One of the duties I’ve taken on is to sift through the 400 or 500 emails comments in the spam folder each day for Speak Without Interruption.
Things like:
From: 007home
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And :
EXTRA! EXTRA! Get your FREE Trance Induced Programming “HYPNOTICAL” ebook and “Well of Wealth” self-hypnosis MP3 on my website.
From Dr. Richard Clack author of HYPNOTICAL
These missives come in the thousands and pelt our, and lots of other sites every day. Some are spewn out in droves by a single computer, and some come from hundreds of computers sewn together in invisible “Bot Nets”. Zombie-like emailers that operate beyond the notice of their owners.
What I’m looking for are the comments from real people and members of SWI that are legitimate, but just happened to include a link, or a few words that triggered the spam filter.
In fact I just nailed 176 from “Ben Wa balls”, all carefully written to seem to apply to any post they come up against. For example:
“I couldn’t have asked for a much better blog. You’re always at hand to supply excellent guidance, going on to the point for easy understanding of your website visitors. You’re surely a terrific expert in this arena. Thanks a lot for being there humans like me.”
So close, but no cigar buddy. “Saw you comin’ so I baked a cake,” with an axe in it.
This is the sea we live in, the waters we swim. There are sharks to be sure, but mostly it’s garbage. Spam filters are an excellent example of computers at war with other computers, true mechanized warfare.
However, Count Spamula gets smarter everyday. The latest comments include variables for the original poster’s first name and the post title, so they can be inserted as they are aimed at the site. For example:
So glad you said that Kaye, I should would have been zoo like tomorrow if anytime not been presented with the brilliant edification of Maybe It’s time to let go. Thinking sex a lot presently, like Asian girls best, you also? Why not try www.atrociousasians.com?
But our kung fu is keeping up, if just barely, and our spam file is always full. I’ve even started a file of the really good ones. Some times some sneak through, we’re bound to miss a couple. Just ask your self “is this germain to this post or could it apply to any post?” And with that let me leave you with this:
We fully appreciate your blog post. You can find hundreds of methods we could put it to really good use while using little or no effort in time and resources. Thank you so much regarding helping make this post reply many queries we have got before now.
Copyright Prentiss Gray 2011
Prentiss Gray is a writer and columnist and currently writes the Domesti-Tech Blog for Gannett. He can be reached through his website at www.prentissgray.com
Prentiss Gray
Prentiss Gray is a writer/columnist/blogger from New Jersey. After 27 years as a Information Systems consultant and the death of his wife of 21 years, he returned to his roots as a writer, creating the national column Adventures of the Lone Dad/ Daddy chronicles. He now Blogs for Gannet on domestic technology, and writes feature pieces and stories for general publication. He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and contributes to Bloomberg News, Daily Record, Gannett and the Tribune Syndicate.
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Great writing, well organized, informative with a flair that attracts readers. Well done, Prentiss. You have a special talent.
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Thanks michaeline, I just saved one of yours from the trash can as well.
I have noticed that most of these come from legitimate email addresses, which probably means that those users machines have been infected with Bot-Net software and they have no idea that they are sending out these comments. With the recent Hacking of Episilon we can expect a lot more as a whole new crop of people click on something they shouldn’t. What we really need is to send back a note to these people to let them know they’ve been infected. However, I just cleared out 1200+ from over the weekend, so we will have to figure out an automated way to do it.
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I do not understand how i discovered your blog post because i was researching information about politics, but anyway, i had a good time reading it, thanks!
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