Tag Archives: Spam

When spambots get it wrong

6 Replies

I’ve posted before about the amusement that can be had at the expense of the clueless spammers who set up their bots with poorly written strings. Thanks to the various anti-spam tools now protecting this blog, there are few comments appearing in my spam folder. There was one today though, and the cluelessness reached new heights. The dolt writing the spambot was too dumb to set it up correctly to spew out a series of inane generic comments from a list, but instead put the whole lot of the comment strings in a single self-contradictory comment!

Here it is in all its glory:

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Poll of evil

1 Reply

I have closed the Which of these is most evil? poll, which had been running from 20 February 2009. It attracted 2,351 voters, each of whom could distribute up to three votes among thirteen (yes, that number was deliberate) candidates. Here are the ranked results:

  1. Satan (36%, 846 Votes)
  2. Microsoft (31%, 721 Votes)
  3. Apple (26%, 614 Votes)
  4. RIAA/IFPI/MPAA (26%, 601 Votes)
  5. Miley Cyrus (23%, 546 Votes)
  6. Autodesk (23%, 536 Votes)
  7. Disney (16%, 382 Votes)
  8. Google (10%, 230 Votes)
  9. Dell (7%, 172 Votes)
  10. The Pirate Bay (6%, 147 Votes)
  11. Sony (6%, 140 Votes)
  12. Steve Johnson (4%, 89 Votes)
  13. Gaahl (3%, 82 Votes)

That top three is not going to shock anyone (except perhaps some fanbois), but are some surprises in the list. For example, more than a quarter of voters were aware enough of the evils of Big Content to be able to decipher the alphabet soup RIAA/IFPI/MPAA choice and select it. More than four times as many people think this litigious pack of demons is voteworthy than think the same about arch enemies The Pirate Bay. That’s not so shocking for those of us with our fingers on the pulse of popular opinion, but I was surprised to see so few people choose Big Content arch-villain Sony. Rootkit, anyone?

For Autodesk, this poll is something of a triumph, with less than a quarter of voters putting the company in the top three. Mind you, Autodesk was faced with some very stiff competition, being very narrowly edged out of fifth place by Miley Cyrus.

Only one in ten of you thought Google was worthy of selection. This is Google, a company that knows more about you than you do. Google, which passes out your information whenever it feels it might gain some strategic advantage from doing so, and really doesn’t care when it violates your privacy. Google, which insists on knowing my phone number before it lets me sign up for its Facebook-copy thing, because it obviously feels it doesn’t already have enough information about me. Google is apparently “do no evil” enough to attract far fewer votes than more sinister recipients such as, say, Disney.

Dell has been on my personal brown list for some years now, since repeatedly sending out fax spam to me and many other Australian businesses. It forced me to deal with its abysmal “customer service” [sic] Indian call centre in order to try to get it stopped. After making me wait for ridiculously long times while passing me round between various clueless, indecipherable people, a manager finally lied to me to get me off the phone. He assured me I would be taken off the list. The Dell fax spam continued until I finally gave up and threw the machine away; rather that than attempt to deal with Dell again.

Prior to this, I had no dealings with Dell and had just assumed it was a reasonably respectable company. It was only after this episode that I learned that Dell is utterly without ethics; my experience was perfectly normal. Indeed, victims of its shonkier practices (illegal bait-and-switch marketing, lying about stock and deliveries, repeatedly sending out “repaired” units that are totally non-functional, etc.) will probably think that I got off very lightly indeed. Dell has never seen a cent from me and never will. I’ve been very happy to pass on my feelings about the company to everyone who has ever asked for my hardware advice, as happens from time to time. 7% or not, Dell can go to Hell.

Finally, it’s official, I am more evil than Gaahl. Who? Gaahl is a Satanic death-grunt vocalist from black metal band Gorgoroth. He has performed in corpse paint on a stage decorated with sheep’s heads on spikes, and blood-splattered naked women hung up on crosses. Gaahl has been convicted of viscious violent assault multiple times, including one occasion where he was alleged to have threatened to drink his victim’s blood. I’m sure my metal friends will be very impressed by me being considered more evil than that. \m/

This blog is just wonderful, apparently

12 Replies

One of the more interesting things about running a blog that is visited by a reasonable number of people is the fan mail. My immense modesty prevents me from keeping visible the thousands of positive comments that are posted here, but I thought I would give you an idea of the sort of praise I receive (and Akismet hides) on a daily basis. This small sample is all from the past 48 hours, with my comments in blue:

  • My brother recommended I might like this website. He was entirely right. This publish truly made my day. You cann’t believe simply how so much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!
    Actually, I cann, how so much! Many of my publishes make many people’s days. Please tell your brother I said “Hi!”, and thank him for the massage oil.
  • That is very attention-grabbing, You are an overly professional blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look ahead to in search of more of your great post. Additionally, I’ve shared your web site in my social networks.
    I look ahead to in search, too. I appreciate the social sharing, because I’m sure you have a lot of friends.
  • Thank you so much for this! I haven’t been this thrilled by a blog post for a long time! Keep up the great job. Keep on inspiring the people!
    Don’t mention it; inspiration and thrills are all part of the service here.
  • wonderful blog, very well written. I like it very much. I would read your site monthly and recommend it to my classmates. Please keep it updated. Keep on the good work. – A sweet girl
    Only monthly? I’m hurt. To make amends, send pics of yourself and your classmates to my email at pedowatch@fbi.gov.
  • Such a wonderful analysis! No idea how you were able to say this text..it’d take me long hours. Well worth it though, I’d suspect.
    Your suspicions are correct, and not just because of the huge cash kickbacks and the swarms of groupies that I struggle to keep away with a dirty stick. It’s feedback like yours that really makes it all worthwhile.
  • Thank you for every other fantastic article.
    Why don’t you like the other 50% of them?
  • Among the a ton of responses on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all of the pleasure right here!
    Indeed you’re not. All of the pleasure is exactly what the a ton of people have right here.
  • Nice commentary. last thirty times I uncovered this online internet internet site and desired to permit you be conscious that i’ve been gratified, heading by way of your site’s posts. Cheers, Glen
    Cheers! <drinks beer> Glen, thanks to your erudite commentary, I am indeed conscious that you have been gratified for the last thirty times due to my online internet internet site. Thank you for the information.
  • I am gonna watch out for brussels. I’ll appreciate when you proceed this in future. Numerous folks will be benefited out of your writing. Cheers!
    Cheers! <drinks another beer> Although I didn’t get an invite to the Bricsys conference, I’m proceeding to watch out for Brussels right now. I’ll let you know if I see it. Wait, here it is! Oh, sorry, false alarm, it was only Bruges.
  • I really appreciated this wonderful post. Be sure to keep it up. Cheers !!
    Cheers! <drinks yet another beer> Sorry, but after all this beer I’m finding that a little difficult.
  • whoah this blog is great i like studying your posts. Keep up the great work! You already know, lots of persons are searching round for this info, you could help them greatly.
    Whoah! I could, but I don’t think I will.
  • hi!,I like your writing very much! percentage we keep in touch more approximately your article on AOL? I require a specialist in this space to solve my problem. May be that’s you! Taking a look ahead to look you.
    Look you? Are you a Welsh stereotype, by any chance? I’m sorry, but as a specialist in this space I have to inform you that the approximate percentages are all on CompuServe these days.
  • you’re really a excellent webmaster. The website loading velocity is incredible. It kind of feels that you’re doing any distinctive trick. Furthermore, The contents are masterwork. you’ve performed a wonderful process in this topic!
    The distinctive trick is simply a matter of changing the server’s website loading velocity setting to Ludicrous Speed. This is indeed a wonderful process.
  • I uncovered your web page via search motors even when looking for for the connected topic, your web page demonstrated up up. give many as a consequence of you for the fabulous blog. Amazingg skills! hold on man, you rock!
    Rev up those search motors, man, because demonstrating up up for for the connected topic is my amazingg speciality.
  • Amazing things here. I am very happy to look your post. Thank you a lot and i am taking a look ahead to touch you.
    Only in an appropriate and consentual way, I hope.
  • Websites like yours can be extremely rare in the webspace brimming with crap and spam.
    I know what you mean; crap and spam get everywhere.

It’s very difficult to remain grounded when I’m being constantly bombarded with praise like this, but I somehow manage to stop it going to my head. I guess that’s because, well, I am pretty awesome.

This spam amuses me

2 Replies

Any Internet resource that allows public comment has to deal with spam. Fortunately, Akismet takes care of the vast majority of the spam on this blog so I don’t have to worry about it. Most spam is just moronic and I’m saddened that there are still some people around who are clueless enough to fall for it, making it worthwhile for the spammers to continue their evil ways.

Today, Akismet caught the first spam I’ve seen for a long time that actually made me LOL. Here it is:

HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia xyzrxyz pxxxx enlargement xyzrxyz and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. xyzrxyz pxxxx enlargement xyzrxyz They’re coming back now. xyzrxyz vxxxx xyzrxyz Please send help! nitip vxxxx

I removed the bits that would make this useful to the spammer, so I guess I’m now responsible for some poor schmuck suffering a hideous fate at the hands of the Russian Mafia. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.