Spam Comments

For many, many months after starting this blog last April, I had no idea that there were spam comments being sent this way. (This may have something to do with the fact that for many months I wasn’t getting any comments other than from close friends and family members. You’ve got to start somewhere…)

Once I started getting other comments for approval and moderation, I eventually noticed that there was a “spam” folder on the comment moderation page. In retrospect, I am surprised that I was surprised by it or its contents. I’ve been using, programming, fixing, building, and SysAdmining computer hardware, software, firmware, and wetware for over forty years.

Nonetheless, I was surprised. Part of it was that WordPress was doing such a fantastic job of catching it and filtering it out. It sits there for two weeks before being automatically deleted. Right now I’ve got 179 messages sitting there, so that’s a dozen or so a day.

There are a few that are the usual ads for get-rich-quick schemes, penis enlargement procedures, even the occasional personal letter from a Nigerian prince, Janet Yellen, or a friend who’s been mugged in Rome. There are also a fair number that are in non-Western character sets, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Arabic, or at least what I believe are those character sets.

Those aren’t hard to filter.

When I started getting requests to moderate submissions from some highly unusual new commentators. I first became aware of these “high-grade” spam comments. They were never from folks who had already “followed” this site, but that’s not any kind of requirement. Also, as I started to get better at my submissions to Chuck Wendig’s “Flash Fiction Challenges”, I started to get some comments and hits from there. Those were always from people new to the site.

The first time I saw a “high-grade” spam comment I was this close to approving it when my bullshit indicator went off. I’m now getting about one a week of them. They’re very clever and well done, but they don’t quite pass the “sniff test” yet.

First of all, they got by the WordPress filters, which mean that I was inclined to believe that they were real. They had cachet.

Secondly, they always start out being very complimentary. Of course I’m going to approve it! Who doesn’t like a comment saying that they love your writing and think your site is great?

Next, they’re actually written in pretty decent English, which I assume is coming from a more advanced automated text generator. Before, we would see something like, “Hello my family member! I wish to say that this post is amazing, nice written and include approximately all important infos. I’d like to peer more posts like this.” Now, it’s something like, “Excellent post. I was checking constantly this weblog and I am inspired! Extremely useful info, specifically the ultimate part about lunar eclipse photography. I was looking for this particular info for a long time. Thank you and best of luck.”

It’s not perfect, but I could imagine that coming from someone with a limited command of English — but much better English than I could dream of writing in Japanese, French, Spanish, or whatever.

Finally, the old fashioned spam comments would be coming in on a post that’s months and months old, usually a post that I didn’t consider to be particularly exceptional, and the comment text is very generic, with nothing to do with the post it’s supposedly commenting on.

The “high-grade” spam comments are on more recent posts, posts that almost always have several “likes” and many views, and there’s something in the comment that references the content of the post.

I think some low life scumbag got some better software for generating spam. I see why WordPress’s filters are being fooled. I almost got fooled myself.

But when my BS alarm went off, I wondered who was making the comment. Before approving, I clicked on the return email address identifying the comment’s author, expecting (or hoping) to see someone else’s blog, or FaceBook page, or Tumblr blog, whatever. Instead, my anti-virus software lit up like a Christmas tree and refused to connect to the site.

Oh. I see.

I had been wondering why this spam was being sent. Who in the world ever, EVER believes these things and responds? Who in the world doesn’t know that it’s a scam?

You don’t have to believe, you just have to click, by accident or otherwise. If you don’t have good, strong, up-to-date anti-virus and firewall software, it could be a bad day.

Sorry “cleveland_rosenhain@arcor.de”. If you’re real and not a bot, you’re going to need to prove it just a little bit better.

Have your people call my people.