Spam, we see it in our mailboxes every day. It has become a fact of internet life. But in addition to the spam that invades our mailboxes, there is a type of spam the attacks wikis and online bulletin boards. This "wiki spam" or "comment spam" is specifically targeted at web pages, not to get people to follow the links, but solely to cater to the web search engines to increase the "search rank" of the targeted page.

The battle between wiki operators and the spammers is increasing. Spammers are getting more sophisticated with techniques to hide and disguise spam, just long enough for a search engine to index their links.

The Ruse wiki, which now runs the Ruby Garden Wiki, is an attempt to fight back against the spammers. Ruse implements a number of techinques to thwart spammers in posting undesirable messages, and to make cleanup of the wiki after a spam attack much easier.

This talk will review the anti-spam techniques used by Ruse and discuss how they might be used in other online systems.