Thursday, February 7, 2019

Well, this is unsettling


In the last couple of months I've received spam comments that were eerily good at sounding human. Only the fact that they have nothing at all to do with the posts gives away that they're spam, but what really gives me pause is the fact that I don't see the hook. There's no link to anything in any of these.  Maybe that's because they haven't been approved as comments, but I'm not convinced that's the case.

7 comments:

  1. Lol, #2 looks like something I could've written. I've had stuff like that happen a number of times.

    #3 is so polite, I hope it is real. (It IS a good question.)

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    Replies
    1. I debated #3, but I figured...if they were a real blogger they (1) would have been using some kind of profile, not Anonymous, and (2), would have replied in a recent post and not one that's six, seven years old at this point.

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  2. is it possible for wires to get crossed in webland so that a blog will receive comments intended for someone else?

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    1. If that happened, I'd be more likely to blame human error....say you had someone reading multiple blogs at one time, and they thought they were posting in the comment box for one place when they were actually doing it in another. That could happen if you're using pop-out comment boxes, but I use the embedded kind, so...you'd really have to know you were here to be commenting.

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  3. I also have had some wierd spam show up with no apparent motive behind it. Sometimes I wonder if it is some kind of test spam. The internet is such a strange and puzzling place.

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    Replies
    1. Now that's a thought! Some programmer out there testing to see what spam-generating algorithms are successful at passing the turing test...

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  4. I have had similar comments on my posts, that sound almost normal but not quite. There's never any link or pushing of some random product, it is odd.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting! Because of some very clever spambots, I've had to start moderating comments more strictly, but they're approved throughout the day.