I don't think I will ever understand why people post things like this on an electronics site (or come here to proclaim how great they are). There must be better places to post about Earth Day or the idea that they are rock stars or secret agents.

I suppose it could be worse. We could get people trying to post about how they are rock stars AND secret agents.

 

Speaking of spamming...Corey614 is presently doing some "short post" spamming. (I have reported it.) This often shows up about 11pm to midnight on Saturday or Sunday night. One theory is that spammers think this is a good time of day to try that, but I think they do it at all times of the day and night, but the moderators just happen to not be on duty at those times, and that is why we see the spam. The spammers usually get whacked in a matter of minutes.

Yay, Mods!

 

Speaking of spamming...Corey614 is presently doing some "short post" spamming. (I have reported it.) This often shows up about 11pm to midnight on Saturday or Sunday night. One theory is that spammers think this is a good time of day to try that, but I think they do it at all times of the day and night, but the moderators just happen to not be on duty at those times, and that is why we see the spam. The spammers usually get whacked in a matter of minutes.

Yay, Mods!

What do the spammers thing they are accomplishing? I'd be curious at to how much spam works on the general public. I am guessing their success rate on this forum is somewhere near zero.

 

Trollbots? That's a new one on me. Are the virus writers that bored that they have time to make trollbots?

Consider the rash of posts that we get where it is just some fragment of an earlier post followed by a smiley from some website. What's the point? I've certainly never figured it out.

It is pretty bizzare, but I get the same thing in my inbox. It's like a failed attempt by a computer to synthesize something that a person might say. From reading them, my guess is that it's easy to write a program that can generate proper sentences with a subject and a verb, even with proper subject-verb agreement, but generating sentences that are true independent clauses is the holy grail spambot programming. It's so very awkward to read a paragraph or entire email where all of the sentences are loosely related but do not have any logical sequence and are all dependent clauses. When I read it and come to the realization half-way through that I'm spending infinitely more time to read this crap than what was spent to write it, and that there is no chance of meaningful communication, it makes me feel as if I've lost something - my time I guess. Same thing when I go to one of those websites with a help bot. There's a little chat box with a supposed helpful quasiperson on the other end to help you.

 

When I read it and come to the realization half-way through that I'm spending infinitely more time to read this crap than what was spent to write it, and that there is no chance of meaningful communication, it makes me feel as if I've lost something - my time I guess.

Exactly.

But what's the purpose of spams without a link or an image? Maybe someone is learning to write them and this is just a test? I can't imagine why somebody would write something completely useless like this just for fun.

 

Exactly.

But what's the purpose of spams without a link or an image? Maybe someone is learning to write them and this is just a test? I can't imagine why somebody would write something completely useless like this just for fun.

I really don't know man! Maybe this is what bots do when their shift is over.

 

I suppose it could be worse. We could get people trying to post about how they are rock stars AND secret agents.

I never said I was a secret agent! A merely work in the clandestine intelligence agency in charge of anti terrorism in Puerto Rico. I only fly in for my rock band shows when I need special access to assassinate a world or trade leader... NM I 've said to much already and may have blown loosies cover.

 

I really don't know man! Maybe this is what bots do when their shift is over.

Full blown LOL!

Must check my "silly" setting.

ps, the bird Vid was a bit much, too.

 

90% of the spam you get is from registering free apps and forums. And your friends surfing porn and getting infected with email bots. Happens all the time especially with yahoo. Usually you can just look at the headlines and see who's been comprimised because it will be mailed to their entire friends list

 

90% of the spam you get is from registering free apps and forums. And your friends surfing porn and getting infected with email bots. Happens all the time especially with yahoo. Usually you can just look at the headlines and see who's been comprimised because it will be mailed to their entire friends list

That, and when you list something on craigslist. You post something for sale or free, and then you get generic canned emails that make no reference to the actual item you're selling, like "Is it still available?" or "Would you take $50?" You reply and BAM you're on a spam list for life. I replied to those a couple of times until I wised up; now I put in the very first line of my listing "Reply to this ad with the the name of the object you are interested in, or I will not reply."

 

I keep at least 4 email addresses, two of them are throwaways. As soon as spam starts, I delete that address and make a new throwaway address.

 

I don't think I will ever understand why people post things like this on an electronics site (or come here to proclaim how great they are). There must be better places to post about Earth Day or the idea that they are rock stars or secret agents. It makes as much sense as going to a, "How to care for your bunny rabbit" website and posting phase locked loop schematics.

It is obviously difficult to make a rule that excludes people that are not interested in the reason this site exists. I guess the best I can do is be glad the moderators have to deal with this, and I don't.

Seems to be one of those busy multi-forum posters that use to show up from time to time.

 

It took a little while, but we did figure out a policy. If someone comes in like loosie and just post a bit we can deal with it, if they troll us or spam us we can forbid the off topic thread to them, and deal with the other areas when appropriate.

As with many things in life, the hard part was verbalizing it. Without rules we can't play nice.

 

I keep at least 4 email addresses, two of them are throwaways. As soon as spam starts, I delete that address and make a new throwaway address.

I've been very fortunate for the last decade or so -- and I really am not sure why.

I am careful not to give out my e-mail address too freely and I use single-use addresses that are swept up by my catchall settings for any place that I am unsure of -- the advantage of that is when you start getting spam and you complain to the company that sold/gave your address and they deny it, you can ask them how else they would have gotten the e-mail address YOURCOMPANYNAME@MYDOMAINNAME.

But I do get spam from time to time and it seems to go in fits and starts. I'll get a rash of spam, perhaps three or four a day, for a couple of weeks and then it stops and I get one or two a month for a few months. Then the cycle repeats. Each time I'm afraid that my main e-mail address has gotten out into the wild and that I will have to abandon it, which will be a HUGE pain to deal with it.

I had another account that I used when I first got online and was on Usenet and was naive enough to use my real e-mail address (and looked down upon people that were unwilling to take credit for what they posted). Well, I soon found out! I had to abandon that e-mail address when I got up to over 500 spam e-mails a day. I kept the service provider, but just bought a domain. When I left that provider I checked the e-mail address (that now had not been used in well over five years) and it was still getting more than 200 spam e-mails a day!

So I don't know how I've managed to escape having either of my long-term e-mail addresses get compromised or when my cloak of invisibility will get ripped away, but I'm sure not looking forward to that day.

I probably should go ahead and set up a fallback address and put it as the primary on all of my "safe" accounts and then let it get swept to my catchall until the day of reckoning happens. At that point, I can switch pretty painlessly and just deal with notifying those individuals whom I want to have the new address.

One more item on the to-do list!

 

It took a little while, but we did figure out a policy. If someone comes in like loosie and just post a bit we can deal with it, if they troll us or spam us we can forbid the off topic thread to them, and deal with the other areas when appropriate.

As with many things in life, the hard part was verbalizing it. Without rules we can't play nice.

Nice to see everything fair and on the up and up. lol