The Big Bad Wolf
05. Dec, 2008 
13 Comments
We all know what the big bad wolf looks like right? Well no, not always. The internet is a fairly anonymous environment. Sure, we all have a unique IP address, but from the onset most look like innocent little red riding hoods.
In my post TV vs. Internet I talked about how great the internet is, but we all know it’s not perfect.
I just recently topped 5,000 spam comments on my blog and continue to receive 30+ a day. Some big name bloggers receive 10x that amount. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise really, considering the net is an open invitation to all kinds of activity.
I’m sure you’ve heard about this woman and how she got tricked out of $400k. Deceived by Little Red Riding Hood? You bet.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should tighten the reigns and smother our own freedom, but where are we headed? Hopefully not down the same path as China. Every +1 spam we have to deal with is -1 freedom from that opportunistic web we all grew up to love. How long before we experience a diminishing return?
I don’t have the answers. I’m hoping someone does or this could get ugly.
I just wanna know who keeps buying into all this spam, enough so that it continues to be profitable?!?! Same people that buy the Enquirer, I suppose?
When will people wake up?
@Miragi – I hear ya. Unfortunately all it takes is a .0001% success rate or less for it to be considered profitable – since it cost’s next to nothing to dish it out. Sad, but true.
Especially when most people moderate their site’s comments, what do the spammers think they are going to achieve? I get +100 a day…and they are all stupid things that I would never think of approving. Silly people.
It’s an ongoing struggle like good vs evil. It sucks that some people are willing to tick off 1000 people just to take advantage of one gullible person.
Miragi, I used to think if we could just get people to quit responding to SPAMMERs that we could end SPAM. Then I realized they will never run out of get-rich-quick seekers willing to pay to send it out thinking it will work – even if it didn’t.
Thank goodness for Akismet and real comments by real people.
Spam will just continue to evolve, and people will continue to ignore it. Sadly, it really doesn’t have to be all that successful to make it worth while. But that is the challenge of technology. People will continue to find new ways to use it.. and some times for the worse!
@Taylor – I know, ridiculous isn’t it?
@Wardell – Ugh! I know, seriously. So increddibly selfish!
@Aaron Mills – So true! Yeah, technology is a beautiful but scary thing.
I get zero spam on my site per day. Nothing goes into moderation and commenters don’t have to answer captcha (reverse turing test) to comment. It’s one of the benefits to using a more homebrew setup than Wordpress or Movable Type.
Until recently, the only spam I’ve received was via email. But now that I’ve started to mingle on Twitter, I’m being noticed by certain types of individuals who think I’m good for a fast buck. I know the type now, they have a certain “evangelistic demeanour”. To me, spam is “butting in” to a conversation without being introduced or extending a hand of friendship. Lets face it, we all have to sell something to get ahead, but without building relationships first, it’s spamming not selling.
Spammers are like rude uneducated children we have to either ignore, or send to finishing school to brush up on their manners.
I really like your blog!
Scary stuff,bro. No joke. For every good work there are 2 evils close behind!
Cool illustration in this article — you should credit them ;-)
@The Dane – Well done! I’ve heard the ol’ trick of changing one’s commenting field names to be something a bit more obscure, so as to deter possible spammers using the automated approach. Are your comment fields unique in that way, or is it simply the pure perfection of code written by The Dane? :)
@Lionel – Haha, so true! Thanks for the compliments :)
@Ches – I agree! Thanks for the reminder. Image credit goes to: http://www.kristahuot.com/
@David – Yeah, I’ve been using odd field names for years now to no ill effect. Before I changed them, I would get the occasional spam comment. After? They all dried up.
Still, I’m not sure that’s what’s defeating the spam commenters these days. I run all my comments out of a small php file named dotalot.php (accessed via a js pop-up). Now dotalot.php calls a binary .comment flatfile based on the post id (e.g., 2369637764257624769). PHP writes and edits these files as comments are created or added. So if you don’t have the id, you just get a dummy comment area.
The thing is, and I’m not sure why, spammers don’t seem to be set up for negotiating this kind of operation. Here’s the thing: before when I said I get no spam, that wasn’t entirely true.
In my directory in which I keep all my .comment files, there has appeared an anomalous file. Whereas all the genuine comment files have names that go [postID].comment, this one file is simply named .comment. And that one file is where all the comments spam goes. Apparently, the spammers recognize that dotalot.php is where they should be commenting, but my set-up is different enough so that they can’t comment to genuine threads, but instead comment solely to a thread created as it were both by and for spammers. I didn’t intend for it to work out this rad, but I’m happy it did.
As far as other solutions go, I’m trying to work out something for another site that can’t make use of the php solution. I’m wondering if Flash might be a good option, since it seems mostly a black box to crawlers. Does anyone know whether spammers can crack a swf?