Classic Comment Spam

Really?  Seriously?  News about an egg giving the world the “Finger”?  What do you think it got up and walked away?  The only “news” was that it was just as tasty in the breakfast sandwich as any other egg.  Possibly a little more satisfying given its anthropomorphic shape.

I know the poster wasn’t seriously interested in an update on the original posting.  The user name they selected was … how to put this delicately and without giving them credit they don’t deserver … very graphically adult-oriented.  Something that they could search for as a ticket for posting here.  Well, not gonna happen.

Idiot, huh?

I do like buying MP3s, but I’m not going to buy them from someone who markets them by calling me an “idiot.”

Notice Anything Familiar?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.  It is my article word-for-word minus the important bits at the end.  This guy was nice enough to include an actual link to my posting.  Thanks.  But I’m not sure that the tags that were associated with this ripoff accurately reflect what my article covered.

Erectile Dysfunction Meds? -- No Way

Sorry, but if your name and/or contact information says that you are pushing questionable source erectile dysfunction medication then you can count on your comment being deleted.

Sexual Violence? -- No Way

Sorry, but if your name and/or contact information indicates pornography in general or sexual violence then you can be certain that your comment will not be approved.  It’s just not going to happen.

There’s nothing humorous about these comments.  Well, may be it is kind of funny that the folks behind them think that people like me aren’t watching the comments that come in and aren’t screening them for relevance.  <sigh>  Maybe someday these clowns will get the message and fade away.  I don’t hold much hope given the number of web sites I see that let this junk through.

This one was just too funny.  I mean, seriously, do they really expect that a blog that moderates comments is going to let something like this slide?

Stupid Comment Spam

The image above is just a sampling of the comment.  This comment had hundreds of lines listing certain name brand erectile dysfunction medications.  The hope is that the robot or zombie that is spreading this garbage runs into a blog that automatically accepts all comments.

I’ve recently seen new batch of spamming involving the Cuil Search Engine.  Cuil is an interesting search engine that claims to index more of the Internet than Google.  I don’t know whether the claims have any validity or  not.  The presentation of search results is interesting and different.

In the comments for a variety posting have appeared a number of items like the ones shown below.  The Cuil spam comments are often posted to entries regarding comment spam.

Cuil Comment Spam

Apparently I’m not the only one that has seen this (Google this).  Cuil claims that they are not responsible for the spam.  I sincerely hope that’s the case.  I use the Cuil search engine from time-to-time when I want something a little different than Google.  But, if it turns out that Cuil is responsible then I will stop using there services even if they do index more of the Internet.

And if the spam is the result of some other entity trying to increase their page rank then they should recall that I review all comments and won’t post any.

P.S.  I wonder if this entry will attract anyCuil comment spam?  I hope not.

• Comment Spam
• Comment Spam — Again

Everyday brings comment spam and, occassionally, there are gems in the spam that just make you laugh.  You want to send the spammers a message that says “nice try.”

One that came in on Adventures in Updating the iPhone – Part II was one such message.  Buried down as the last line of the comment, past all the porn links was this:

Admin, if you read this, please do not delete, just move it to flood or offtopic.
thanks.

Well, I do read the comments and, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, I’m not going to move it to “flood” or “offtopic.”  I am going to delete it.  Why?  I see no reason to help you sell your noxious wares.

I’m not personally oppossed to pornography.  There is a place for that type of activity involving consenting adults.  The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that right.  But I’m under no obligation to help porn spammers, or any other spammers, make money.

The “Liberal Media” posting I made a few days ago has attracted a lot of spam-like comments.  It seems like some people are out there trolling the internet for hot button issues – and the subject of the “liberal bias of American media” is certainly a hot one right now – to fill up blog comments promoting their whatever.

Shortly after the posting went up it started attracting these sorts of self-serving comments.  In fact, one “person” from one IP address posted more than 20 comments to the blog entry in one hour.  The comments were fairly inane and not at all related to the subject matter to which they purported to respond.  For example:

• “I like your site and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links.”
• “Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.”
• “I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.”
• “You know, I have to tell you, I really enjoy this blog and the insight from everyone who participates. I find it to be refreshing and very informative. I wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, I felt it was about time I posted, I”  (this one was cutoff0

The pattern over and over in the comments was one or two sentences with phrases like “great post” or “enjoy this blog.”  Not a single one actually addressed the content of the blog posting.

Now, I probably would not have become suspicious one “light weight” comment post from an IP address or person; but dozens just give away that these are probably not legitimate.

I’ve sent emails to some of the “people” listed in the comment postings asking for them to confirm that they actually intended to write such meaningless comments.  No one has responded yet, so that would indicate these are machine generated.

The comments will sit in the queue for awhile on the off chance that a person really did want them to appear.  But I’m not going to hold my breath.

The sort of advertising that is in the spam consumes so much time.  For the blog writer it takes the time to set the blog up so that all comments have to be approved prior to appearing.  The approval process means that there will be a delay in genuine elements of the conversation being posted.  It is annoying to have to wade through and “mark as spam” the shlock that some posts seem to attract.

Some blog writers either don’t know how to configure their tool to delay posting comments so that the junk can be filtered out or they just don’t care.  Maybe the do care and they just give up under the burden … I don’t know.  For the reader it is a waste of time to trudge through dozens or hundreds of junk comments to find the handful that relate to the original post.

There’s one post on this blog (I’ll let you figure out which) that seems to attract all of the blog comment spam.  That’s good, I guess, but it is still a waste of my time and bandwidth to figure out which comments are genuine and which are not.

Ok, that’s enough ranting for one day.