of these issues — as an admin on the site, I’ve informed the “decision-makers” of the problems many times and everyone agrees that the site needs fixing. When it actually gets done, that’s another issue altogether.

Hi xrumer spam postings?

[Kyle]

yeah they are hitting up old wp installations. Half my sites insta approved viagara and all sorts of bs comments.

[parttimepoker]

unsure if this will help, but here are semi-answers:

WordPress › Support Malformed URL bypassing moderation?

#10280 (Comment approval bypassing administrator must always approve comments feature.) ? WordPress Trac

[parttimepoker]

also, to OP, editing all of your replies to make others in the thread look like the aholes is a totally classless move.

[Michael Martinez]

There seems to be a break in the discussion because all of a sudden they start talking about trackbacks in the first discussion. Are they saying this hack is being done through trackbacks? That's an odd-looking trackback structure, in which case it must be a custom tool, not an actual blog doing trackbacks.

This is starting to sound ugly because sooner or later whomever is doing this will get the flaws worked out and start selling the software.

[patmcluk]

WTF! This thread is the weirdest ever. Pamela insults everyone but the keep coming back for more?
Elle est belle je crois? (Or is it just a picture mon ami?)

[pamela]

WTF! Elle est belle je crois?

merci pour le compliment, jeune homme. j'en suis toute rouge.