djangospam 0.4.0

Django antispam module with invisible fake comment/contact form, cookie based middleware and Akismet verification.

djangospam

Django antispam module with an invisible fake comment/contact form, cookie based middleware and Akismet verification.

See http://pythonhosted.org/djangospam for complete documentation. Djangospam is compatible with both Python 2 and 3.

Quick start

These are the basic steps for using djangospam. You can get more info on the cited modules and at djangospam.settings.

Fake form with cookie middleware

New in version 0.3.0

The cookie middleware uses cookies to identify known spam bots. Simple crawlers usually don’t accept cookies, but spam bots may accept, since a website may require this to receive comments. In order to use the cookie middleware, add djangospam.cookie.middleware.SpamCookieMiddleware to MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES at your settins file (usually settings.py). In your template, insert:

{% include 'djangospam/cookieform.html' %}

You must also add (r”^somewhere/”, include(“djangospam.cookie.urls”) to your url patterns (usually in your root urls.conf; somewhere may be any path, except the one used for true posts).

Fake form without middleware

You may also use the fake form without the cookie middleware. This will not block access from known spam bots. In order to do this, include djangospam in your installed modules (at settings.py) and insert the following code in your template, before the true form:

{% include 'djangospam/form.html' %}

You may also define a spam_uri context variable with the fake formulary destination URI. If no URI is defined, the form will be posted at the same address of the page in which the form has been placed (it will be used a <form method=”post” action=””>…</form> code). The destination address must accept POST requests and should not change the database.

You may customize the fake formulary by copying it’s template to template/djangospam at your application’s directory and editing it.

Cookie-based moderator

New in version 0.4.0

djangospam.cookie.moderator defines a cookie-based comment moderator that should be attached to your commented model. This moderator tests comment post requests for the djangospam cookie and discards those which don’t have it. See djangospam.cookie.middleware for more info on the cookie system. Code that uses this comment moderator must use that middleware.

Your models file should be like this:

from djangospam.cookie import moderator as cookie

class MyModel(...):
    ...

try:
    cookie.register(MyModel)
except cookie.AlreadyModerated:
    pass

Akismet

New in version 0.2.0

djangospam.akismet.moderator defines an Akismet-based comment moderator. Besides including djangospam in your installed modules (at settings.py), you should insert the following code to your models file:

from djangospam.akismet import moderator as akismet

class MyModel(...):
    ...

try:
    akismet.register(MyModel)
except akismet.AlreadyModerated:
    pass

Warning:

Since version 0.4.0, the Akismet moderator has been turned a separate subpackage. Code using it must be rewritten as follows:

from djangospam import akismet

must be changed to:

from djangospam.akismet import moderator as akismet

Using from djangospam import akismet is now deprecated and won’t be available from 1.0.0 on.

You also must define the variables below at settings.py:

AKISMET_BLOG

Your home page URL, including http://

AKISMET_KEY

Your application key at akismet.com

AKISMET_USERAGENT

Your application name

AKISMET_USERAGENT_VERSION

Your application version

Results

The fake form alone is getting more than 99,9% (circa 1,399 out of 1,400 spam comments) efficiency at http://www.correioprogressista.com.br/, which used to have more than 200 spam comments each day. Even so, I recommend using Akismet or another spam analysis tool.

On the first 14 hours of the cookie middleware at the same website, it identified 244 spammers and blocked 68 requests from known spammers:

$ grep -c "BLOCK RESPONSE" spam.log
244
$ grep -c "SPAM REQUEST" spam.log
68

Change log

• 0.4:

  • 0.4.0 (2013-03-20):

    • Added cookie-based comment moderator.

    • Transformed Akismet module into a separate subpackage.

      Warning: Code that used Akismet module needs to be rewritten. See djangospam.akismet for the current code. Old code should work until 1.0.0.

    • Improved logger.

• 0.3:

  • 0.3.4 (2013-03-18):

    • Improved forms and URL.

  • 0.3.3 (2013-03-17):

    • Worked around pip bug.

  • 0.3.2 (2013-03-17):

    • Fixed new setup bug (setup.py) - NOT A BUG, see v. 0.3.3.

  • 0.3.1 (2013-03-17):

    • Fixed setup bug (in Manifest.in)

  • 0.3.0 (2013-03-17):

    • Implemented cookie middleware

• 0.2:

  • 0.2.2 (2013-03-16):

    • Fixed bug at akismet module.

  • 0.2.1 (2013-03-13):

    • Made compatible with both Python 2 and 3.

  • 0.2.0 (2013-03-10):

    • Implemented Akismet verification.

• 0.1:

  • 0.1.1-0.1.6 (2013-03-10):

    • Bugfixes.

  • 0.1.0 (2013-03-09):

    • First version.