Everything TypePad!: TypePad vs. Comment Spammers: "According to our logs, most spammers try to cover their tracks by sending their posts through an "Open Proxy Server". An Open Proxy Server is a misconfigured or infected machine that forwards web requests for anyone on the entire Internet. The spammers use these proxies to avoid the one commment-per-minute restriction and the Blog Owner's IP address blocking.
So, we started blocking Open Proxies -- all 1.5 million of them. It immediately reduced the comment spam problem. In fact on our first day it blocked over 20,000 spam attempts!"
# Jun 6, 2004