The vultures of the web
Just as vultures can detect the faint scent of freshly dead meat from miles away, spammers can sniff out new channels through which they can spew their garbage. Creative people are coming up with innovative new ways to allow people to tap into the social computing space. We can rely on spammers to turn whatever they come up with into a miserable experience.
I already spend an unreasonable amount of time checking the For Immediate Release blog—as well as this one—for trackback spam. I even get comment spam. While the CAPTCHA system I have installed prevents automated comment spam, spammers have hired people to manually input spam into blog comments and trackbacks.
Today, I have learned that spammers have found a new venue: Frappr maps. I was alerted to this new outrage by FIR correspondent Dan York who found his own Frappr map polluted with spam. He also notified Neville and me that our own map was similarly defaced.
Spammers evidently add themselves as members of the Frappr community without pinpointing their location, then leave comments, like this one from “hagly”:
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Each of the drug references is hyperlinked. On April 22 and 23, 10 of these were recorded on our Frappr map. Now we’ll have to spend time cleansing the map as well as the blog.
There’s not really a point to this post. I’m just using the opportunity to vent my frustration with these evil, despicable vermin of the Net. I almost wrote, “I can’t wait to see what they do next,” but I can wait, I really can.
Technorati Tags: spam, comment spam, trackback spam, frappr
12/31/69 | 7 Comments | The vultures of the web