I have personally read and deleted slightly under 16o,000 spam comments since this blog launched in October, 2009. Spammers are ethically on par with vandals and the creators of computer viruses, and my contempt and disgust for them knows no bounds.
Here, from a commenter named “Limousine Hire” is the spam of the week, the best of the garbage I have to read to make sure your legitimate comments, which make Ethics Alarms what it is, aren’t thrown out with the bathwater:
“I liked up to you will receive performed right here. The comic strip is tasteful, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an edginess over that you want be handing over the following. sick without a doubt come more previously once more as precisely the similar just about a lot steadily inside case you defend this increase.”
Now who can argue with THAT?
Ethics Alarms 
Wow
Just… Wow. Not to sound racist, but dollars to doughnuts it’s a Chinese peasant getting 50 cents a post.
Then he is well paid, because that isn’t worth 50 cents.
Maybe he could make more as an editor for Crystal Cox.
Don’t get it? Check out Popehat.
Chase,
I’ll take that bet and raise it significantly. It’s machine generated text attempting to beat the SPAM filters. It may be amusing to you but ultimately it is machine vs. machine. There’s no Chinese involved.
It could be a Chinese machine, though…
And Zimmerman could have shot Trayvon because he was black. But I don’t think that statement would be written here by you.
There is nothing distinctive about that message that points to China (other than an IP address of origin but that wasn’t shared).
Ignorance assumes that the author was ESL. When in fact, it was a calculated effort to defeat a spam filter. These work by looking for groups and sequences of words. This was just a test to see what could and/or couldn’t get through.
That was a joke, as I think ALMOST anyone could discern easily.
The original comment referencing China was also less than serious, as I read it, since it appeared to refer to the mangled English, which anyone reading instructions translated from Chines or Japanese into pseudo-English would recognize. And having to write pointless spam messages wouldn’t be worse than a lot of the demeaning and horrible jobs American companies pay foreign workers to do. OK, the message was generated by a computer—that was my assumption. So what are you all indignant about? Here’s another:
“Unquestionably consider that that you said. Your favorite justification appeared to be at the net the simplest thing to take note of. I say to you, I certainly get irked while other people think about worries that they just do not recognise about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , folks could take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thank you”
I suspect that it came from Croatia.
Joke. Got it now. Sarcasm and humor is often difficult to read in the context of HTML. Ha, ha.
Indignant? I’m just following the lead on this blog. Chase’s original comment that prefaced with “not to sound racist” was just an introduction for something bad to come after it. I was trying to educate about how SPAM is generated and filters work. The fact that we still have emails citing Nigerian families and wiring money in exchange for millions of dollars is proof that many people still don’t get it.
Well, some of it is true: “your authored material [is] stylish” is something I can agree with, as well as “sick without a doubt”, with “sick” in the current vernacular meaning “bad” as in “good”. I liked up to you, too.
ILUTYT is now a part of my *acronym* database. Hilarious.
Nice catch. I’ll use that one too.
I’ve got some indecipherable messages like that too, Jack. The question remains as to whether they are foreign based, written by someone in kindergarten or by an adult who’s still trapped in his parents’ basement.
Jack: Double check your base. There is a distinct possibility that all of it are belong to him.
–Dwayne
Further, the spam-bots are likely in his base, killing his editors.
(For the uninitiated, these are video-game memes.)
For those not familiar with “All your base are belong to us”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
I’d comment on this, but I’m in the middle of some calibrations.
(At least nobody’s trying to assume direct control of this blog, eh?).
I tried to take control of the blog, but I took an arrow to the knee. I never asked for this. T.T
I feel your pain. Hopefully you can relate to my letter of complaint to the darling spammers of which you speak… 🙂 http://jessseeker.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/dearest-spammer-what-can-i-say/
She says as she spams us. lol.
Yes, but with style. 😉
Which is why I let it through, Jess. You owe me.
Can I interest you in some herbal weight-loss supplements? 😉
rofl! you probably could.
As long as you’re not hawking Outdoor Adventure clothing! I have to periodically cleanse my blogsite of their lengthy instrusions.,