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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Your Brief Career as a Spammer, or, Fixed!

posted by on July 18 at 17:17 PM

Oh, hi.

So sorry for all the trouble everyone’s been having with our misbehaving spam filter. It should be fixed now. Is it? Can you comment? CAN YOU?!?!?

The comments that were caught are available, and I’ve considered releasing them from their spammy imprisonment, but at this point most of them are some variation on, “Hey! My comments are being filtered! WTF?” so perhaps not. Please do post your thoughts again.

In case you care, an explanation:
Because we love you, we’ve been trying to speed up the comment-posting process (so slow!). Our research led us to discover that one of the public spammer blacklist operations that our blogging software checks is no longer in service, resulting in a long wait and a time-out when our system tries to check if you guys are no-good spammers. SO, on the advice of SixApart, we removed that server and replaced it with Spamhaus, a well-regarded blacklist service. As it turns out, Spamhaus is not so fond of quite a wide range of Comcast IP blocks, so suddenly a lot of you were on the no-fly list. See how that didn’t work?

ANYWAY, we took that server out of the loop and things should be settling down. Rest assured that this minor fiasco was because we were trying to help you out, not t’other way ‘round.

Phew.

RSS icon Comments

1

I was wondering what was wrong with my complimentary comment about you that I tried posting repeatedly!

Posted by Explorer | July 18, 2007 5:26 PM
2

So, does that mean we can now tell you about your rich uncle in Zimbabwe dying and how you inherited $50,624,000?

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 18, 2007 5:28 PM
3

Dear Sir/Madam,

How are you doing? I would be very interested in offering you a part-time
pays venture in which you could earn a lot. I am Dr. Kay Molly and I am 57
years of age.

I just resigned my job as a scientific researcher at Asia Agricultural
research Institute in Malaysia and I now work as a freelance consultant
for the institute which positively grants me a lot precious time to do my
personal work which is mainly being a freelance researcher who could be
employed by research institutes to do research projects anywhere in the
globe.

Currently, I have just been granted a funding to head a research project
in the tropical regions of Asia regarding rare and vulnerable plant
species and this would be starting very soon.

This research program will be funded by some of my United State of America
and Canada counterparts and Associates. But the only set back is that my
associate wants to make payments for the research in form of a Cashier
Checks and Money Orders only to any of the USA and Canada.

Opening an account would have been my best decision but I have a deadline
to meet and taking any of those decisions would cost me time and a whole
lot of other essential requirements which I am not ready to deal with.

This is where I need to employ your valuable support and service.

WHAT I NEED YOU FOR?

At this point, I will be glad if you could work with me as my
representative in above named countries. You will be working as my payment
assistant in charge of accumulating the payments from my Associates.

Since they will be making the donation in checks made payable only to you
in United State and Canada, you will be obtaining this payment and cashing
them on my behalf. On agreement to been my representative, you will
receive a commission of 10% of whatever amount of payment you receive from
my associates.

OFFER DESCRIPTION?

1. Receive payments from my clients/associates through bank transfers
into your bank account. or in form of money orders/checks from my
associates via mail(UPS/FEDEX/DHL).
2. Cash the payments at your Bank.
3. Deduct 10% which will be your commission/percentage on payment processed.
4. You are to remit the balance via Money Gram or Western Union Money
Transfer according to my in depth mandate.

HOW MUCH WILL YOU EARN?

10% from each transaction! For instance: On receiving USD $100,000 on my
behalf, you will cash the payment and keep 10% to yourself before
remitting the balance! At the beginning your commission will equal 10%,
though later it will increase up to 15%!

ADVANTAGES

You don't have to go out of your present daily activity in order to engage
in this Job(i.e. You can do this Work easily without leaving or affecting
your present Job).You will work as an independent contractor right from
your home /office. Your permanent occupation is absolutely legal. You do
not need any capital to start (none of your personal funds is needed).

REQUIREMENTS

i) 18 years or older.
ii) Legally capable.
iii) Responsible, Reliable and Trustworthy.
iv) Ready to work 3-4 hours per week.
v) Able to check and acknowledge to emails often.
vi) Easy telephone access.

I hope all is well understood. I would be glad if you accept my proposal
and I propose to commence as soon as you are ready. Please, to facilitate
the conclusion of this transaction if accepted, do send promptly by e-mail
the following details below.

To show your interest in this pending project, i will like you to furnish
all this information before we can commence on this pending projects.

NAME:
FULL CONTACT ADDRESS:
PHONE NUMBER:
AGE:
SEX:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:

Once this information has been derived from you, it would be forwarded to
my associates so they could commence the bank transfer to you.

Regards,
Dr. Kay Molly
+44-704-572-7961

Posted by Dr. Kay Molly | July 18, 2007 5:42 PM
4

Hehe, yay! Thanks kids!

Posted by monkey | July 18, 2007 5:47 PM
5

Does this mean the comments feature will go faster now (my way of testing)?

Posted by Sam | July 18, 2007 5:52 PM
6

nope :(

Posted by Sam | July 18, 2007 5:53 PM
7

Anthony:

Any chance that since you're using these services, you could reconsider the more-than-two-links-per-comment = spam heuristic?

Posted by Phil M | July 18, 2007 6:01 PM
8

Digi wigi whatchamaha?

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 18, 2007 6:43 PM
9

"not t'other way 'round"

so british!

Posted by Cook | July 18, 2007 6:45 PM
10

lol dr. kay is my new hero.

Posted by seattle98104 | July 18, 2007 6:47 PM
11

Interesting....guess I have to be "nice" now. But I still think Andy Dick should be fisted without lube after what he did to Phil Hartman!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | July 18, 2007 7:14 PM
12

No need to be nice, Cato. The point is we're NOT increasing our spam thresholds and/or criteria.

Posted by Anthony Hecht | July 18, 2007 8:19 PM
13

DELETED (Spam)

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-pupperty (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Posted by UK NATIONAL LOTTERY | July 18, 2007 8:36 PM
14

Yeah so how about a nice little button marked "spam" that we humans can click on to report it? Eh, eh?

Posted by Anon | July 19, 2007 12:43 AM
15

@13, wot? i already sent @3 $10,000, so i'm soon to be rich. RICH, i say!!

Posted by mmbb | July 19, 2007 1:28 AM
16

This is to test how fast comment posting is now.

Posted by Gabriel | July 19, 2007 1:31 AM
17

Well, it's slightly faster. Still very slow to post.

Posted by Gabriel | July 19, 2007 1:32 AM
18

Ohhh the irony, our office email account received spam from Spamhaus the other day promoting itself. Needless to say, I'm not impressed with the hypocrites.

Posted by MC | July 19, 2007 9:47 AM
19

I wouldn't be surprised if it was an attempt to discredit Spamhaus, MC. Spammers have been known to do that.

Posted by Tiffany | July 19, 2007 11:21 AM
20

I JUST WANTED TO POST A LOLCAT ON ADRIAN'S HARRY POTTER POST. That spam filter ruined my yesterday.

Posted by Callie | July 19, 2007 3:52 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).