Maybe they think people who read a Firestorm blog are bigger suckers ;) ~Ron
________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, May 10, 2011 12:12:33 AM Subject: RE: [The Unique Geek] Thought this was interesting given our occasional spammer to the list serve Apparently my spammers haven't gotten that smart yet. All the URLs I get are totally obvious. Spam is a weird thing. My Firestorm blog averages about 75 Spam comments a day (thank goodness for Akismet!), whereas my Once Upon a Geek blog is averaging only about 10 Spam comments a day. It's weird because my Firestorm blog gets way fewer hits than my other blog. Regardless, Akismet is from heaven! The Irredeemable Shag http://firestormfan.com http://onceuponageek.com http://twitter.com/onceuponageek -------- Original Message -------- >Subject: Re: [The Unique Geek] Thought this was interesting given our >occasional spammer to the list serve >From: Jennifer Walker <[email protected]> >Date: Mon, May 09, 2011 10:00 am >To: [email protected] > >I've been getting those bing.com and yahoo.com "comments" this last week on >old >webcomic posts. I give them credit for craftiness as Akismet has yet to catch >up >to this tactic but, really, the commenter always seems to misspell one of the >last words. Every. single. comment. > > >On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Cary Preston <[email protected]> wrote: > >For most of you, Tetherd Cow is an unfolding story of antics in Cow World that >plays out on a fairly linear daily or weekly basis. You know how it goes – I >post a story, you comment, we have a some fun repartee and then we move on. >Very >civilized. But because I have an expansive overview of The Cow (a Cowish >‘omnipotence’ as it were) the Cowiverse looks somewhat different to me. I see >a >whole lot of stuff to which you are not privvy. There is, for example, >activity >that occurs way back in time, in posts that have had their moment in the sun >and >are never visited again except by the occasional lost web traveller. Or by >spammers. Spammers discovered long ago that the vast hinterland of forgotten >blog comments provides another fertile venue for their pathetic attempts to >hawk >various car insurance/viagra/cheap mortgage/locksmith(i) schemes. Because >visiting millions of blogs and posting comments is (quite obviously) a tedious >and time consuming task, the spammers have mostly relegated this drudgework to >bots. Sometimes very clever bots, but bots all the same. Bots are mostly >pretty >easy to defeat, and these days most bot comments get swept up by blog spam >utilities and never see the light of day.(ii) >>Recently, though, a new spamming ruse appears to be on the rise. This >>technique >>requires real people to spend time browsing around blogs and posting comments >>and linking their names to some crap or other.(iii) Here’s one that I got >>yesterday: >>This was a comment left on my post Ooze which you may remember concerned the >>curious fungus that once appeared in my backyard. On the face of it, ‘Jeff’ >>appears to be taking an interest in the post and leaving a pertinent comment >>– >>he is obviously not a bot. >> >>What the spammers don’t appear to understand, though, is that when a >>commenter >>leaves his or her mark on TCA comments, I can tell all kinds of things about >>them other than just their email address and their name. I know, for >>instance, >>that while Jeff Morgan is (most likely) a real person, with a real Bigpond >>email >>address, it is not the real Jeff Morgan who has visited my blog. Someone has >>stolen his name and email address for the purposes of making their spam look >>legitimate. The clue to Fake Jeff’s real agenda is written clear in two >>places – >>one is in his IP address which comes out of Pakistan, and the other is in >>‘his’ >>website which is easily recognizable(iv) as a ‘front-door’ for a spam >>operation >>linking off to various kinds of crummy products.(v) >>As is usual in these cases, I leave the comment intact and ‘repair’ the >>weblink >>to take it somewhere a little more useful.(vi) This morning though, I got a >>rather intriguing one of these ‘comments’ from ‘Mircea’: >>This one appeared in my post We’re All DOOMED! as a reply to Cissy Strutt. >>Unlike Jeff’s comment, it only half makes sense, but I have had far more >>incomprehensible legitimate comments in my time. ‘Mircea’ evidently thinks >>that >>by embedding it in the flow of commenting (he/she would have to have >>physically >>clicked the ‘Reply’ button) that it would go unnoticed.(vii) But I don’t see >>comments the same way as commenters do, and for me it’s a trivial exercise to >>spot it as spam. Here’s part of what I see: >>Did you see the very interesting thing here, Cowpokes? ‘Mircea’ appears to be >>spamming for Microsoft. Oh, I’m sure that Microsoft would deny having >>anything >>to do with such a practice. They would, most likely, claim that anyone can >>type >>any URL in the web field and that they can’t be held responsible for random >>punters being fans of their search engine. But It is easy for me to see that >>‘Mircea’ is not a legitimate entity: she/he has an IP in Quebec and an ISP in >>Germany – a very curious and probably impossible combination. Additionally, >>this >>is not the only one of these I’ve had in recent times. >> >>There is a bit of discussion going on about this elsewhere, and one >>suggestion >>has been that the Bing URL is being truncated in some way and that Bing (and >>Yahoo as it turns out)(viii) are just victims of a software snafu. But I want >>to >>point out that the way these blog commenting systems work does not support >>that >>conclusion – if people are physically reading the posts and entering >>comments, >>they are also physically entering the URLs they have been given to promote. >>To >>put it in clear terms, ‘Mircea’ is a fraudulent identity who has visited an >>historically distant Tetherd Cow Ahead post with the sole intention of >>leaving a >>link to Bing. >> >>_________________________________________________________________________ >>Footnotes: >> 1. Yes. A New York locksmith and his pals were, apparently, touring the >>blogosphere and leaving comments in an attempt to boost their linkability. >>Rather sad, really. >> 2. My spam tools automatically shift such comments into the spam >> graveyard >>without me even being aware of them. On average, TCA gets about forty of >>these a >>day. >> 3. The technical reason they do this is to increase the number of >> legitimate >>websites ‘linking’ to their garbage product. This, in turn, increases their >>search ranking in various engines. Search engines find it easy to defeat >>standard spambot link farming, but this kind of ‘human’ bot requires (so far) >>human brains to intercept. And not only that, human brains that understand >>the >>context of their own blogs. >> 4. By a person, at least. >> 5. Typically, these ‘front’-door’ sites are set up as link farms into >> products >>that the spammer has been paid to ‘advertise’. They are disposable sites that >>will be abandoned as soon as they are busted, only to spring up somewhere >>else >>in a matter of minutes. The spammers probably have thousands of them on the >>shelf, ready to go. >> 6. I usually redirect it to the JREF, because I think if there’s one >> thing we >>could do with a whole heap more of in this world, it’s some rational >>thinking. >>Can’t ever have too many links to the JREF. Did I mention the JREF? >> 7. And I guess on a lot of blogs maybe it would have. >> 8. I’ve also had several linked off to Yahoo. >>_________________________________________________________________________ >> >> >>http://www.tetherdcow.com/?p=11837 >> >> >> >>Sent with MobileRSS HD -- >>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>"The >>Unique Geek" group. >>To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>[email protected]. >>For more options, visit this group at >>http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en. >> > > >-- >Jennifer "Scraps" Walker >Queen of the Helper Monkeys > >Better living through creativity... and cocktails! >http://www.scrapsoflife.com/blog > -- >You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The >Unique Geek" group. >To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >[email protected]. >For more options, visit this group at >http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Unique Geek" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Unique Geek" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en.
