Comment Spam - transposed letters in words - 188.143.232.12
Recently, there has been a wave of comment spam that has been affecting this site. Along with the usual gibberish URL spam links, there are also semi-coherent prose entries that appear to be weakly linked to the page topic. These comments are very vague or generalised. Sometimes the spam bot gets the topic completely wrong and will post comments that make no sense, or contradicts itself. Spambots are also getting better at solving CAPTCHAs.
Interestingly, for some unknown reason, there is always one word with transposed letters (between the fist and last letter) within the first or second sentence of the spam comment. In the example spam comments below, I have highlighted such words that exhibit this behaviour.
For example, the sentence "Does the huamn mnid raed wrods as a wlohe?" can be easily read by humans because we mainly focus on the first and last letters of a word. Here's another one:
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Here are some examples (from comments posted by spammers onto other pages of this site), along with the offending IP address:
Francineia (195.225.198.181), Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:57 pm:
From what I understand ..Information Systems study malniy involves studying things like..Data Base, Software design, some form of programing in high level language,Human Computer Interaction, AI etc..Computer Technology will involve studying..Some form of programing in machine level/binary level languages, hardware design, networking, etc..In a nut shell, IS == information storage and retreival methodologies and design.CT == Hardware design aspect and physical computer.At least this is what I fond during my studies and working as a tutor at Uni.. Hopes this helps
Bayle (188.143.232.12), Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:03 pm:
I can't believe I've been going for years wtiohut knowing that.
Bertha (188.143.232.12), Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:00 pm:
Your posintg lays bare the truth
Trevon (188.143.232.12), Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:17 pm:
All of my qusieotns settled-thanks!
Sagar (188.143.232.12), Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:29 pm:
Your post has lfietd the level of debate
Salman (85.172.4.154), Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:01 pm:
That is hilarious. I have seen that bforee in an e-mail but this paragraph is more challenging to read I think. It amazes me that I can read it! I speed read too and was able to read it pretty fast. Cool. TFS.
It seems that spam bots are now quirkier than ever.