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the gar spot fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station

Spam, spam, spam, spam

Posted on April 23, 2011April 27, 2011 by gar

Since its launch last fall, the gar spot has received a goodly amount of traffic, some comments here and there, and . . . SPAM!  The spam comments are caught in the snare of a spam filter, an electromagnetic mesh affair that captures the little phishing spams while allowing the more wholesome content to pass through unimpeded.  Be sure to get the custom built filter; never buy the ones off the rack.

It is of course necessary to peruse the filter to ensure that only true spam is caught in the web.  By performing this task regularly, one quickly becomes an expert at deciphering the little spam phishies and identifying the various species.  The most common and thus most boring form of spam phish is the Save Much Time species.  A typical example:

Thanks for that awesome posting. It saved MUCH time :-)

Note the telltale smily face.  Save Much Time spam phish usually exhibit a phishing link prior to the banal statement, which for obvious reasons is not show here.  These otherwise pale, flaccid creatures nevertheless stand out due to their sheer numbers.  You can get them by the bucket loads.  Because of their prolific procreative prowess, they can overcrowd the net, thus hindering the search for more interesting and exotic spam phish species.

Now here is a remarkable and rare double catch of a relatively new species of phish spam, the Performance Phish, sometimes called the Singing Phish:

you are struggling to perform with the range, rhythm and timing that you need and you would like to make remarkable improvements in just 3 hrs

Astonishingly, within days a variant of the same species was caught:

you’re fighting to perform with the vocal range, tempo and timing that you want and you want to make dramatic improvements within 3 hours

The thesaural relationship between the two is nothing short of staggering.  It is such relationships that raise spam of this kind from the ordinary to the extraordinary.  How did this site come by two such similar creatures?  Are they reflective of the occasional musical references made on the site?  One can spend a fortnight or more pondering such questions.

Back to the land of the more mundane, there are spam phish which to the careless eye might possess the slightest patina of verisimilitude, but ultimately give away their phishy origins in their concluding statement.  Witness, thus:

I want to post quick hello and want to say appriciate for this good article. nj0gCZW6bF7H74

Now I ask you, what is one to make of this?  Apart from the misspelling and the poor grammar, this pathetic specimen, known typically as Gibberspam — an obvious portmanteau —  totally gives away its true nature at the end of the message.  It’s as if it knew it was destined for abject failure and just gave up the ghost.

This variety has a far more interesting relative:  The Free Verse Spam Phish.

I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here. The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this hike.

Here exists no patina.  This is pure, naked spam, unabashed, unashamed.  The thrill comes from the delivery.  A post-modern Gertrude Stein.  A linguistic Jackson Pollack.  Utter perversity of language abounds.   And yet one cannot help staring and staring, reading and rereading Free Verse Spam.  Does this obsessive behavior come from a deeper need to decipher that which cannot be deciphered?  Does one see such a jumbled juxtaposition of words and have an instinctual urge to wring order from the chaos?  Or, should we merely reflect upon the passage and accept it for what it is at face value, a stunning example of lexicological legerdemain?

Finally, though no current examples exist, there have been appearances of the Context Spam.  It manages to mimic some aspect of a blog post in its message, though it also possesses the usual phishing link.  So enticing it is, too.  Could it be a true comment from a real reader?  One is tempted to click the link to see if it leads to a legitimate site.  But beware.  This way leads to danger.  Best to leave the critter in its net, safely tucked away, until the auto-delete works its magic in a few day’s time.  For deletion is the ultimate destination of all spam phish.  Though this might seem cruel, rest assured that the species, like cockroaches, will live on to see another day.  Before long, the net is full again, with many new specimen awaiting perusal.

© 2011, gar. All rights reserved.

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