Bad Behavior 1.0-rc2
April 26th, 2005 by Michael Hampton
See also the blog entry announcing 1.0 Release Candidate 3.
Spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam
On Sunday I announced Bad Behavior 1.0 Release Candidate 1. Go read that page for all the details on what it is.
I was quite pleasantly surprised that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. People from all over have tried out Bad Behavior and reported back that their spam levels have dropped to almost nothing. It’s the “almost” that concerns me. I was going to wait a little longer before doing this, but a few problems did crop up with the first release candidate.
Today I announce Bad Behavior 1.0 Release Candidate 2. Surprisingly, only two problems were found, so barring any new issues that might crop up, this will probably end up being the final 1.0 release.
Fixed in this release:
- PHP Warning for gmdate() in generic mode.
- A few instances of false positive matches were reported. Each one of these has been investigated and fixed.
- A few additional spambots have been identified and blocked.
- Because so many people asked for it, the run time for Bad Behavior is now placed in an XHTML comment in the header of the blog’s pages.
Still to come: Built-in log viewing. (Yep, you still gotta use phpMyAdmin to view the logs for now.)
Important: Some files in the plugin have been renamed in this release. If you are upgrading from Release Candidate 1, you will need to remove the Bad Behavior files from your server, upload the new files, and re-enable the plugin in your WordPress admin panel.
Oh, and to answer one other question: Yes, Bad Behavior runs here. If you’re reading this, it’s working. 
As always, feel free to contact me about Bad Behavior.
Charles Says
After updating from 1.5 to 1.5.1, why do I see the following anytime I actiavte BB?
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-functions.php:84) in /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-admin/admin.php on line 6
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-functions.php:84) in /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-admin/admin.php on line 7
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-functions.php:84) in /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-admin/admin.php on line 8
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-functions.php:84) in /home2/charless/public_html/wp/wp-admin/admin.php on line 9
Apr 26th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
Michael Hampton Says
Charles, you have uploaded one or more of the Bad Behavior files incorrectly. Please check to ensure that you are uploading your files in ASCII mode. If the file is transmitted in binary mode, you will see the errors shown.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
MacManX Says
This is a great plugin! I love all of the functions included, but I would like to second Justin’s request for a whitelist function. Having a whitelist function would allow us (the users) to handle any false-positives that show up without having to bother you (the developer) too often.
Apr 27th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Justin Bitely Says
Seems to be working great, but I do have a problem. I’m trying to use Style Master 4.0 to edit the css on my site. One of the options is a preview based on an internet document. When I set the preview document to be my WP site, I’m getting the precondition failed error page. I’ve tried this with and without my firewall enabled. I’m assuming BB is reading Style Master’s request for the page as a spambot – anyway to whitelist it or change something so that it gets through?
Apr 27th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Michael Hampton Says
A whitelist is planned and should be available in some form in the final release. I don’t much like the idea of a whitelist, since Bad Behavior really shouldn’t block any legitimate activity. But obviously we’re not all perfect…anyway, if something does get blocked that should not be, or vice versa, I want to hear about it.
Also, Justin, do you have a link to this Style Master 4.0? I will check it out and see what I can find. You can also use phpMyAdmin to export the relevant records from where you were blocked and send them to me, and that will help as well. In the meantime I suggest you use the excellent Web Developer Toolbar extension for Firefox instead, which has built-in live CSS editing abilities.
Apr 28th, 2005 at 1:39 am
Justin Bitely Says
My apologies, I should have linked Style Master in my original comment.
http://www.westciv.com/style_master/index.html
I do use the web developer toolbar for quick edits and brainstorming, but for complex stylesheets I prefer Stylemaster. I will try to export the relevant records and get them to you.
Apr 29th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Michael Hampton Says
Justin, I downloaded the Style Master demo there, and I am sorry to say that they use the Microsoft URL Control to download web pages. Congratulations, you are the first person I know to actually find a piece of legitimate software that uses this! Virtually every other hit from Microsoft URL Control is a spammer.
If the live preview feature is important to you, you can remove Microsoft URL Control from the blacklist in
bad-behavior-user-agent.php, but you also open yourself up to spam if you do this.I can’t really remove this block from Bad Behavior, since its purpose is to prevent spam. But you can remove it from your own copy. And if you are paying these people for Style Master, I strongly suggest you ask them to release a version of the program which does not use Microsoft URL Control.
If you don’t want to remove Microsoft URL Control from the blacklist, you can continue to use the “Preview in <browser>” options from the Preview menu in Style Master, which should work normally.
Hm, and what do you know, I actually found a completely unrelated bug in Style Master while trying it out!
A future version of Bad Behavior will allow individual whitelists based on User-Agent and IP address/netblock.
Apr 30th, 2005 at 12:43 am
Justin Bitely Says
Ha, that figures. Well thanks for checking it out. I don’t think it’s important enough to me to turn unblacklist it, but at least I have the option. I’ll definitely send them a support message suggesting they no longer use Microsft URL control.
May 4th, 2005 at 8:20 pm