Skype Spam
Software June 22nd, 2009
The last place I expect to receive spam is on Skype, and so far it has remained clean, I assume due to my privacy settings:
So how on earth could this have popped up on my screen:
[12:05:42 PM] Zora Giannoni: hi! i’m briannahh from http://www.slutsdating.com are we still on for saturday?
No, Zora, or Briannah or whoever you are: we’re not on. Anyone with similar experience? Are we seeing major trouble with Skype?
Is There a New Twitter to Blog Spam Bot?
Blogging January 14th, 2009
An older post, If Scoble Thinks He Found Bad Startup Marketing, He Ain’t Seen Nothing received several comments, all showing the same structure, pointing back to Twitter accounts – some are clearly spam accounts with only this one update, but others appear to be real users, although I am not following any of them.
lbfd (LBFD) | January 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm e
This is a test.
(This appears to be a spam account with no real content.)
aleslie2 (Art Leslie) | January 13th, 2009 at 7:59 pm e
Hmmm … tweet completely disappeared. This is a test.
(This appears to be a real account.)
bisfourbritt (bisfourbritt) | January 13th, 2009 at 9:52 pm e
This is a test. Nd it ends with no friends. We will go on…..untl it hurts
Zonin with loud shit tonightt hah
(This appears to be a real account.)
radiomanmic (Michael Grider) | January 13th, 2009 at 11:28 pm e
This is a test. Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.
(This appears to be a real account.)
deborahgtaylor (deborahgtaylor) | January 14th, 2009 at 6:10 am e
Is going to Brenham for a quilting lesson. This is a test.
(This appears to be a real account.)
This is a test.
(This appears to be a spam account with no real content.)
Is there some new Twitter-to-Blog spam bot that I am not aware of?
Update:  There’s more now, on another post:
lbfd (LBFD) | January 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm e
This is a test.
Hmmm … tweet completely disappeared. This is a test.
This is a test. Nd it ends with no friends. We will go on…..untl it hurts
Zonin with loud shit tonightt hah
This is a test. Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.
Is going to Brenham for a quilting lesson. This is a test.
This is a test.
sztelzer (Rodrigo Sztelzer) | January 14th, 2009 at 11:18 am e
Só bebo tequila. This is a test.This is a test.
http://tinyurl.com/7jww4a Só beberei tequila.
In the meantime I disabled the Tweetbacks Wordpress Plugin, which had not properly installed anyway, to see if it has anything to do with the attack.
Update:Â Follow-up thoughts @ CloudAve.
Related posts:
Tags: Blogging, spam, tweetbacks, Twitter, wordpress
Will Google Pull a Plaxo?
SaaS, Social Networking December 29th, 2007
Google Operating System speculates that Gmail will soon display status updates from your contacts:
It’s not very clear what kind of updates you will receive, but they’re probably the latest important actions of your contacts from different Google services.
Ionut says based on reading some Google code that users will be able to delete updates – now word whether there will be a “Big Switch” to opt out globally. The functionality itself would be closer to Facebook’s newsfeed, the reason I am comparing it to Plaxo is that Plaxo became a metaphor for spam in its early years, and it is back at it now, with all the unwanted Plaxo Pulse notifications.
The contact updates, especially if it’s not easy to opt-out once and for all would be nothing but spam. What makes it even worse is that Gmail Contacts are really not contacts: anybody you answer automatically gets added to your Address Book, whether you like it or not. And guess what: there is no way to turn this off. (In fact, in the new version of Gmail -not yet available for Google Apps accounts- you can’t even delete more than 20 contacts at any given time.)
I really hope it does not happen. Gmail is the Crown Jewel of Google services, and as such, more productivity-oriented for most of us, then say Orkut or Picasa are. They can’t seriously think of clobbering the screen with garbage like that. Can they? 
- Related posts: mathewingram.com/work, TechCrunch, Googling Google, The Last Podcast.
Tags: facebook, gmail, gmail contacts, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, spam
When Captcha is Really, Really Bad
Blogging, Software December 13th, 2007
I confess: I also had a captcha on my blog, in my “prior life” on blogware. In fact my defenses were so developed (or primitive?) that Zvents CEO Ethan Stock rightfully called it an obstacle course.
Thankfully I have a better life (OK, just a platform) now, on Wordpress, where the combination of Akismet and Spam Karma 2. provides sufficient enough spam protection so I don’t have to torture readers with such obstacle courses anymore. But I guess not all blog platforms are created equal.
Today I tried to leave a comment on Vinnie’s post, which is protected by a captcha. That would be OK (well, sort of) if only I knew it upfront. But what typically happens – and I am not picking on Vinnie, seen this on several other Typepad blogs – is that I review the comment, hit “post”, then move on to another Firefox tab (hey, even I can multitask). Later, when I come back to review the comment/close the tab, I find the captcha screen still waiting for my input. The damn thing was so slow, it did not reveal the captcha screen in when I was here before.
How to improve the captcha? Well, displaying it right on the comment entry page would be a good start… but even better, remove it entirely, replace it with some more intelligent background process (like, if I am a repeat approved commenter on this blog, chances are I am not a spammer … but I am not trying to re-invent Spam Karma logic here).
The absolute irony of the situation: you can read it all right here, on Vinnie’s blog: UI again …don’t pretty up, destroy!
P.S. Vinnie, my friend, I am not picking on you … just your platform.
Update (2/28): A hilarious collection of the 10 worst captchas.
Update (3/5):Â CAPTCHA is Dead, Long Live CAPTCHA! @ Coding Horror.
Tags: akismet, blogware, captcha, spam, spam filters, spam karma, typepad, ui, user interface, wordpress
Bloglines Has Become a SPAM Engine
Blogging, Software November 17th, 2007
“Hello, Fellow Bloglines user … has recommended the following blogs. You can choose to add some or all of these blogs to your Bloglines account“
Does this email look like spam to you? It certainly does to me. Oh, well, let’s quickly check my Bloglines profile to turn recommendations off… oops.. I can’t. This is definitely SPAM.
In my two years of using Bloglines I’ve never seen this before. In fact all I have there is a dormant account that I haven’t logged into for a long time – so I certainly could not have opted in to this program. I guess Bloglines “volunteered me”.
Is Bloglines so fed up losing market share to Google Reader that they think spamming will win users back? This can only backfire – btw, Gmail’s spam filter is pretty good, so this is the last junk mail I received from Bloglines. But so far I haven’t activeley disliked Bloglines – now I do. Not a good deal for Bloglines, if you ask me.
Oh, and while I’m at it: all those Plaxo Pulse invitations from unknown people are also spam. They just don’t learn.
Update (11/18): It’s worse than I thought: I received the same spam to another email account which Bloglines should not even be aware of – not unless they deep scan old blog posts for buried mailto links.
Update (12/4): Tom Raftery is also fed up with Plaxo spam.
Tags: bloglines, gmail, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, reader, spam, spamming
Startups: Challenge the Market Leader, or Ride With It?
Blogging, Startups, Technology November 7th, 2007
“A new spam blocker called Defensio is attempting to improve on the standard set by Automattic’s Akismet, the default blocker for WordPress” – reports TechCrunch.
But they are planning to do more than improve… they want to replace Akismet. From Defensio’s FAQ:
- Is Defensio a replacement for Akismet?
Yes… - Will Defensio outperform Akismet?
-We can’t make any promises (sorry), but our early testing suggests that Defensio’s performance is very, very good. As with any adaptive filter, it will only improve with time. - My accuracy is not satisfactory. Why?
-If you have recently installed Defensio, then try to be patient. The filter’s learning algorithms take some time (usually no more than a couple weeks) to become very effective… - Does Defensio work in conjunction with other spam filtering plugins?
Not really. We highly recommend that you use Defensio as your stand alone spam filtering solution.
And therein lies the rub. Other plugins, like Spam Karma 2 may also outperform Akismet at times, but they don’t replace it; instead, they work together quite well. A status change in either takes effect in the other. Now, I don’t know how good Defensio will be, but it takes a huge leap of faith to give up the proven standard (i.e. Akismet) and replace it with something that may need weeks of learning, as we’re warned by the FAQ. They lost me as an early user right away.
The bigger question here, for software startups: should you start challenging the market leader right at launch, or ride with it, grow as part of the “ecosystem”, then perhaps declare you’re better and no longer need them after you got traction?
Related posts: Weblog Tools Collection…
Tags: akismet, Blogging, competition, defensio, ecosystem, spam, spam filters, spam karma, startup strategy, Startups, wordpress
Google Deletes its Own Blog as Spam
Blogging, Software August 8th, 2007
This would belong in the humor category … if it wasn’t for real: the Custom Search Blog, owned by Google was identified by Google as spam, and shut down, after which an individual without any affiliation to Google took over the domain. Details at PC World.
Tags: Blog Spam, Custom Search Blog, Google Blogs, spam
Zoli Erdos
