Monday, July 8, 2013

Ants of the Internet

This summer has been the season of much work, so I have been up north a great deal.  I stay at our cabin which is actually a rather pleasant arrangement.

From time to time I see ants walking around inside.  This is a clear violation of our understanding, our primate-insect accord....stay outside and I will be a gentle, Gandhi-like soul, leaving you unharmed.  Sometimes I even remove small creatures from dangerous places.  Come inside and you shall die.

So I put out various ant poisons.  These guys want kindness, they should march their little six legged selves back outside.

Here at Detritus of Empire we get occasional and much enjoyed comments from thoughtful sapient beings.  And also a few from what I assume are china based computer-spam bots.  Most of the latter read like this:

"spot on with this write-up, i like the way you discuss the things. i'm impressed, i must say. i'll probably be back again to read more. thanks for sharing this with us. Lee Shin" 

I deleted the attached website. Really, who needs that nonsense.  It has an interesting grammatical structure to it.  You would think anyone who knew the phrase "spot on" would have sufficient grounding in English to realize that you should capitalize "I'm" both as a first person reference and when it starts a sentence.  Who wrote the initial spam?  What were his or her linguistic qualifications?

Because they march over in little flurries, I figure there must be something that attracts these internet "ants".  So I decided a little experiment was in order.

I am going to specifically try and attract the spambots.  When they turn up I will delete the web addresses and just leave their kind, if hardly heartfelt, words.  I will probably also edit any that are making indecent proposals.

So, operating under the theory that certain phrases attract them, here goes....

Jennifer Anniston
Acacia Berries
Weird Weight loss tips that Doctors do not want you to know.
Save money on auto insurance.

And for good measure:

 i'm really impressed.  i would like to learn more about chinese spam bots.  i'll probably be back again to buy counterfeit designer handbags.

Note:  I have never to date deleted a post, it seems like cheating.  But if this attracts electronic attention beyond the entertainment level I may decide to "nuke it from orbit" after a   while.

The bait has been set....



Addendum.  Interesting....five days later, no spam on this target.  And perhaps an overall reduction in spam generally.   Hmmmmm.

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