14 August, 2010

somewhere up in these hills awaits the darkest chills; can you hear?

Readers, writers, you are welcome to peruse the index of banned words. Sadly, several words I like using are on that list. Even more tragically--for my readers at least--I'm not going to stop using them.

After some small amount of personal consideration, and a fair bit of worry and hand-wringing, I have decided to allow only registered users (Google accounts and/or OpenID accounts) to comment, with an additional Captcha setting (those odd words you have to type in additionally on certain blogs to send your comment). I may lift the registered users restriction in a while, but today was the absolute last straw in Anonymous commenting.

On this entry, Anonymous Whomever sent this:

chicago pornstars
xposed chicks
anatuer chick
paris hilton and blowjob
black ob blonde redtube


which started his comment (and yes, typos and all, that's how I received it), followed by a very long list of porn URLs, all tracing back to a specific fly-by-night site.

I am not anti-sex; far from it, and anyone who knows me knows that. What I am against is having people decide my blog is a great place to park their spam. This is not that forum; move on. Hopefully a few weeks of not being allowed to spam my blog will convince them to cruise on to the next hapless service.

Sphynx, I apologize in advance, I know you have problems with Captcha, and they are understood ones. But I've hit the end of my ability to tolerate the spammers with a smile.

Photobucket

Just so you know? These are lovelier in person.

In person, they're also 81 prims. Complete with slowly falling black rose petals, a charming cut crystal vase, containing three drooping blooms on withered stems. A small drift of fallen petals curves around the base of the vase.

Loveliness incarnate, truly; excellent work. And all for L$200 at Belle Amie.

But...81 prims. Ouch. You pay for pretty.

"Already the writers are complaining that there is too much freedom. They need some pressure. The worse your daily life, the better your art. If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship, this pressure produces diamonds."

Tatyana Tolstoya wrote that. Is it surprising to anyone that she's a writer--a Russian writer, at that? (Though Tolstoya as a last name is a giveaway. Tatyana, for that matter, also.)

More oddity from Blizzard:

From: wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
Sent: 2:56 AM (GMT+08:00).
To: emilly.orr@gmail.com
Date: Sun, Aug 15, 2010; 2:56 AM
Subject: Survey of World of Warcraft account
Mailed-by: hotmail.com

Hello dear players

Your account by other players reported using illegal plug-ins, that is, robots! If not, you use the robot, I hope you work with our survey! Here we need to verify your account information, please visit:
battle.net/login leave your phone number, we will contact you the first time! Solve the problem!

World of Warcraft Support
Blizzard Entertainment


At least this one sounds like spam on the face of it. (Note the actual send-from stamp of "Hotmail" on the missive, f'rinstance.) Still...so odd. And again, I exchanged the words in blue for what they actually wanted me to visit to "confirm" this mysterious account I do not possess--namely, wow-account-battle.dipns.com. (I don't recommend anyone goes, by the way. Just putting it up for reference.)

I mean, I'm all for people trying to make a living, but spamming people who don't even have the accounts they're trying to hack to gain...what? WoW gold? Can you get WoW gold from someone who doesn't have it? I just don't get it.

It's like all the spammers infesting Runes of Magic. Runes has now made it impossible to buy diamonds and use them to transfer gifts or purchase things in the Auction House; and they auto-ban anyone who happens to follow one of the spammer's screamed chats for whatever website they're top-hawking this week, so...what's the point? How are they making money?

Seriously, I'm starting to think all spam websites are codes by secret government organizations. Like, every time you see an advertisement for that simple/easy/effective/ teeth whitening formula, it's actually a CIA agent checking in with their field office, or something.

Hey, it makes more sense than the alternative of people actually buying the "cheap and simple" tooth whitening formula--whatever it is this week--over, and over, and over again...Doesn't it?

8 comments:

Sphynx Soleil said...

Eh, blogger's being a pain, I'll just deal...

That last one? Definitely not written by a native english speaker - sentence construction is wrong.

Possibly the others also came from hotmail?

Rhianon Jameson said...

"You pay for pretty." Oh, so true.

I got a chuckle out of the list of banned words. Some I get; others I suppose could be overused, especially in the context of science writing. Only a few are inherently cringe-worthy.

I saw a phrase in the paper today that always makes me cringe, as it's the epitome of sloppy writing, and I've seen this multiple times: "He raped her methodically." Methodically? Really? What's the alternative - randomly? I mean, doesn't there have to be some method to the thing, or it just doesn't work? Where was the editor in all this?

Aunt Foggy said...

Not that different really from all the spams coming from the dozens of banks that I have no accounts at, Facebook where I do not have an account, etc.
Same old spam, just updated.
The phishing is getting more sophisticated, and I often have to stop and really look at the ones that slip thru the spam filter to be sure it is NOT legitimate.
Actually had to call one company I do business with to talk to the person sending me the misspelled emails with "Your Account" as a subject. Had been deleting them unread as spam for some time! Suggested that was probably why they were having such a problem getting responses from their customers.

Emilly Orr said...

Sphynx,

Should only be for a bit, until I fall off their hit list. (I'm hoping.)

Emilly Orr said...

Miss Jameson,

That's stunning, that is. "Methodically". I'm going to go out on the limb and say the writer (and I'd also assume the writer = male) actually meant "more than once" but felt "repeatedly" didn't have that same punch as "methodically".

Weird either way.

Emilly Orr said...

Lady Fogwoman,

No, true, and if this keeps up, spam blocking is going to have to get a lot more sophisticated in the long run.

I know that at least one of the others originated at Hotmail; what mystifies me is I've sent email to Billing asking if they have me on record, and I've gotten nothing back but more spam. I didn't use any links given in any of the emails, just went directly to the Blizzard site.

Still on target for calling and asking on Monday. Because this is insane.

(Also, laughing at the email story--really, if you're a business trying to reach your customers, then include the business name in the email header, include *exactly* why you're writing either in the title or in the first paragraph--because "Your Account" or "Hello" just doesn't cut it anymore.)

Serenity Semple said...

Unfortunately I can relate to the blogging troubles. Oddly enough mine seem to be in some foreign language (I think chinese or japanese, I stopped paying attention) followed by a series of dots like .................... and each dot is a link to some weird something - it's now become habit where I just delete them everytime I see them. But oddly enough in my instance, they're not leaving them an anon but rather actual accounts. @ @; Each time it's a different one so I just delete it and try to move on I guess. (This for LKC blog not any others i do)

As for the spam weirdness with WoW thing, it doesn't surprise me. Hina keeps getting them like every other day and it's just stupid. He's tried reporting some to blizzard at one point but they don't give a fuck. Not that I like the game or care what blizzard does anyway though. XD

Emilly Orr said...

I could care less about WoW, but, being a Diablo fan, I do have that tie to Blizzard. But my Battle.net account expired around 2000, if it persisted that long, and it wasn't under this email anyway. It's just odd.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...