Attack of the Polite Spambots

[snorkackcatcher]

Is anyone else getting random vaguely normal-sounding but irrelevant comments from journals with no friends and no entries? E.g.

"Thanks for an idea, you sparked at thought from a angle I hadn’t given thoguht to yet. Now lets see if I can do something with it."

"Couldnt agree more with that, very attractive article"

"Great read! I wish you could follow up to this topic"

If so, what's the idea behind it?

Comments

[jdbracknell.livejournal.com]

Actually, now you mention it, I had this strange comment yesterday on a fic - something like, 'hoping to get involved. This was very interesting to me'. I just assumed it was someone for whom English was a second language or something. Now I feel a moron for sending a spambot a polite thank you, lol.

[train-lindz.livejournal.com]

I didn't respond but not because I thought it was a spambot... I'm just rude.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, I replied to the first one because it was on a fic post and it sounded reasonable. It was the followups that made me think "hang on ..." :)

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

I've seen those more on WordPress than anywhere. The LJ spam comments I usually see seem to take fragments of comments, including comments from fics. "I love your Snape!" and stuff like that.

[snorkackcatcher]

Bizarre. Hoping for a reply perhaps?

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

I think so. A lot of the time, they have links or something. I don't know the point of the ones that are just text.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, me too. I assume it's spam bots, but there's not link...

[snorkackcatcher]

I wondered if there was a 'web bug' invisible image, but it's not showing up if there is ...

[woldy]

What benefit is there in the spambots doing this?

*bewildered*

[snorkackcatcher]

The only semi-plausible explanation I can think of is that if you reply to what appears to be a genuine comment, you indicate that your journal is a live one that's still being looked at? I suppose that could be useful for better targeted advertising. (Of course, if it's automated it might be to target for other reasons, such as the recent Russian problems.)

[train-lindz.livejournal.com]

I got a odd one a couple of days ago on my Friends Only post -

Beneficial info and excellent design you got here! I want to thank you for sharing your ideas and putting the time into the stuff you publish! Great work!

Which I thought was strange because almost everything I have posted is locked...

It's like someone leaving a note saying "You are beautiful" on a mirror, LJ style. But weirder...

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, it seems to have culled a selection of generic phrases. I suppose that replying indicates that your journal is still being looked at?

[catkind.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. I didn't follow the link back to see but usually it comes back to advertising something in the end.

[snorkackcatcher]

I suppose so, yes ...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I get those comments on Blogger, but I haven't noticed them as much on LJ. (And I think catkind is right that they are trying to get you to click on an advertisement of some sort.)

[snorkackcatcher]

The LJ ones don't seem to have any adverts though, which is what makes them so baffling.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Surely there's got to be an easier way of telling if a journal is active than relying on someone commenting back. Could it be that they're commenting on thousands of journals at the same instant, in order to up traffic as part of that attack on Russian blogs going on? And if it looks like it's a genuine comment, it's harder to catch the spam journals. I really have no idea, but I've had to flock one of my entries because it was getting spammed so much. It's getting really annoying.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, it could be purely a DDOS effort, and the English-language section of LJ is just getting the fringes of it -- although again the easier way is usually a direct attack on the servers. Getting someone to reply to spam is a tried and tested way of identifying real email addresses, though, so it might work for journals too.

[lyras.livejournal.com]

Yep, I've had a rash of them in the past few days. They're irritating, but also they seem so pointless, since most of them don't even have links!

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah -- it makes you wonder what you're missing. :)

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I got the 'fascinating article, sparked many ideas' comment on a 100-word drabble, lol.

[snorkackcatcher]

You mean your drabbles don't usually get that sort of comment? :)

[shiiki.livejournal.com]

I got something like the first one on an artwork post. I didn't check out the journal, though.

[snorkackcatcher]

They seem to be classic spambot type -- no actual posts or anything.