Spam 2.0

Spammers are apparently now creating spam tickets in open online bug tracking systems, and then linking to those spam tickets other places. Justin's bug tracking system is being hit by this...it really sucks. Everything Web 2.0 style, with users adding content to your site, is going to need a Captcha system, in addition to all of the cross site scripting and other security measures.

The whole Captcha thing, it is an inverse Turing Test- one where people are trying to prove they are people to programs (versus programs trying to prove they are people to people). It's getting pretty hard to do- machines are getting better at reading those fuzzy images. I don't know when they'll be able to solve the hot or not one though. I have trouble with those... Even crazier is that people are solving Captcha for spammers to get access to porn...crowd sourcing. I wonder if people are using Amazon's Mechanical Turk for this?

I am saddened to be getting more traditional spam slipping through my GMail filter. First it was complete nonsense, now it's idiotic pump and dump stock schemes and the usual prescription drug and sex stuff. It's making email far less relevant to youngsters that prefer chat- it's harder to spam, for now. Pervasive advertising...bleeaaurrgh.