Reporting A Spammer

Many of you might have been victims of spam, or are victims as we speak. Sitemeter has a wonderful little feature that can track location, IP address, and so on. A certain little spammer spent over 95 minutes on my blog this past evening. He accessed 12 pages and left several messages advertising an unnamed drug.

Tracing the IP address through Sitemeter shows an IP Address in India. Seems simple enough right? Nope, using a simple little website found here, I was able to not only find the originating IP Address, but the address WITH a telephone number AND name of the person who is very likely committing the offense of spamming this blog. The person is not in India where the initial IP Address pointed us to, he is most likely the person I traced to Minnesota in the good old United States.

The person(s) who I found listed at the Minnesota address received a call from me yesterday afternoon, and I am waiting to see if he has the nerve to return my call as a message was left for "John" the Spammer. He hasn't as of yet. This certainly tells me something. It is probably the same person who has been a constant spammer of blogs, not just mine.

There are of course many, many spammers, but to be able to trace just one was somewhat a victory for me. While spam seems harmless, it is very irritating and time consuming to me. I am quite perturbed (to put it mildly) about it all, and since I ALWAYS report the spam and promptly delete it as well, the time the spammer spent to send out his ads was wasted on him as well as me.

I am very against spam not only for what it is, but the fact it takes away a choice from me. It is my choice not to post advertisements on this blog. Why then does someone feel the need to post ads on this blog or any blog whether they have ads or not? It should always be the blogger's choice to post ads AND the type of ads they wish to post, not a commenter's choice. As long as I am able to prevent ads and spam, ads will NOT be placed on this blog either by me or by commenters such as this "John" person. While I believe I do know his name, without irrefutable proof of the fact, I will have to leave his name as "John". I mean after all that is what name he "commented" under. So this is a short note to "John" the Spammer:

"John" kindly leave any advertising for this blog totally up to me by refraining from placing your ads on my blog in the form of comments. Comments are just that, not advertisements. And, if at such time you wish to advertise on my blog via comments, do it openly so I can correspond with you personally regarding this matter. Don't be afraid and hide behind a profile "Not Available".

You have my telephone number, feel free to either contact me that way, or by email. Thank you.

My goal in publishing this information is twofold. One I'd like to let other bloggers know who are bothered by spam to please report it immediately to the appropriate authorities. Blogger has an easy to report system and all you have to do is copy the applicable information and send it in here. I sent in both the Sitemeter information and the comment. In this case this person hit 12 pages of mine.

Additionally, since I am fairly confident I found the correct person and his IP Address, I took the time to not only report the spam to local law enforcement (no law against spam here in Tennessee but the officer was quite nice and sympathetic), but also to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. I included all IP Addresses found in the trace process, as well as addresses.

I do realize when we post we are in a public domain that allows for anyone to come onto our blogs. Anyone, including these spammers, but not taking action and just accepting the spam is not a solution to the fact that what these folks do is just plain wrong, annoying, irritating, and illegal. Some say just delete it and move on but that is not going to stop the problem. I am sure some poor person out there gets paid for the number of spam hits he can leave on websites. The more websites he hits, the more money he gets, but his pay is NOT my concern! This website and readers is my concern and the spammer should seek more reputable work in order to pay his bills. What a pathetic life the spammer must lead to go around in the middle of the night and spam people.

One more note for you bloggers, on the Sitemeter comment information page there is a "Referring URL" listed. This would be the URL the spammer would have to use to access your blog. In the case of this "John" spammer, he accessed this website. If you click on the referring url, you will see all of the blogs that were most likely targets of this unscrupulous spammer. Do take the time to report him. If enough of us report these acts, then perhaps, just perhaps, something will be done to stop this person and others like him.

in the garden....