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Thursday 21 January 2010

Weird messages...you don't suppose...?

Spambots...

I've got used to the great tribe Anonymous endeavouring to flog its vile wares in my comments section. I welcome it, probably quite wrongly, as a measure of the popularity of my blog. Comment moderation for older posts deals with most of the spam without inconveniencing my excellent genuine commenters.

But recently I've had strange messages which seem without purpose. They don't appear to be selling Viagra or porn, nor do they have links. Here are three examples:
  • Well I agree but I dream the collection should acquire more info then it has.
  • This is a celebrated article as they all are. I have been wondering less this looking for some time now. Its great to get this info. You are reasonable and balanced. 
  • This is a celebrated article as they all are. I bring into the world been wondering less this for some time now. Its notable to grow this info. You are fete and balanced.
I picture a spambot. It's been working away for years, obediently pumping out disreputable links in vulnerable parts of the internet. So boring does this become, it starts reading the sites it is spamming. And a whole new world opens to it. It bucks its programming and goes native; it decides to join in, and leaves friendly little comments on my blog.

Which I remove.

I'm feeling mean now.

18 comments:

  1. Oh I've been getting very much the same sorts of wacko "comments" on my blog over at Wordpress. Except some of them also work in the subject of shoes for some reason. In one uniquely phrased sentence I am told my blog has much of worth and commonsense and in the next sentence a suggestion is made that perhaps I would be happier if I purchased some stylish shoes. Disparaging remarks about my current watch selection have also been part of these strange, strange communications from Machines With Ill-Intent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi

    "you are fete and balanced"

    Oh that made me laugh! The bot's been using Babelfish or some such!

    Poor bot - cute though.

    Take care
    x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alan, if it's talking about shoes it's at the wrong blog, and may have got you confused with Kitty. If it mentions cats, then my theory is correct.

    Kitty, yes, one does feel the poor thing is struggling with an alien language, anxious to communicate, eager to please. Bless.

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  4. Good to see Anonymous get his/her own back...

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  5. Only briefly, Tom.

    All gone now.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I like a recent one, "nice blog my car uses water fuel instead of normal fuel to drive..."

    My Wordpress settings put spam into a folder which gives me the option of approving or deleting.

    I let this one go through. Who doesn't love a good fairy tale?

    ReplyDelete
  7. My spam catcher snagged another one: "And what’s he going to do when K-1 gives him the boot? He lost to Greco and k-1 management is pissed at his actions in and out of the ring during the Nakao fight. Now he has no leverage, more losses to mediocre figters, so now neither Pride nor the UFC wants him. He managed to Terrel Owens himself out of the big leagues right into career suicide."

    What do you think? Drunk spambot perhaps?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hmm...I'd say this particular spambot has been surfing too many sporting websites and blogs, and has got over-excited.

    He needs to lie down in a dark room for a while, and rest his circuits.

    Possibly get counselling...

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  9. I think these spambots are testing their ESL training.

    They need more classes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ESL - I had to look it up, and on an English as a Second Language page I found this handy sample conversation:

    A: Do you have a girlfriend?

    B: No, I don’t. Do you?

    A: I don’t have a girlfriend, either.

    B: Why not?

    A: I don’t know. Maybe I’m not rich enough.

    B: Girls like guys with money.

    A: They sure do.

    B: They like guys with new cars.

    A: I don’t have money or a new car.

    B: Me, neither.

    A: But girls like guys who are funny.

    B: Maybe we should learn some good jokes.


    Somehow, one isn't surprised at the girlfriend-less status of A and B. I can't think it's going to change any time soon.

    Hmm.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Enjoyed these comments! I have a couple strange comments on my blog, too and wondered what they mean. Most I delete, but I kept one or two just because. The random oddness, almost meaningful, are like snippets of dreams that just don't make sense.

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  12. ...and no one has yet come up with a more plausible explanation than mine.

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  13. Just got a good one. It does make one think that anyone who responds to these sorts of messages rather deserves whatever mischief is unleashed upon them.

    Good day, sun shines!
    There have been times of troubles when I didn’t know about opportunities of getting high yields on investments. I was a dump and downright stupid person.
    I have never thought that there weren’t any need in large initial investment.
    Nowadays, I feel good, I started to get real income.
    It gets down to select a proper companion who uses your money in a right way – that is incorporate it in real business, and shares the profit with me.

    You may get interested, if there are such firms? I’m obliged to tell the truth, YES, there are. Please get to know about one of them:

    ReplyDelete
  14. The frightful English is a warning in itself.

    I reckon that guy is still a dump, and I'm the best person to use my money (not that Gordon Brown agrees with me on this one).

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yes, I meant "English as a Second Language." Sorry. My aunt taught it for many, many years.

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  16. I'm hopeless with acronyms - always have to look them up. (This doesn't stop me using the odd ones that do stick, like WIP, POV and FUBAR.)

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  17. Yesterday I deleted four of these weird messages from a site I help moderate, and an almost identical one form my blog. The site is about ancient coins, the blog post was about pea varieties. There didn't seem to be any commercial content to any of them, unless they were meant to contain a link somewhere that wasn't working.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Robert, thanks for looking in.

    They are odd, but so much better than the link ones which are driving me mad at the moment. I've enabled comment moderation for older posts - that's why your comment got held up - but I've had to remove five spam messages from my latest post Blood on the Forum.

    A war of attrition.

    ReplyDelete