If you read many blogs, you’ll probably read variations of this story all over the internet today. Or, at least you will from the people who figured out the solution.
You see, a very popular, very effective spam-stopping WordPress plugin called Bad Behavior, itself turned bad. Rather than reporting and blocking only spammers, it was blocking everyone–even blog owners. I discovered this late last night after trying to make a post. I could get into my site, but it wouldn’t let me submit my post. The message indicated that my IP address was on a blacklist because of spam activity. To me, this was a very legitimate possibility because over the last few days my firewall, ZoneAlarm, has been popping up warnings about keystroke logging. It seemed more than likely that one had slipped through, taken over my computer, had been using it to send out spam or something worse, and been registered on a blacklist as infected.
Thus followed extensive scans by ZoneAlarm, Windows Defender, and McAfee–to no avail. This morning I prepared to take another stab at it. I knew the error message originated from the Bad Behavior plugin because I vaguely recognized the url of the error message. However, nowhere on the page does it give the plugin’s name, and the remedy for getting off a blacklist is vague at best. I suspect other bloggers may still be in a panic over this one. Anyway, upon visiting the site I quickly learned that the problem wasn’t with me, but with the plugin. I downloaded the patch, and this is my first new (test) post. If you’re reading this, then it worked.
If you know a blogger who is blocked from making posts (or moderating comments) on his or her own blog, you might want to tell them that Bad Behavior went bad.
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