spam Archives - Waking up in Geelong

Married men and Facebook ads for “Singles Events Melbourne”

Marcus Wong — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 21:30:31 +0000

The other day a suggested post for “Singles Events Melbourne” showed up in my Facebook timeline. Since I’m married, it isn’t exactly something I’m interested in.

I initially thought it a case of mistargeted Facebook advertising, so I followed the “Why am I seeing this?” link to find out why Facebook had decided to show me the ad.

And there lay the answer.

I tick all four boxes:

Relationship status: married
Gender: male
Age: 18+
Location: Melbourne

Yet I still don’t care.

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East West Link and spam blogs

Marcus Wong — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:30:00 +0000

A few weeks ago in my Twitter feed I found somebody taking the piss of an news article, which described the proposed East West Link freeway as “replenish seductiveness”.

Even the most simple minded freeway advocate would never write something so nonsensical, so I dug deeper into the linked article:

East West link: Coalition will replenish seductiveness from $1bn in early funding
May 27, 2014

The Abbott executive has signalled it’s going to get improved any passion warranted on a $1bn early cost it is creation to a Victorian govt for a 2d theatre of a East West couple project.

Labor lifted questions about a choice to offer a $1bn by regulating 30 June, as officials certified a Victorian executive used to be though to yield Infrastructure Australia with a full trade box and work used to be not as a outcome of start solely late 2015.

The East West couple is an 18km highway endeavour in Melbourne joining a eastern limited-access highway to a Western Ring highway.

The sovereign Coalition betrothed progressing than a choosing to make a grant $1.5bn to theatre one, however Tony Abbott introduced final month a sovereign supervision would flow an additional $1.5bn into theatre two.

No help there – the content is just as meaningless as the headline!

However on further investigation of the website that posted the article, I found an answer in the “For sale” listing by the previous owner:

Turns out the website isn’t a “real” news source – it is just a giant spam factory that takes real news articles from elsewhere, runs every second word through a thesaurus to make the content look unique, and then crams the page full of advertisements to make money from anyone who stumbles upon the website via Google.

That led me into the spammer filled side of the internet, where I found dozens of advertisements touting similar websites as the road to riches.

Some being more audacious with their spiel than others:

You Can Turn $19 Into Thousands with Your Own Automated News Websites Like Google or Yahoo News

Looking for a website that has good earning potential and can operate on it’s own because it’s 100% automated? Well, a News website like Google News, The Drudge Report or Bing News is what you need. These websites receive lots of traffic and earnings because they have news and content from all over the internet. You can literally go to one place and find everything you need.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY SUCCESSFUL NEWS WEBSITES ARE MAKING THESE DAYS?

YOU CAN TURN $19 INTO HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS!

The news is updated all the time and you can have a website with a broad range of category news topics or a specific niche. Once the traffic starts coming to these types of websites, you are going to be amazed how fast it grows.

Unfortunately for anyone out there thinking you can make money by filling the internet with automatically generated news articles, the engineers at Google are a few steps ahead of you – they’ve updated Google Search to prevent such crap from ranking high in search engine results.

As for me, my route to riches is based on the Underpants Gnome business plan:

Spend ages writing about stuff
?
Profit

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A tale of mistargeted Facebook advertising

Marcus Wong — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:30:10 +0000

The other day I was scrolling down my Facebook news feed, when I came across a “Suggested Post” for the ‘Village Sounds’ over 28s night at the Village Green Hotel. So how the hell did it get there?

That advertisement has zero relevance to me – my Facebook profile says I’m not over 28, not single, and that I live nowhere near the Village Green Hotel, which is located in the outer eastern suburb of Mulgrave!

So what is a “Suggested Post” and why did the advert show up? The “Marketing Land” blog has the following to say:

Facebook’s popular Sponsored Stories ad type shows posts from pages but must come from one of the user’s connection. This new “Suggested Post” ad type would allow brands to advertise a specific post to users who have no interactions or connections with a brand.

One issue that could arise from an ad of this type is the opportunity to be abused. If ad targeting is done properly, ads match user interests and intent. However if this intrusive ad type lacks in relevancy and targeting, it could degrade the Facebook experience.

So how can one target these “Suggested Posts”? Facebook has a help page to explain it:

Add targeting to your Page posts so only the most relevant people will see them in their News Feeds. Unlike when you limit your Page’s audience, adding News Feed targeting does not affect who can see the post on your Page.

Add Targeting and choose one or more filters:

Gender

Relationship Status

Education

Interested In

Age

Location

Language

As for the answer to my initial question – I’m guessing whoever runs the Facebook page for the ‘Village Sounds’ over 28s night was seduced by Facebooks’s promises of social media success through targeting advertising, but without understanding exactly how it works.

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Who’s behind WordPress comment spam?

Marcus Wong — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 06:00:17 +0000

I’ve discussed comment spamming previously – automatically generated comments that are posted to blogs in an attempt to game the Google search rankings.

The content of the comments is usually in the form of a generic compliment, in a naive attempt to stroke the ego of the blog owner and have the comment remain in place. The true “payload” of the spam is a link to a website selling products, with the spammer hoping that the link stays in place until Google finds it, which will enhance the search engine ranking of the linked website.

Most of the comment spam posted today is posted by automated software to thousands of websites, hence the content of each message is easily found on Google. Here is one example of the software in use: I’m not going to link to the dirtbags because it will improve their Google ranking, but this slimeball is currently the top Google hit for “wordpress comment spammer“.

The software is designed to allow the user to evade spam protection on blogs; with one of the available options enabling the use of proxy servers to distribute the source of the spam across multiple IP addresses, instead of the single address belonging to the spammer. The content itself is also randomised, the input being customisable list files that allow each comment to have a different author, email address and comment content.

It also seems that some software is smart enough to vary the words used inside the sentences it generates, which is all well and good until it fails, such as the example comments below.

At first glance it appears that the spammer’s software does not support the use of merge fields inside HTML tags, as the bold text is a syntactical mess, while the normally formatted text below differs slightly between the two comments, showing the merging of words was successful.

A second way that spammers customise their automated comments is by including the article title inside the comment. In most cases this looks ridiculous as the software blindly parses the content of the HTML tags of the page, which includes the website name: for example the title of this page is “What’s behind WordPress comment spam? | Waking up in Geelong”. However there is one even more obvious bug in a piece of spamming software, which is seen when URLs redirect to another page instead of displaying an article. An example of this failure can be seen in the comment posted on my article <a href="http://wongm.com/2011/03/mtr-east-rail-line-an-intro/" target="_blank">MTR East Rail Line: an intro</a>: originally located at this domain, it was moved to my Hong Kong-focused website Checkerboard Hill a few months ago. Due to the use of a HTTP 301 redirect I created to allow visitors to find the article at the new address, the software spammer has been tricked by the page title, believing the page is titled “301 Moved Permanently”. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/6110454113/" title="Failed comment spam: the page title is '301 Moved Permanently' by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> Despite these glitches, I would assume spammers aren’t particularly concerned about the bugs in their software, because as long as their deluge of useless comments continues to flood the web and search engines continue to be tricked, they are achieving their goal. Further reading <ul> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_in_blogs" target="_blank">Spam in blogs</a>: an introduction to the comment spam at Wikipedia.</li> </ul> Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2011/09/wordpress-comment-spam-software/">Who’s behind WordPress comment spam?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> <article> <h1>How many Facebook apps do you block?</h1> Marcus Wong — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:00:43 +0000 Today I was reading an article in PC Magazine titled “<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389102,00.asp" target="_blank">50 Percent Will Abandon Facebook for Google+, Poll Finds</a>” and one quote resonated with me: <blockquote>Seriously, Facebook was already on my bad side. One word: appspam. If the only way there is for me to cut off all the FrontierVille and CityVille and all those other things that are clogging up my wall is to turn off all apps, it’s a flawed model—the same flawed formula that made MySpace into the laughing stock of the social networking world</blockquote> In order to keep my news feed clean, blocking Facebook apps has been an endless struggle: as soon as a notification from a new app shows up in my news feed, it gets added to be banlist. So how big has my list become? That’s 270 apps all up – do you want to know what they are? <ol> <li>МойКалендарь</li> <li>(Lil) Farm Life</li> <li>21 questions</li> <li>@Drinks</li> <li>@Hearts</li> <li>@Hugs</li> <li>@Kisses</li> <li>@Smiles</li> <li>Airline Manager</li> <li>Airport Madness</li> <li>Airport Madness 2</li> <li>Angry Birds Seasons</li> <li>Anita predictions</li> <li>AppBank</li> <li>App Builder</li> <li>A SPECIAL TREAT FOR YOU MY FRIEND</li> <li>Astrology</li> <li>Astrology</li> <li>Backyard Monsters</li> <li>Baking Life</li> <li>Battle Pirates</li> <li>Bejeweled Blitz</li> <li>Best Android Downloads</li> <li>Birthday Cards</li> <li>Bite Me</li> <li>BRAAAINS</li> <li>Bubble Island</li> <li>Bubble Paradise</li> <li>Bubble Popp</li> <li>Bubble Saga</li> <li>BuddyPoke</li> <li>Café World</li> <li>Car Town</li> <li>Casino City</li> <li>Castle Age</li> <li>Causes</li> <li>Celebrate</li> <li>Chocobo’s Crystal Tower</li> <li>City Life</li> <li>City of Wonder</li> <li>CityVille</li> <li>Classic Word Games</li> <li>Cleopatra’s Pyramid</li> <li>click</li> <li>Click Click</li> <li>Click Thing</li> <li>Collect Hearts</li> <li>Cooking Mama</li> <li>Country Life</li> <li>Crash Pollito</li> <li>Create My App</li> <li>CSI: Crime City</li> <li>Daily Horoscope</li> <li>Daily Horoscope</li> <li>Data Worm</li> <li>Desktop Defender</li> <li>Diamond Dash</li> <li>Doomsday Defense: Towers vs Monsters, PvE, PvP</li> <li>Dots II</li> <li>DoubleDown Casino</li> <li>Dragon Age Legends</li> <li>Draw My Thing</li> <li>Dream World</li> <li>Drinks On Me</li> <li>eBay Mobile</li> <li>Empires & Allies</li> <li>Family Feud</li> <li>Family Tree</li> <li>Fantasy Kingdoms</li> <li>FARKLE</li> <li>Farkle 2</li> <li>Farm Country</li> <li>Farm Town</li> <li>FarmVille</li> <li>Fashion Wars</li> <li>FishHunt</li> <li>FishVille</li> <li>Fish World</li> <li>Flutter</li> <li>Forever Friends</li> <li>Fortune Cookie</li> <li>Fortune Products</li> <li>Fortune Wheel</li> <li>Friend Hug</li> <li>Friend of the Day</li> <li>Friends For Sale!</li> <li>FrontierVille</li> <li>FrontierVille Community</li> <li>Galaxy 2.0 – Best Sci-Fi Strategy Game, 2011</li> <li>Games</li> <li>Games</li> <li>Gardens of Time</li> <li>Get Revealed</li> <li>Gift Creator</li> <li>Give Hearts</li> <li>Go The Socceroos</li> <li>GrouPong Game</li> <li>Happy Aquarium</li> <li>Happy Harvest</li> <li>Happy Island</li> <li>Happy Pets</li> <li>Hello Adventure!</li> <li>Hooves of Fire – Horse Racing Game</li> <li>Horoscopes</li> <li>Horoscopes</li> <li>Hotel City</li> <li>How in Love are you?</li> <li>How innocent are u?</li> <li>How many people secretly want you?</li> <li>How naughty are you ?</li> <li>How Sincere Is Your Love ?</li> <li>HTC Share & Win</li> <li>Hugged</li> <li>iHearts</li> <li>Island Paradise</li> <li>Jelli</li> <li>Just Style</li> <li>Karma</li> <li>Kingdoms of Camelot</li> <li>Kisses</li> <li>Likeness</li> <li>Little Rock Pool</li> <li>Lollipop</li> <li>Lords Online</li> <li>Love Percentage [Daily]</li> <li>Love Quotes Daily</li> <li>Lover of the day</li> <li>Love Zodiac Profile</li> <li>Lucky Train</li> <li>Mafia Wars</li> <li>Mahjongg Dimensions Blast</li> <li>Mahjong Trails</li> <li>Mahjong Zen</li> <li>Make Your Jersey</li> <li>Maya Pyramid</li> <li>Melt Your Photograph</li> <li>Me to You Bear – Gifts</li> <li>Might and Magic: Heroes Battles</li> <li>Millionaire City</li> <li>MindJolt Games</li> <li>Miner Speed</li> <li>Mobsters 2: Vendetta</li> <li>Mob Wars</li> <li>Monopoly Millionaires</li> <li>Monster Galaxy</li> <li>Monster Hero</li> <li>Mood Detector</li> <li>Movie List Challenges</li> <li>Movies</li> <li>MyCalendar</li> <li>My Casino</li> <li>My Christmas Tree</li> <li>My City</li> <li>My City Life</li> <li>My Daily Fortune</li> <li>My Empire</li> <li>My Friend Secrets</li> <li>My Kitten</li> <li>My Photos</li> <li>My Shops</li> <li>Mystery Manor</li> <li>My Super Fans</li> <li>My Vineyard</li> <li>My Zoo</li> <li>Name Meaning</li> <li>Neosaurs</li> <li>Nightclub City</li> <li>Ninja Saga</li> <li>Nuzzle Puzzle</li> <li>Ocean Party</li> <li>PAC-MAN</li> <li>Paradise Life</li> <li>Penguin Toss</li> <li>PetVille</li> <li>Pillow Fight</li> <li>Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!</li> <li>PlayStation®Network</li> <li>Plumet 2</li> <li>Pocket God</li> <li>Pool Club</li> <li>Pool Live Tour</li> <li>Pool Master</li> <li>Postman</li> <li>Pot Farm</li> <li>Pub Life</li> <li>Puzzled Hearts</li> <li>Quizazz</li> <li>QuizBone</li> <li>Quiz Creator</li> <li>Quiz Monster</li> <li>Quiz Planet</li> <li>Quiztacular</li> <li>Quiz Whiz</li> <li>Quizzing</li> <li>Railroad Empire</li> <li>Resort World</li> <li>Restaurant City</li> <li>Robot Unicorn Attack</li> <li>Roller Coaster Kingdom</li> <li>Rummikub®</li> <li>School of Wizardry</li> <li>SCRABBLE® Worldwide (excluding U.S. and Canada)</li> <li>Scramble</li> <li>Sell or no Sell</li> <li>Send Care Bears</li> <li>Send Flowers</li> <li>Send Flowers</li> <li>Slotomania – Slot Machines</li> <li>Smiles</li> <li>Social City</li> <li>Sorority Life</li> <li>Special Drinks</li> <li>Speed Racing</li> <li>SPP Ranch!</li> <li>Street Racing</li> <li>Superhero City</li> <li>SuperPoke! Pets</li> <li>Super Slot Machines</li> <li>Talking Tom 2</li> <li>Tetris Battle</li> <li>Texas HoldEm Poker</li> <li>The Inside of your Brain is …..</li> <li>The Mood Weather Report</li> <li>Toilet Paper Roll</li> <li>Top Friends of mine(ENHANCED)</li> <li>Top Loves</li> <li>TrainCity</li> <li>Treasure Isle</li> <li>Treasure Legend</li> <li>Treasure Madness</li> <li>Tribute Balloon</li> <li>UNO</li> <li>Vampire Wars</li> <li>Virtual City</li> <li>Voyage To Vermont</li> <li>What are You Like most?</li> <li>What Color Of Flower Are You?</li> <li>What does your day of birth say about you?</li> <li>What do people first notice about you?</li> <li>WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE MOST?</li> <li>What is your Birthflower?</li> <li>What is your mood right now?</li> <li>What is your true personality?</li> <li>What Kind of Hot Are You?</li> <li>What look should you go for today?(girls only)</li> <li>What should you be thinking about right now?</li> <li>What will you be doing in the next 24 hours?</li> <li>what would you do in 10 years</li> <li>What Your Name Means</li> <li>Which friends was born to strip ?</li> <li>Who Will Be Forever By Your Side?</li> <li>Who Will Win The Top FRIEND Cup?(Enhanced App)</li> <li>Wildlife Refuge</li> <li>Wild West Express</li> <li>Will you find true Love?</li> <li>WonderHill Harmony Mahjong</li> <li>WonderHill Three Hills Solitaire</li> <li>Word Search</li> <li>Word Twist</li> <li>World at War</li> <li>World Conquest</li> <li>World War</li> <li>Your Chinese Zodiac Profile</li> <li>Your Luck [daily]</li> <li>YouTube</li> <li>YoVille</li> <li>Zombie Farm</li> <li>Zombie Mosh</li> <li>Zoo World</li> <li>Zuma Blitz</li> </ol> Sheesh! Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2011/07/how-many-facebook-apps-do-you-block/">How many Facebook apps do you block?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> <article> <h1>South Pacific Health Clubs are corporate litterbugs</h1> Marcus Wong — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:00:35 +0000 Two weeks ago I noticed the following advertising junk for “South Pacific Health Clubs” while on my way to work in the Melbourne CBD. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5576686472/" title="South Pacific Health Clubs spamming the real world by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> As I continued on, this isolated sticker had turned into an orange brick road of sorts. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5576686576/" title="South Pacific Health Clubs stickers all along a building by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> As I got closer to their gym I found even more of their rubbish littering the street. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5576101635/" title="Pole covered in South Pacific Health Clubs advertising by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> By the time I reached the corner of Bourke and William Streets I discovered they had even put stickers on the footpath. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5576101709/" title="More unauthorised South Pacific Health Clubs advertising, this time on the footpath by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5576101809/" title="And still more unauthorised South Pacific Health Clubs advertising by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> The stickers had all been removed a few days later, but my photos of them are now among the <a href="http://www.google.com.au/images?q=South+Pacific+Health+Clubs">top Google Image Search hits for “South Pacific Health Clubs”</a>. I wonder how high this page will rank in Google when searching for “South Pacific Health Clubs”? Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2011/04/south-pacific-health-clubs-are-corporate-litterbugs/">South Pacific Health Clubs are corporate litterbugs</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> <article> <h1>Victorian Government propaganda (It’s part of the plan)</h1> Marcus Wong — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 05:30:27 +0000 If you have lived in Victoria anytime over the past two years, this cloud motif should be very familiar to you. The Victorian Transport Plan <a href="http://www4.transport.vic.gov.au/vtp/pdfs/vtp.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">(9.5mb .PDF file)</a> was launched by the state Labor government under John Brumby in December 2008, and included $38 billion of promises for new transport projects – the majority of which were unfunded. Government transport plans come and go, with this one killed off in January 2011 by the incoming Liberal government headed by Ted Baillieu. At least for the VTP, the taxpayer funded propaganda blitz used to promote the plan will be remembered for some years. In the two years of the plan being in place, $6.6 million of taxpayer money was spent advertising the plan: across television, radio, newspaper, online, and outdoor billboards. Advertising even appeared on the new trains themselves – “Our 100th VLocity carriage” (December 2009) Additional propaganda also appeared all over the railway network, promoting what the government was currently up to. Regional Rail Link was one of the first big projects to start, and actually got Federal Government funding due to the supposed “shovel ready” nature. In August 2009 fences all around Southern Cross Station were covered with banners spruiking “Victoria’s newest railway line starts here”, ready for the politicians to turn up for a sod turning. “A new railway station for Coolaroo” wasn’t a VTP project, but one already underway when the plan was launched. By January 2010 the banners were looking tatty as construction work dragged on, after it was discovered contractors had built the platforms too low. The station didn’t open until June 2010. Construction of the station should have been part of the Craigieburn Electrification Project (completed in 2007) but was bumped for cost reasons. This decision backfired, due to the increased costs of attempting to build something in the middle of an operating suburban railway! Also in January 2010, “The Footscray Renewal is taking shape” with a new footbridge at Footscray railway station. The bridge was opened to pedestrians by July 2010, but the finishing touches were still being carried out to the station forecourt during March 2011. Despite the amount of time taken, the poorly designed roof can’t keep out rain, and due to a lack of future planning, the northern end of the bridge will need to be rebuilt when the new Regional Rail Link platforms are built at the station. “Returning services to Maryborough” might have been something to plaster onto the side of a VLocity, but the $50 million spent on it only bought one return train service per day. The first train ran in July 2010, with only 558 passengers using the train in the first week, or 40 per service. The pork barrelling was bad enough, but the crippling of track capacity on the Ballarat – Maryborough route is the real crime, delaying rail freight services that can actually make money. At least the Labor member Joe Helper retained the local seat of Ripon… Electrification to Sunbury is another idea that has been around for years, only to be dusted off and slipped into the pages of the Victorian Transport Plan. At least this time funds were actually allocated to complete the project, work started in early 2010 with a total cost of $270 million. By June 2010 the amount of advertising kicked up another notch, with the leadup to the state election in November. This billboard at Southern Cross Station is conveniently placed to remind commuters that “More trains, more services” are on the way, and which political party is doing it. As well as the billboards all over the network, advertisements like this one screened on local TV. This advert is from March 2010 – in the 10 months from December 2008 VTP advertisements had screened 2182 times on Melbourne’s commercial TV channels – or 7 times a day. The song featured in the TV commercials is the 2007 track We Get Around by Sydney hip hop artist Tim Levinson, who performs under the name “Urthboy”. At least living up north he never had to suffer through the advertisements! The song was licensed for use in the adverts, without any restrictions on how it would be used in the marketing companions track. In January 2010 <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/state-transport-ads-bill-55m-20100104-lq5z.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">he said to The Age</a>: <blockquote>I believe in the public transport system and am happy to have my music associated with its promotion, but I don’t want my music to be associated with a propaganda campaign.</blockquote> Unfortunately propaganda is what he is associated with. Senior writer from The Age, John Watson, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/empty-messages-all-part-of-the-states-notsogrand-plan-20090224-8gs6.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote an article</a> about the government propaganda, and described the large billboard at Southern Cross as follows: <blockquote>For such a big advertisement, the content is minimal — two sentences against a lightly clouded blue sky. The visual meaning? Your guess is as good as mine.</blockquote> <blockquote>Our Government is obviously altogether more benign, but surely something is rotten in the state of Victoria when it produces Stalinist-style propaganda without a shred of irony, humour or even clear acknowledgement of the depth of a problem — aside from the choice of subject itself.</blockquote> The advertising Watson saw might have had minimal content, but this piece of directional signage at Footscray won’t go down without a fight. <a href="https://railgallery.wongm.com/promotions-and-advertising/E108_8318.jpg.html"></a> I’m glad to know that it is “Authorised and published by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne”. <a href="https://railgallery.wongm.com/promotions-and-advertising/E108_8319.jpg.html"></a> I hope I am not the only one seeing subliminal messages up in the clouds. Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2011/03/victorian-government-propaganda-its-part-of-the-plan/">Victorian Government propaganda (It’s part of the plan)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> <article> <h1>Comment spammer wanting help fighting comment spam</h1> Marcus Wong — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 01:00:46 +0000 I found this in my Akismet spam bin the other day. <a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/5467375049_9f60fbc8bf_o.png" title="Comment spammer wanting help fighting comment spamming by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> They write: <blockquote>Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was curious about your situation; we have developed some nice methods and we are looking to trade strategies with others, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.</blockquote> The purpose of their comment is to slip in a link to their website: an online store selling acne cream. Searching Google for that comment gives me the a few hundred other blogs overrun by the exact same comment spam. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/legoblock/5467383315/" title="Comment spam fun by legoblock, on Flickr"></a> For goodness sake people: <a href="http://akismet.com/" target="_blank">Akismet</a> is free for personal use, and kills spam dead. In the past 60 days I have had 1,832 spam comments blocked from my blog, with a 99.68% accuracy rate – these days there is no reason for seeing spam on your blog. So how do you cope with comment spam? Post in the comments! Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2011/02/comment-spammer-wanting-help-fighting-comment-spamming/">Comment spammer wanting help fighting comment spam</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> <article> <h1>A new type of website appearing like a rash</h1> Marcus Wong — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:34:37 +0000 Over the past few weeks I have noticed the emergence new entries in my Facebook news feed, consisting of “[Person] likes [inane phrase here]” and a link to websites I had never head of. When I clicked through the link, you end up at a page with just [inane phrase here] on it, a Facebook ‘like’ button, and advertising (the last bit is a lie – most advertising is turned off in my web browser). It appears that new type of website has emerged, that work like this: 1. Allow a user to enter a random string of text. 2. Put that piece of text into a webpage, and give it a unique URL. 3. Allow user to ‘like’ the piece of inane rambling on Facebook. 4. ??? 5. Profit! Examples of these websites include http://fblike.net/, http://www.fblike.com/, http://mylike.co.uk/superlike/, http://chelick.net. They seem to have cropped up in the past few weeks since Facebook enabled third party websites to place “Like” buttons on their sites, a feature from April 2010. Does anyone know what this new genre websites should be called? Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using The post <a href="https://wongm.com/2010/06/a-new-type-of-website-appearing-like-a-rash/">A new type of website appearing like a rash</a> appeared first on <a href="https://wongm.com">Waking up in Geelong</a>. </article> </main></body></html>