Comments on: Are spammers dumb, lazy, or incompetent?

By: vlachster

vlachster — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:49:50 +0000

I think “incontinence” is the word for it.

By: Minifigs

Minifigs — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:24:36 +0000

I think one important aspect of spammer’s general suckiness is that once you go down the sockpuppet route you’ve essentially become a scriptwriter, trying to create a realistic dialogue between two distinct characters. Seeing as a large percentage of actual scriptwriters can’t manage this, what are the chances that the average two-bit spammer can?

By: deborah

deborah — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:35:04 +0000

Do we have to pick just one?

By: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:03:12 +0000

I had a friend that used to be paid to do the same thing back in the 90’s. It used to be considered “web marketing.” It was just as lame then as it is now.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:43:38 +0000

A colleague advised me to do exactly this when I asked for tips on promoting my new biz online. She isn’t a “spammer”, just a naive business owner who thinks this is an OK thing to do. Ick, made me cringe.

By: Maxwelton

Maxwelton — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:32:12 +0000

But laziness wouldn’t lead to anything at all showing up, would it? I mean, why bother? It must have taken Josh’s spammer ten or fifteen minutes, really, to do his stupid schlock, and for what? Maybe ten extra cents from some affiliate program? That’s dumb.

At this point I just look at spam and scams as the basic intelligence test of the internet. If you fall for it, you’re probably better off without your money because you just aren’t very bright.

Talking email, last week a burst of stock spam made it through the filters at my ISP. Killer thing is that I got about 100 per hour at just one email address. I can imagine a moron excited he’s just been accidentally slipped a great stock tip if he gets one. But 2400 in a day? Surely even a drooling idiot will maybe, just maybe, get an inkling that maybe he’s being spammed?

Which raises an interesting question in-and-of-itself: will spam and scams ever cease to be effective? I mean, I still get “I’ll send you $10,000 for your $5,000 car, please send me the balance” shit every time I sell a car. That takes at least a bit of effort to find the ad and send me the note, and surely at some point no one will fall for it, making it pointless for people to try.

Maybe I just have too much hope for the intelligence of my fellows.

By: Phire

Phire — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:26:01 +0000

Thirding laziness. Most websites can’t be bothered to really strictly enforce their spammer policies, and spammers know they can get away with a lot of crap.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:46:44 +0000

Definitely laziness. I’ve got an email exploit spammer friend (yeah, yeah, boo hiss) who’s not too lazy to go pick up his pay in cash in Canada, and who really puts in the hours to stay at the top of the game. He’s like a seasoned pickpocket to this guy’s car-handle-checker.

By: danb

danb — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:14:08 +0000

I’ll say laziness. Many blogs and forums (most, perhaps) are not as meticulously moderated as MetaFilter, so minimal track-covering like posting under two accounts is often enough. Any more time spent on it probably isn’t worth the ROI.