Tetherd Cow Ahead

Intercepted by Akismet from comments this morning:

Whoa there Sonny Jim! You just keep your hands off my rss.

I really love a good mystery! In my last post Desperate? I talked about the apparent spamming of my (and others’) blog comments by Microsoft. Cow reader Damned Skeptic took me to task about this conclusion, and I defended my logic in the Comments of that post.

In a nutshell, what I said was that given that 99.9% of all the comment spam I get is about link hoarding, what evidence is there that the Bing (and also Yahoo) links were not cut from the same cloth? To me it looks like someone is trying to get some link action happening for those sites.

Except…

This morning I was inundated with a whole lot of spam such as this one from ‘Datherine’:

Here’s where Datherine is linking:

Now, is that not totally bizarre? Firstly, I will acquiesce: it’s fairly conclusive evidence that my first hypothesis was incorrect. I doubt that ALL the search engines are attempting to up their ranking like this. That would just be ridiculous. But what IS going on, then?

One thing that I can tell you is that Akismet (my spam filter) is on top of this – look at the stuff that was scooped up overnight:

There were dozens like this. These, of course, are all generated by bots and are easy to screen, unlike the spumans I mentioned yesterday. But look at those links! Way to add some pile carpet to the noise floor. Why would anyone want to generate lots of links to just any search engine? What are we seeing here? Are the big search engines involved in some kind of clandestine link deluge war? Is there any relevance in the fact that all the attempted links from yesterday and the day before were exclusively Bing and Yahoo, and this morning, for the first time, it’s Google? Wow.

Another thing I can tell you is that this spam was targeting my most visited pages, such as the FAQ, the Rasputin contests and some of my Peter Popoff posts. There is definitely some method behind this madness…

My new friend Svetlana wrote to me today!

From: Sveta Cabrera [russianconartists@hotmail.com]
Subject: Hello my dear. I am interested in a reliable boyfriend. ( Mail ID zp1289027381geu )
Date: 6 November 2010 12:09:44 AM PDT

Good morning! How do you do???
I`m happy, cheerful lady.
I really want to find my second half!
I`m tired of being one…
I have many interests, I like sea, sun, beach and travel.

Write me, I be interesting to see ur pics.
Kiss, Svetlana

Svetlana, I think it would be MUCH more interesting to see your pics. I imagine they would look something like this:

If it wasn’t for the constant company of my spammer scammer friends, what a lonely person I would be! Well, that’s obviously what they think anyway, judging by their eagerness to fill my inbox with their irksome pleadings and promises. One of the things that really does continue to amuse me, however, is the impressive level of desperate creativity that the Have I Got a Deal For YOU!-type scammers show in their introductory lines.

Spam pal George Nduka has been to one too many Mark Jansen ‘Brainpower’ seminars:

Pardon me for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer and it is utterly confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature.

Well George, my mindset is that I think all spammers are the scum of the earth, and I entertain a probably futile hope that, if you’d had the pleasure of knowing that beforehand, you might not have bothered writing to me.

Mrs Ella Randy adopts a now well-worn approach:

It is indeed my pleasure to write you this letter, which I believe will be a surprise to you as we have never met before, and I am deeply sorry if I have in any manner disturbed your privacy.

Not sorry enough to stay out of my life, unfortunately.

Mr Gregory Adom goes one step further than being merely ‘pleased’:

I am enchanted using this tremendous opportunity to converse with you in this medium of communication.

Enchanted! Well then! I think it is extremely probable that Mr Adom thinks the internet is powered by magic. Allen Azuka takes a rather more strident tone:

KINDLY ATTEND OT THIS. Be informed that my previous mail was not responded and do not know what to take your non response to mean.

Mr Azuka, I think you can take it that my non-response means that I think you are an annoying shit-head and have no desire ot have anything ot do with you.

Burgi Nitzmann attempts the chummy approach:

Hi, how’s your work doing? The answer is quite clear. You’re sleepy, man, I can tell! But take a deep breath, lot’s of people have the similar problems.

Lot’s of people have problems with the use of apostrophe’s too, Burgi, especially spammer’s.

Al Walid Khalid is concerned about ethical matters:

Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics

Apologies accepted. Now go and kill yourself.

Speaking of killing oneself, Zubair Hoyett affects an air of desperation:

I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here are bad.

It has evidently not occurred to you that if you wish to achieve both those objectives, Mr Hoyett, you’d have to do them in the reverse order. Not that we care either way. Actually, come to think if it, scratch that – I have sympathy for your dog, at least. It’s not his fault that he ended up with a scumbag. Maybe he’ll find a better owner once you’re dead.

Spam buddy Hunke Heinz has been smoking a few too many coleus leaves:

Oko kocky ma podobnou stavbu jako oko lidske, nicmene jsou zde. ((Babelfish tells me that this Czech phrase means something like ‘A cat’s eye has a similar structure to the human eye, though there are some notable differences’ adding a whole new level of clarity to Hunke’s communiqué…)) Hello mr. Look! You may 12 lobe on new stimulator?

Hunke’s offer, such as it was, rambled on in a similar fashion. I’m not even sure what he wanted from me. Maybe he is just plain mad. I like the appellation though and may henceforth be addressed, by anyone who cares to do so, as Mr Look.

Mrs Susan Shabang has roped the whole family into her spamming schemes:

After careful consideration with my children, we resolved to contact you for your most needed assistance in this manner.

… and Ikuku Masanga has plans for me to change professions:

I have decided to use this medium to extend a prosperous business hand shake with you and welcome you in the Oil & Gas industry.

Petros Alexandrou thinks it’s Christmas already:

Compliments of the season and good day.

…unless he’s just talking about Autumn.

Mr Liu Yan begins his offer:

This mail might come to you as a surprise and the temptation to ignore it as frivolous could come into your mind, but please consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility.

I’m sorry Mr Liu – the temptation to ignore it as frivolous came into my mind quicker than my desire to consider it as a divine wish and I trashed it. And generally, the only deep sense of anything that I get from any spam is a profound loathing of the perpetrator.

Mr Adrian Davidson is a little too personal for my taste:

How is your day? I am writing with utmost Confidentiality and Trust confides in you; I wish to hint you briefly of my Biography, so that we can both be familiar with each other.

Mr Davidson, I wish to hint you briefly that I don’t want you attempting to be familiar with me in any way at all.

And as for Amar Afiz:

Dear beloved one. As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.

I hope that day comes very quickly and painfully for you, Mr Afiz, and believe me, I won’t feel in the least bit sorry when it does.

And finally (until the next flood of rubbish comes down the pike) Mr Philip Ozuol thinks he has transcended the virtual:

This letter will definitely be amazing to you because of its realistic value.

As far as I can tell, Mr Ozuol, the realistic value of this letter is well shifted into the negative, and so its amazement factor is not all that impressive. In other words, if you’d not send it, I’d be having a much better day.

It seems to me that these scamspammers are so enthusiastic about their letter writing and the making of acquaintances that there should be some venue where they can all get together and annoy one another, rather than take it out on me. A Facebook for spammers! ‘Spambook’, perhaps. It could only be a good thing.

Today my new friend Elvin left a comment on one of my posts, which, for some amazing reason, seems to have gotten snagged by the spam filter! Perhaps it was the list of links to his cheap pharmaceuticals’ sites, I dunno. These spam filters are funny things.

Yeah, you know what Elvin, you piece of human trash – if only I had a dime for every time someone of your worthless stature has spammed my blog I’d now be $41,438.40 richer (that’s 414,384 spam comments intercepted by Akismet since I installed it when The Cow went over to WordPress just over 4 years ago.)