Spam spam, wonderful spam........





The intent of this article is to suggest a few tips and pointers on how to identify a spam account, or 'bot'.

The reason for this is that twice in the last several weeks, I was mysteriously watched by someone I did not recognize. This is not *too* unusual on the face of it, but when I went to see who these people were, it was pretty easy to notice that something was amiss with the accounts, and were very likely nothing but spam.

In the first case, the account was reported, and quickly banned. In the second case, the account is still active, though lots are reporting it, and hopefully it will be banned anytime now. In the meantime, it has gotten so many pageviews, that it actually got listed in the "popular deviants" section! Don't you wish it was that easy to get 30,000 pageviews in two days? And we were wasting all our time making art!

What really prompted me to write this article was the HUGE amount of people in both cases that I saw, coming in wave after wave after wave, to 'thank' this automated machine for watching them. Many of the people watched the machine back. As a mom of a teenager, I was truly distressed to see that out of the hundreds of people coming in an endless stream to thank this automated machine for watching them, maybe one out of twenty, and that is a very generous assessment, had or expressed any suspicion that anything might be wrong. And this was even after people time and time again left comments notifying people that it was likely a 'bot' and not to bother with thanking it. These repeated comments by numerous different people seemed for the most part to go entirely unnoticed, as the flood of thank you's continued.

There were some interesting responses. Some people claimed they didn't care if it was a robot, they were just happy to be watched by anyone! Some people said they did not want to appear "paranoid" and insult the robot by questioning its identity. Some seemed as though they didn't want to be "mean" to the robot by spurning its advances. A few brave thinkers wanted "proof" or to know, why those of us who were suspicious, were suspicious. And so, I write this article to list a few of the red flags I noticed, so that in the future these accounts can be more easily recognized and dealt with.

It isn't like there is any real physical danger in getting watched by a bot. It isn't like there is any real personal risk even in replying to one, or even watching one back. But, I think there is a bit of risk involved, in participating on the internet without putting some attention to having a basic idea of who it is you are dealing with on a daily basis. At the very least, these accounts are like littering, or participating in vandalism. It's an abuse of the system and a waste of time and space. And it's not like they are going to appreciate the art that you make. All these reasons are a good reason to put some attention to keeping your eyes open about who you deal with.

So if you are watched by a new person that you don't recognize, and you want to figure out if it's a real human or not, here are some red flags to look for and things to ask yourself.

1) Did they fav anything of yours before watching? Some people certainly watch without faving anything; by itself, it's not too strange at all. But, if they watch dozens and dozens and dozens of people in just a few hours without faving anything ever from any of them, that is suspicious.

2) Go to their page. Before thanking them, take a look. Do they have any artwork up? Do they have any favs? How long have they been a member? How many pageviews do they have in that time? Who is watching them? Look at the comments. Look for patterns. In the case of the first spammer who watched me, these were the things I noticed: they are not too strange by themselves, but what is suspicious is when all these things add up.

-there was no art
-there were no favs, despite watching literally hundreds of people in a few hours
-they had incredibly rapidly rising pageviews
-the thank-you's they were getting were coming in literally without a break, every five seconds for hours and hours on end. what human being do you know who watches totally random people every few seconds for hours and hours and hours on end, without ever faving ANYTHING from any of their galleries? as I told one person, if it isn't a bot, then that person must be REALLY REALLY HIGH.
-they did not reply to any of the hundreds of thank you's... not even once. ever.
-the most telling was that it was instantly noticeable that the 'thank you' comments were all from people with usernames starting with a, b, or c. all the person's watchers also had usernames starting with a, b, or c. now, who do you know who watches hundreds of random people every few seconds for hours and hours in ALPHABETICAL ORDER? THAT IS SUSPICIOUS!! learn to look for these things.
-in the second spam account, the watchers were not in alphabetical order, but all the other things were the same. endless streams of thank you's coming in like clockwork, every five seconds, going back at least 15 hours, without stop. yet, not a single fav.

Now each of those things by itself, might not be so suspicious. But all of those things together, that is definitely suspicious. Additionally in the case of the first account, if you clicked on their website link, you were taken to a page which advertised and on which you could automatically join something called an 'adult networking' site. So, I think this definitely qualifies as spam, and probably the whole purpose for the account.

It will not be rude for you to ask these questions of yourself as you check out the people with whom you interact. This is common sense, and good personal safety skills. It is not your responsibility to spare the feelings of total strangers, especially on the internet; you don't have to be rude about it, but it isn't rude to protect yourself.

As I said, there may not be any real personal threat to interacting with bots; it isn't like there is some terrible danger in it; but they are a nuisance, and a waste of time and space and resources... And again, as a mom, I think its just a good thing to encourage everyone to pay attention to the people around you, and the people you interact with, especially on the internet but really anywhere.

So take a look before you say 'thank you'. It's great to be watched but an automated spam machine isn't going to really do that much for that art you worked so hard to create and share.