Mark Draughn
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This page contains a single entry by Mark Draughn published on April 13, 2011 8:15 AM.
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I hope you will forgive me for going off orthogonally, but a comment to the post of about the TSA molestation of the 6 year old caught my attention.
"Its an informative topic.I am appreciating it very much! Looking forward to another great blog.There’s defiantly a lot of great tips here I’m going to try to be more aware of.I am very enjoyed for this blog."
Of course, the link to the name is to a merchant's website. Given the substance of the post, the spam comment, both the fact that some scumbag posted it as well as the fact that it was allowed and remains, strikes me as evidence that we may have past the point of no return in salvaging any dignity and integrity in our society. The question is no longer whether we chose good or bad, but how bad can we get away with.
"Going off orthogonally""? On my blog? Well, okay Scott, as long as you don't do it more often than 50-60 times a day.
I spotted that comment too. I wonder if the merchant realizes that their SEO guy is linking to them from a page that compares the TSA to child molesters. The comment itself looks completely generic, so I'm guessing somebody's just using a tool to spam blogs that score well for whatever search terms they're using. I don't think the person behind the comment read anything but the CAPTCHA.
As for letting the comment remain, I don't think Jennifer's as committed to blogging as you and I are (she writes well enough that people pay her to do it), so I don't think she polices her comments section very often.
I get four or five such spam comments each day; the fact that you were able to read it suggests it was posted while I was asleep. That's why I have that stupid "must type security code first" comment system; used to be my blog had open comment threads, but I had to stop when I was being slammed by 30 or 40 spambot comments per day.
A while back, I was "honored" to be on some SEO spammer aggregator's list being sold to other spammers, leaving me with 500-1000 per day. I had to go to moderation to stop the bloodletting. I spend the first 15 minutes online blocking IP and email, and then the new crop shows up overnight. It's a lot of work but I refuse to let the terrorists win.
It's the irony of it all that I find overwhelming, the post, the spam, the utter lack of any conscience or thought.
I'm guessing it's some Chinese sweatshop hacker paid at a rate like one penny per hundred comments. The current onslaught has been ongoing for over a month, and all the comments are from one or two different sites. Some of them -- the ones appearing on older comment threads -- actually cut and paste a line or two from my actual blog post, so at first glance -- especially for an old post I don't remember writing -- it looks like a legitimate, on-topic comment about what I wrote, but even then the commenter's name is a tipoff: if it isn't "bag," "clothing" or "sports jerseys," it's various penis-related pharmaceuticals I won't name here for fear Mark's spam filter blocks it.