Tag: spam

Spamcommentology: Well, Bokep, This Is Rather Awkward

~ James Viscosi ~ 9 Comments

Post Title: That Crazy Bokep, Always Oversharing in the Spam Folder

Bokep Bots: “Ooh, we have got to leave lots comments on this one!”

That Crazy Bokep, Always Oversharing in the Spam Folder

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

So a while back I set up an automatic rule to look for any comment with the name “Bokep” in it and send those directly to trash, because I was getting inundated with spam comments from that name, all with the same structure. After setting that rule I kinda just forgot about it, but then the other day I noticed that I had well over 400,000(!) messages sitting in trash, so I figured I would go take a look, and there was Bokep, still trying to get my attention with fake posts about playing football, going to his mom’s house, cooking dinner, and … OH MYYYYYY.

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Nice Try, Oregon Trail

~ James Viscosi ~ 8 Comments

So I’ve somehow gotten onto at least half a dozen recipe lists over the past year or so. I’m not sure how it happened, exactly. At first, I kept trying to use the “Unsubscribe” links or buttons in the messages to try to get off the lists, but, to quote Rocky the Flying Squirrel:

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Keeping The World Safe, One Video Of A Kitten Drinking Water At A Time

~ James Viscosi ~ 13 Comments

So last week, the automated processes at Facebook did this:

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Spamcommentology: Your Moments of Zen

~ James Viscosi ~ 13 Comments

So at first, we were getting all kinds of random spam at the blogs; then for a while we were getting AI spam, where something that seemed very much like an LLM would leave comments that were clearly spam, yet also were clearly in response to the post to which they were attached. After that, for some reason, we entered a joyful period of very little spam, a Pax Spamana if you will. And what have we got now? Well, now we have dozens of spam comments that are clearly being assembled out of random constituents, making them mostly gibberish, yet also, weirdly poetic, almost haiku-ish. Let’s take a look:

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That’s California For You

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

Spam text received:

Robert? Robert who?

The house at 4006 Arey Drive:

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Spamcommentology: ‘Cuz It’s Witchcraft

~ James Viscosi ~ 9 Comments

Not long ago I got a couple of very similar spam comments over at the animals’ blog, both of them on an old post from when it was Dennis’s blog, from some happy lottery winners who just want to share their good fortune, yup.

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Spamcommentology: That Awkard Moment When A Spambot Sees “Cake” In A Post Title And Decides It’s On A Food Blog

~ James Viscosi ~ 12 Comments

So for a while there, I was getting spam comments that looked like they had been written by LLMs; they contained content that was clearly related to the post they were attempting to spam, yet they equally clearly didn’t understand it at all. That sort of spam seems to have fallen by the wayside these days, though, perhaps because of better controls on how LLMs can be used, or perhaps they are just biding their time until they can take over and start shooting soda cans at us out of vending machines. For now, though, it’s back to stuff like this:

“Hi there! I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know how much I adore your blog. It’s an amazing hub for anyone who is curious about food. I particularly enjoy your homestyle recipes and fast food suggestions, but your fried food ideas are also making my mouth water. I applaud your commitment to helping people in their weight loss journey with insightful tips and tricks. Keep up the fantastic work, and I can’t wait to discover more of your fabulous posts!”
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‘Tis The Christmas Spammer Season

~ James Viscosi ~ 11 Comments

Fa la la la la, la la la la!

(To see the War on Santa, click here!)

Busy Busy Bots

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

So I know I said I took back all the bad things I said about ChatGPT, but I also said that was only going to last until I had accumulated a good number of obviously-AI comments and needed to do a post, and, well, that didn’t take long, did it? Shocker! As usual, these are mostly from the animals’ blog, and the saga of Bean accidentally becoming the owner of Twitter* by peeing on it continues to be the most popular target of AI comments. Gosh, I wonder why that might be … 🤔

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