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Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...

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On 20/11/2023 19:06, Mike Terry wrote:
> On 20/11/2023 12:33, David Brown wrote:
>> On 20/11/2023 08:56, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
>>> On 2023-11-20, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>>>> is not just a GG/Usenet matter.  They need to make it more
>>>> time-consuming to open a new google account, involve more user
>>>> interaction,
>>>
>>> Just not so demanding of time and interaction that it becomes easier to
>>> set up Linux and run tin
>>>
>>> Just not that it's easier to install Linux and run tin.
>>
>> Why would anyone choose to run tin, unless they have been using it for 
>> the last three decades? There are many free Usenet clients available, 
>> for Windows and Linux (and I guess also for Macs). They are not 
>> particularly difficult to install or use, and no one needs to use an 
>> OS that they don't want to use.
>>
>> Pretty much any human who wants to use GG to access Usenet will 
>> already have a google account - extra hurdles on making new google 
>> accounts won't affect them.  For the tiny proportion that need to make 
>> a new account, it should not be an issue if they have an extra step or 
>> two of captchas, SMS codes, or whatever.
>>
>>>
>>>> and put limits on the numbers of new accounts from the same
>>>> IP within a short time-frame.
>>>
>>> "Same IP" only works against the pure amateurs who do not harness large
>>> numbers of different IP addresses by using botnets or their own IP
>>> blocks.
>>>
>>
>> The spammers are amateurs.  Any professional spammer group would know 
>> perfectly well that flooding technical Usenet groups with Thai casino 
>> adverts is useless.
> 
> So what do you believe is "the point" of all the current spam?

I really don't know.

> 
> That's a serious question - if you believe it is hoping that someone 
> reads a particular spam post and sees some online betting web site link 
> and thinks "aha, I was just thinking about doing some online gambling, 
> and as luck has it I've just come across a link.  I might as well use 
> that one!" then indeed the spammers would be worse than amateurs - 
> they'd be idiots, and nobody would pay them for that! :)
> 
> So I'll suggest another reason:  the intent of the spam is to pervert 
> the Google search weighting algorithms in an attempt to move particular 
> sites up the rankings, aiming at an ideal outcome of appearing on the 
> first page of a search.

That would have made sense with the page ranking algorithms from the 
early days of search engines, but not now - mass spamming of links and 
adverts does not boost your ratings on google.  But you could be on to 
something here - perhaps the spammers don't understand the page ranking 
systems and /think/ that it will boost them, or perhaps it still works 
on some less sophisticated search engines (there are many used around 
the world - google is not dominant everywhere).

>  Individuals have been claiming to be able to do 
> this for almost as long as search engines like Google have become 
> financially important to buisnesses, and it seems 100% plausible to me 
> that it can be done

Nah - there is no need to be able to provide any results in order to 
/claim/ you can boost rankings.  The ones that actually work are simply 
buying sponsored phrases at google, and charging people more than google 
charges them.

> - of course you would need to have a good 
> understanding of how Google rankings work [which I don't!], but then you 
> exploit that knowledge to "trick" Google into thinking particular sites 
> are more popular than they really are.  Probably it would involve 
> injecting document for Google to scan (Usenet articles?) containing lots 
> of mentions of the keywords of interest in association with links of 
> interest.  It wouldn't be particularly relevant what human readers made 
> of those documents.
> 
> So an indicator of this going on might be articles consisting primarily 
> of long lists of links to promoted websites.  Like you say, who is going 
> to actually read and absorb such a "silly" list of links?  Perhaps 
> Google ranking algorithms?  (I don't know, but that's all I can think of 
> - anyhow, such lists of links is exactly what 99% of the spam consists 
> of...)
> 

I don't think that would actually work at all, but I can't be sure (I am 
not privy to the details of google's algorithms).  And certainly if the 
spammers believe this would work (whether or not it /actually/ works), 
it would be a rational reason for targetting Usenet groups.  However, I 
am still inclined to suspect that this is all either a mistake, an 
unintentional side-effect (with Usenet posts instead of email posts), or 
a spamming subcontracter scamming a spamming customer.

> Seems we're on the same page regarding Google needing to fix their 
> account creation process so it is more expensive in human manpower.  
> While there is no cost using some automated process, banning users for 
> spamming achieves very little.  I can see that Google fixing this isn't 
> going to be instant, but there's also the route of simply identifying 
> spam on prima facae grounds and blocking it at entry.  Google don't seem 
> to like that approach for some reason.  Perhaps they see it as just 
> escalating the spam war requiring constant investment to keep up with 
> spammers, and Google want a zero on-going effort (on their part) solution.
> 

Maybe google gets advertising revenue from the websites, and so doesn't 
mind the spam?

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(comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2023-11-19 11:23 +0000
  Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... Mike Terry <news.dead.person.stones@darjeeling.plus.com> - 2023-11-19 17:18 +0000
    Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2023-11-19 11:51 -0800
    Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2023-11-20 08:42 +0100
      Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-11-20 07:56 +0000
        Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2023-11-20 13:33 +0100
          Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... Mike Terry <news.dead.person.stones@darjeeling.plus.com> - 2023-11-20 18:06 +0000
            Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2023-11-20 21:01 +0100
          Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2023-11-20 20:03 -0500
          Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2023-11-21 09:30 +0000
            Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2023-11-21 16:47 +0100
              Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2023-11-21 16:40 +0000
                Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) Richard Damon <richard@damon-family.org> - 2023-11-21 11:49 -0500
                Re: advantage of a web  interface (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2023-11-21 22:03 +0200
                Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2023-11-21 16:49 +0000
                Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2023-11-21 22:23 +0200
              Re: Response to "David Brown" Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-11-21 12:09 -0800
              Re: Response to "David Brown" (Was: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem...) Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2023-11-21 22:16 +0200
  Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2023-11-19 12:25 -0800
  Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... Japanese Spammer Here <invalid@invalid.net> - 2023-11-19 23:25 +0000
    Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca (The Doctor) - 2023-11-20 00:04 +0000
  Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2023-11-21 14:42 -0600
  Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... DFS <nospam@dfs.com> - 2023-12-15 09:38 -0500
    Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO olcott <polcott2@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 11:42 -0600
      Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO Tom Furie <tom@furie.org.uk> - 2023-12-15 18:02 +0000
        Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO olcott <polcott2@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 12:39 -0600
          Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> - 2023-12-15 19:00 +0000
            Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO olcott <polcott2@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 14:00 -0600
              Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2023-12-15 21:00 +0000
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO olcott <polcott2@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 16:23 -0600
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2023-12-15 22:43 +0000
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO olcott <polcott2@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 16:50 -0600
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> - 2023-12-16 00:03 +0000
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO tTh <tth@none.invalid> - 2023-12-16 01:26 +0100
                Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 16:39 -0800
            Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-15 17:06 -0300
              Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2023-12-15 16:40 -0800
              Re: (comp.lang.c) More musings on the spam problem... PLO Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2023-12-16 12:52 +0100

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