wherein Liz is confounded by the [lack of] logic spammers employ to determine their targets

[edenfalling]

Generally, I have been very lucky in my interactions with the internet. I have never had a computer disabled by malware or viruses, I have almost never been flamed or received truly offensive reviews, and my email accounts get relatively little spam (all of which, thus far, has been immediately identifiable as spam). I suspect this makes me react more strongly to minor incidents than other people might, since I don't have a thick skin developed via painful personal experience.

Which preface is by way of leading up to a complaint about the internet, obviously enough. *wry*

Over the past two weeks spammers have taken to attacking one of my old LJ entries with one to five comments per day. I've been tagging them as spam and deleting them as soon as I see the notifications, but they keep coming -- sometimes in English, sometimes in Russian, and sometimes in complete and utter gibberish.

I have no idea what makes that post so attractive. I mean, it's from freaking September 2005, and it's not even fanfiction or proper meta. It's just me blathering about writing -- mostly about "Secrets," a little about "The Way of the Apartment Manager," and, though I didn't realize it at the time, about the first nudge of an idea that would later grow into "Fixation, and Other Stories." There is no reason for the entry to be linked anywhere and no reason for anyone to ever discover it in the depths of the internet.

I have received three spam comments on my master fic stickypost over the same period, but those are explicable and expected; it's the first post on my journal and therefore an obvious target. This other post, though... I got nothing.

Spammers baffle me.

Comments

[branchandroot]

It's because they're spambots optimized for blogs. On blogs, older entries are often better targets, because some platforms stop comment notifications after X weeks (totally different mindset than journals). And sometimes, once a few comments are accepted, the spam software considers that source 'trusted'.

I have one or two entries that seem to be spam-magnets, too, all very old in internet-time. I think they're selected by some combination of age and keywords. Just keep marking them as spam, and hopefully the bot's available ISPs will eventually all get blacklisted.

[edenfalling]

On blogs, older entries are often better targets, because some platforms stop comment notifications after X weeks (totally different mindset than journals).

That is indeed a strange and peculiar mindset, to my way of thinking. :-)

This entry is slightly over six years old -- actually, almost exactly six years and two weeks, come to think of it. That is suspicious timing. I have no idea what keywords the spambot(s) might be using, though. *sigh* I will just keep on deleting the comments until (please, please, please) they either run out of unbanned ISPs or write me off as a bad target.

[doire]

It might be that that entry scores relatively highly in searches so getting their spam links on that page is a good (from the spammers viewpoint) thing. My main journal is set to not be searched and I've only had 2 spam comments, one of the others is and it gets lots. I ignore them until the 1/4ly purge because it's a journal not an interactive space.

[edenfalling]

I'm not sure why that post would be indexed for search, though -- it's not a story, so there's no reason for anyone to have linked to it, and it doesn't contain any links itself.

I clear them out because I am the kind of person who cleans my email and lj inboxes regularly -- I delete almost everything as soon as I've read and/or responded to it, and what I don't delete I move to other folders so as to remain vaguely organized -- so if I didn't kill the spam comments right away, I would lose any information telling me where they are. Unless I made a folder of spam notifications, but that would just itch at the back of my mind until I dealt with it, and the last thing I need is more self-inflicted aggravation in my life. *wry*

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I've gotten those, too, though not recently. and there are a couple of posts that seem to attract them, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's all so weird.

[edenfalling]

I'm hoping it's a temporary thing, but it's been two weeks and I am getting so sick of seeing spam in my inbox every single morning. :-( I would be less annoyed if the post was something that other people were likely to see -- that would at least make some sense -- but with this post, it's like all the spammers are trying to do is drive me to distraction, because I'm the only person who's ever going to see their comments. *tears hair in frustration*

[fateofshadow.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I got between 4-6 of them a day at one point, deleted them all but I've not had any since *touch wood*. They were for random posts and, let's face it, I'm a pretty random person to spam. At least you post all the time and get a good number of comments, I have no idea how they were able to fish my account from the dark recesses of the seldom trodden interwebs.

Here's hoping your spam problems go away too, hun. ^^;

[edenfalling]

Branchandroot over on Dreamwidth suggests that the issue is spambots geared toward blogging sites instead of journal sites, since apparently some blogging platforms stop sending comment notifications on older entries, which means the spam goes undiscovered and remains visible to anyone who happens to stumble past it.

The internet is a strange and random place!