[Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues (original) (raw)

Andrew McNamara andrewm at object-craft.com.au
Thu May 17 07:30:43 CEST 2007

However - once you knock these out, there is still a steady stream of what are clearly human generated spams. The mind boggles at the economics or desperation that make this worthwhile. Actually, it doesn't cost that much, because typically the spammer can trick other humans into doing their work for them. Here's a simple method: Put up a free porn site, with a front page that says "you must be 18 or older to enter". The page also has a captcha to verify that you are a real person. But here's the trick: The captcha is actually a proxy to some other site that the spammer is trying to get access to. When the human enters in the correct word, the spammer's server sends that word to the target site, which result in a successful login/registration. Now that the spammer is in, they can post comments or whatever they need to do.

Yep - I was aware of this trick, but the ones I'm talking about have also got through filling out questionnaires, and whatnot. Certainly the same technique could be used, but my suspicion is that real people are being paid a pittance to sit in front of a PC and spam anything that moves.

-- Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft http://www.object-craft.com.au/

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