Comment spam is an occupational hazard for anyone who runs a blog or forum. Chumps desperate to flog their holiday, hotel, real estate and stock picks set up bots that post automated messages crammed with keyword-rich links to spammy Web sites. Orgasm Army has a forum that’s growing nicely, with lots of great posts from member swapping sex tips. But it’s also being visited by a spambot that seems to be a close relation to Marvin The Paranoid Android from Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…
Its post don’t seem designed to sell dodgy stocks or real estate so much as send the reader into a catatonic stupor. Take this for example:
“My mind is like a complete blank, but so it goes. Basically nothing seems important, but I guess it doesn’t bother me. I’ve just been letting everything wash over me , but pfft. I haven’t been up to anything. Such is life. I can’t be bothered with anything.”
Quite. And as if that wasn’t depressing enough, it quickly followed up with:
“I’ve just been letting everything happen without me these days. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing , but oh well. More or less nothing notable going on to speak of. I just don’t have anything to say these days, but maybe tomorrow.”
I’m not entirely sure what benefit the bot creator hopes to gain from this. And after reading a couple of its messages I’m rapidly losing the will to find out:
“My life’s been pretty dull lately, but I guess it doesn’t bother me. I haven’t been up to anything recently. Maybe tomorrow. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing worth mentioning. I haven’t gotten much done these days. Pretty much nothing seems worth thinking about.”
“My mind is like a fog. Oh well. My life’s been really dull today. Eh. Today was a total loss. I’ve more or less been doing nothing , but I guess it doesn’t bother me.”
“I haven’t gotten anything done. Whatever. I just don’t have anything to say.”
And it can talk German!
“Hi, ich Suche jemanden der mir redaxo aufsetzt und bei der grafik implementierung und den addons hilft. Bezahlung nach absprache danke!”
This was its last message, reaching a frenzy of self-pity not yet seen in software. By now I think it must have done itself in.
“Today was a loss. I just don’t have anything to say. Not that it matters. My mind is like a fog. Oh well. My life’s been really dull today. Eh. Today was a total loss. I’ve more or less been doing nothing , but I guess it doesn’t bother me. I’ve just been letting everything wash over me. I just don’t have much to say right now, but what can I say? I can’t be bothered with anything these days. Such is life. I haven’t been up to much lately.”
{ 4 comments }
This type of thign has been common in e-mail spam for a while. Since most sophisticated spam filters use (at least partly) beysian style filtering (which, roughly, compares messages statiscally to find patterns common to spam), something that’s very close to a legitimate message but pretty much gibberish is likely to get through. In many cases, the message doesn’t include a link, but is merely there to try to “poison” learning spam filters.
That said, I’m not aware of any forums that use statistical type spam filtering methods, so I reall don’t understand the purpose of the attack. I presume that it’s just some guy having a bit of fun and hoping for a laugh.
Ah, maybe it’s a lonely spambot and it needs some good loving to sort its life out? Can you hook it up with some automated sex machines? Maybe then you’d get orgasmic spam. Or perhaps it would generate cliterature?
I bet Google have got a roomful of Ph.Ds working on exactly such a project. There’s probably a gag to be made about having a million erotic monkeys typing in a room… They’d have to be bonobos, of course!
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