[LINK] Spam via Blog Insecurity and Google Alerts?

Tom Worthington Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Mon Oct 16 17:12:52 AEST 2006


At 03:38 PM 10/16/2006, Roger Clarke wrote:
>... I have a couple of Google Alerts set, including one on 
>'Australia Card'. I received a notification this afternoon whose 
>body read:    <ORDER XANAX, 2 mg xanax, cheap xanax online> ...
>Do we have a new form of indirect spamming scam? ...

Looks like a byproduct of blog spam, as per Wikipedia 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_spam>:

"Spam in blogs (also called simply blog spam or comment spam) is a 
form of spamdexing. It is done by automatically posting random 
comments, promoting commercial services, to blogs, wikis, guestbooks, 
or other publicly-accessible online discussion boards. Any web 
application that accepts and displays hyperlinks submitted by 
visitors may be a target. ..."

Online forums can combat this by requiring people to register before 
posting and requiring the user to enter a password displayed as an image.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml  




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