My spam is having a breakdown
Something very strange is going on with my spam.
My spammers are starting to talk to each other on my site.
At the begining of the year, Ron installed a thing called Askimet in the site here, and it stops all the spam. It is very good. So far it has stopped 1,600 comments being posted that would have been unsavoury, to put it mildly.
All I have to do is go in and check every now and again that it’s not making any mistakes. So far it has only made one, which isn’t bad. I then delete the rest.
For the last week or two though, the spam seems to have changed.
Instead of just trying to sell me viagara and send me to casinos and porn sites, the spammers are starting to make comments. And what is even stranger, some of them seem to be commenting on previous spam. They are even complaining about themselves.
I went in to check this morning and I found the following spams. I have put them in the order I received them. I have left out any that included a link, so all of these remaining ones are just messages. They are unedited which may explain the odd bracket or two. They all come from different spammers.
Now, I always believe in replying to letters [my mother taught me that], so of course I replied to them. I have included my responses, for what it’s worth
Are they strange? Or what?
It is possible to delete all this spam? – Yes. No problem
Is it ok? – Well, that depends. If it is not immoral or illegal, then I’d say go for it.
( spam ( – I know!
Not bad, it really can occur – Most things can occur. Unless they are impossible.
COol 🙂 – You like it?
Fucking Pidors! Spammed so much( – No need for that kind of language
Awesome, man – Yeah. Cool, dude
Looks nice – Thanks
Spam really sucks( delete it – I have every intention of doing so
Glad to hear it – I take it you are referring to the last comment I sent?
Hello! informative nice site, excellent design! – Thank you very much. Though I wouldn’t call it informative as such.
So much spam ( – I know. Terrible. Isn’t it?
Thanks man, i agree – About so much spam?
Hello! interesting nice site, excellent design! – Thank you so much. Why don’t you vote for me in the Irish Web Awards?
I think they may be having a nervous breakdown. Should I have added the phone number of a good clinic?
Well, I feel rather rude now, as I’ve been reading your blog for a while but it’s take you to post over at mine before I leave a comment. I must admit, for an older gentleman, you have a good grasp of computers and the like. My dad’s only 48 and he’s only had email for six weeks. He still doesn’t know how to use it, mind you.
With regard to t’above, I believe some of these “spambots” do this in an attempt to appear to be real people as opposed to faceless machine intent on taking over the internet. Don’t ask me what spambots are, I just heard some guy talking about them and he sounded intelligent.
And by the way, I was kind of guessing what I was writing in the above post because the formatting of your page is a bit messed up and it blocks the comment box. Just in case you didn’t know.
Hi Kav, and welcome. I don’t have a good grasp of computing at all. I just guess and mostly it works. They’re like women – hit them in the right places and they’ll work all right.
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Having said that, thanks for the warning about the formatting. I rang Ron [we are finally on talking terms again] and he fixed it. He said it was something to do with the “Most commented posts” thing, so he removed it. I use Firefox, so I never noticed that the site didn’t work in Internet Explorer.
Do you still think I have a good grasp of computers? 😉
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Actually, I find spam quite amusing. If you click on my Spam Tag, you’ll find out why!!!
I recognise some of those spam messages. They’re either getting desperate, or those messages are the start of another botnet assault – what the spammer does is post a sort-of legitimate comment to your blog and then captures all the network traffic.
Then they simply repeat over and over again with their captured PCs..
They can bugger off. I’m keeping my Askimet 🙂