Computer Geek Stumped by Form Spam  
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

Anyone fluent in ASP - I beg of you!  I am so tired of form spam.  May whoever invented the form spam bot be eternally spammed in hell.  I don't even see the purpose - I don't know one person who would click on the idiotic crap we receive from form spammers:  our "Submit Topic" form is getting nonstop e-mails with a bunch of hyperlinks for Iranian teens, Dildo Monsters, and Eli Manning.

It's a waste of time, and I don't even open them anymore, but that means anyone who didn't fill out the Name field on the form, their messages also get deleted without being read.

So, anyone who knows ASP and/or HTML and wants to assist, please contact me!  I will post any responses and link back to your site if you like.

Spam is such an awful problem that comes with the advances of technology.  For everyone writing programs against it, there is someone writing programs for it.  And for every article or forum post someone makes to solve a problem, a new problem is out, making it much more difficult to find an up-to-date solution.    It's such a waste of time when there are so many other commendable - even historical - things we could be doing with the internet.  If there is a be-all, end-all answer, that would definitely be news-worthy!

And if you can solve my spam issue, I'll send you any item from our giftshop for free. 

Here's my problem.  I am using a very basic contact form.  The HTML looks like:

<form action="gdform.asp" method="post" onsubmit="return validateForm();"> <input name="subject" value="Submit Topic" type="hidden"> <input name="redirect" value="Response.html" type="hidden"> Your Name: <input name="FirstName" style="WIDTH: 374px; HEIGHT: 22px" size=48></p> <p> Your E-mail Address: <input name="Email" style="WIDTH: 297px; HEIGHT: 22px" size=38></p> <p> What topic would you like to see?: </p> <p><TEXTAREA style="WIDTH: 466px; HEIGHT: 166px" name=comments rows=10 cols=54> Type comments here.</TEXTAREA></p> <p><div><input type="text" name="verify" id="verify" value="" size="22" tabindex="1" onchange="javascript:this.value=this.value.toLowerCase();" /></div> <label for="verify">What color is an orange? Sorry, this is to stop spammers.</label><BR> <input name="submit" value="submit" type="submit"></form>

I am using a validate.js javascript file (in lieu of a CAPTCHA) to prevent a user from submitting the form without correctly answering the question, "What color is an orange?"  It works in some cases for non-human spammers, but believe you me, spam still comes through.

I have a server-side form called gdform.asp that is the action script form my hosting company uses, but I am able to modify it.  It looks like this.

In my spam, the Name and E-mail Address fields are often (but not always) left blank, and the spambot uses the TEXTAREA field to put descriptions and links to sites - and often with missplaced A HREF tags.

Thanks for any ideas!

-A Stumped Computer Geek in 2007

   

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