This comment, however, struck me as funny:
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I
thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except
that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog
very often.
Kaylee
http:// (spam site they are trying to promote with this comment)
A comment like this is generic, having no relevance whatsoever to my content. Dropping the url is the entire point. Kaylee does not exist and is not a real person. Or maybe she is the daughter, wife or concubine of the programmer that wrote the spambot that dropped this message in my blog.
I rejected this comment, but discovered to my dismay that others in the blogosphere are falling victim to the ploy. Bloggers, awake! Don't be fooled by spambots.
This comment was followed, less than twenty-four minutes later, by another one, this time with a right-wing message, in response to my post concerning the bailouts:
you're right! spending is out of control! join us in protesting
excessive government spending!
http:// (site being promoted)
This comment I rejected as well, because it was obvious to me that the writer did not bother reading the content of my post. At most, he probably read the title of my post and nothing more. I suspect that this, too, was the work of a spambot.
The comment uses exclamation marks in an attempt to stir up anger. Something about that seemed familiar--I was reminded of Rush Limbaugh, actually. When I visited the site, all was clear. It was a right-wing shill site, with a slick appearance and plenty of catchy graphics and slogans. What was being protested? Not the bailouts, but rather the Democrats, and in particular Obama and his supporters. The writers were even discussing things like civil war and revolution. Bunch of right-wing loonies. Funny, I don't remember advocating revolution when George W. Bush served two terms and took this country into a war of aggression. But I digress.
I believe the two comments are connected. In other words, the same spambot that made the first comment also made the second one, twenty-four minutes later.
What is newsworthy is that the right wing site employs a spambot to spam left-wing blogs like mine, hoping to lure away my readers. Bloggers that are more naive than I am about technical matters publish these robotic comments and even visit the site.
Today the spambot left another message, confirming that it is indeed a robot and not a human:
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I
thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except
that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog
very often.
Kaylee
Notice the ominous hook, "I will keep visiting this blog very often." That's a threat directed at me, implying that a program of harassment is intended. In other words this comment will be posted every day and potentially a hundred times a day, eating up my time in comment moderation.
After rejecting this comment for the second time, I turned off anonymous commenting. If that doesn't stop the spambot, I may have to employ something along the lines of image verification.
I checked up on the WHOIS of the url being promoted and discovered the following:
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
The owner of the web site has paid a company, DomainsByProxy, to register the domain for him, so that he need not reveal his own information. Interesting. If the spambot continues to annoy me, I can seek recourse with DomainsByProxy, which serves as the unwitting middleman between the spammer and his victims.
Note that at no time have I divulged the actual domains in this post. Doing so equals promotion. The site owners could care less whether I am damning or praising them. Their search rank increases with every mention, whether in a positive or negative context. I wonder how many bloggers realize this? Every time you criticize a site, you promote it.
So, right-wing sites employ spambots. Should I be surprised? I'm not. I hope that other bloggers are savvy enough to recognize comments like the above for what they are. But from what I've seen, it looks like plenty of bloggers are being duped.
Bloggers are human beings. They want to believe that there are other humans reading their stuff and loving it. The reality is often quite different. Push against the natural inclinations of your heart and don't believe what you want to believe until there is a compelling reason. Once you publish on the web, you become noticed by the machines and the criminals, who are vast in number and constantly seeking ways to use you like a tool. One of their goals is search engine optimization. They have other goals, however, that vary according to which master they serve. The web is crawling with criminals who do not care who you are or what you believe. All they know is that you have a domain and can therefore be useful.
No comments:
Post a Comment