Hello everybody

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

What? Maybe I'm just tired but I don't know where you got that.

I got it from here.

Originally Posted by Karibou

RE: Mark's find...my mind is exploding. Are bots really getting that smart, rotating phrases (and punctuation marks!) between posts to evade death by simple Google-search?

It was loosely based, and I'm usually too lazy to direct quote.

[MrForbes]

How many Alan Turings does it take to spot a spambot?

[RoboDesigners]

Originally Posted by squirrel

How many Alan Turings does it take to spot a spambot?

Too many...

I think it would be interesting to see how this spambot continues its posts... Will it always be benign, just filling server space, or will it turn evil and start advertising?

[windtakers]

why would anyone make a bot on this site it seems pointless

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by windtakers

why would anyone make a bot on this site it seems pointless

Sadly this bot uses better punctuation and capitalization than many on this site.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by squirrel

How many Alan Turings does it take to spot a spambot?

All of them

It may be a human masquerading as a bot. Perhaps the purpose is to find easily-posted-to fora, as targets for some future spam?

[Molten]

I've actually found it interesting to read the spam posted on this site as it evolves. There have been multiple times a bot has made me think about the thread in a way I hadn't before. Once I saw a bot make a reference to recording music in a thread about winning a record. It was completely unrelated, but it actually made sense in an analogy sort of way. Perhaps in the future we should read posts made by bots and think about what they say before immediately reporting it. Yes, we should report it too. But in the meantime it can make us think.

Jason

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Molten

I've actually found it interesting to read the spam posted on this site as it evolves. There have been multiple times a bot has made me think about the thread in a way I hadn't before. Once I saw a bot make a reference to recording music in a thread about winning a record. It was completely unrelated, but it actually made sense in an analogy sort of way. Perhaps in the future we should read posts made by bots and think about what they say before immediately reporting it. Yes, we should report it too. But in the meantime it can make us think.

Jason

My favorite one was a spambot that copied an intelligently worded, deeply technical question posted years ago. Despite the links in its signature, I was quite impressed with the spambot's knowledge of the IFI control system. It was even in the right forum!

Some related spambot humor

[Duke461]

Its definitely a bot. found the exact same wording and username:
http://greenstems.org/2011/07/hello-everybody/

By the way, has anyone reported this yet?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Molten

I've actually found it interesting to read the spam posted on this site as it evolves. There have been multiple times a bot has made me think about the thread in a way I hadn't before. Once I saw a bot make a reference to recording music in a thread about winning a record. It was completely unrelated, but it actually made sense in an analogy sort of way. Perhaps in the future we should read posts made by bots and think about what they say before immediately reporting it. Yes, we should report it too. But in the meantime it can make us think.

Jason

They've become self-aware.

Darn you Skynet...

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Duke461

Its definitely a bot. found the exact same wording and username:
http://greenstems.org/2011/07/hello-everybody/

By the way, has anyone reported this yet?

At this point, is it spam or a conversation starter? Is it possible to be both? If it is both, is it really proper to delete the spam? Just alot of questions involved with this sort of situation. I'll be interested to see how this situation is dealt with.

Jason

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

They've become self-aware.

Darn you Skynet...

Originally Posted by Molten

At this point, is it spam or a conversation starter? Is it possible to be both? If it is both, is it really proper to delete the spam? Just alot of questions involved with this sort of situation. I'll be interested to see how this situation is dealt with.

Jason

And now they're questioning their own messages! :O

[Mark McLeod]

p.s.

Originally Posted by Duke461

Its definitely a bot. found the exact same wording and username:
http://greenstems.org/2011/07/hello-everybody/

Circular logic. Your link is actually this OP post, not a different spambot post. Kara earlier dismissed the post you found. Look at it more closely...

By the way, has anyone reported this yet?

It's now responsible for a respectable thread.

To the people who are saying report this, it's technically not doing anything bad. It posted one harmless, and somewhat nice post, and since then we've been talking for 2 whole pages over one comment. Unless it posts again (which I want it too), and that post is obviously spam, then we should let it be.

[Madison]

The site has measures in place to question/verify whether an account is spam or real. By ignoring this message, it undermines some of those measures and could lead to a flood of spam later.

The account has been banned. Y'all might enjoy spending your free time deleting spam, but I have other hobbies