I’m always curious about who links to this blog; it can be very helpful as a blogger, and it can tell you what the buzz is. In my case it helps me find both opponents and allies, which in the skeptic business is important. So I have Google alert me when a link comes in.
Usually the links are from science sites, or scifi sites, or people who disagree with me. It’s pretty much what you’d expect.
So what the heck do I make of this one?
I’m guessing it’s some sort of ‘bot, grabbing various words and doing things with them that are inscrutable to man. Any web experts out there have a clue? I don’t remember ever being Australian. Though if I had to pick any other nationality to be, that would be it. Oi!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:05 am
ROFL!
My wife came quickly and asked me about why was I laughing so hard…
… I couldn’t help it… and burst in laughter again!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Maybe it’s to do with those bad impressions of Australians that you do, Phil.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am
:: composing ::
Ok… judging the content and title in that page, I can say someone is playing/preparing a spam bomb using your name.
It looks to me that someone is getting angry in Australia about all your work against anti-vaxxers and may want to play a bad card against you…
uh-oh!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Yes, bots can do some very weird things. Unfortunately the incredibly reimagining of the Hanny’s Voorwerp story I found via Google has disappeared from the web, but if you imagine taking every word from a Yale press release and changing it for a random one from a thesaurus (potentially with a reiteration of the process), you get close to the sheer awesomeness of the unreadability. Close, as the description of the basic algorithm doesn’t account for chance occurrences that add to the humour value. Oxford University got renamed ‘Metropolis University’, which sounds like an awesomely comic-book place to do research, for example.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Um, Phil, about the “Alien Hunter book/CD giveaway” last week… like, er… what happened?
May 12th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Reads like a computer generated short story, disguised as a news story.
‘bots!
Can’t live with them, can’t kill them either,,,
GAry 7
May 12th, 2009 at 8:23 am
that is interesting. looks like an attempt at an AI program that tries to build posts from information out on the internet. I played with something similar to this back in college, but didn’t do too much with it. Its similar to those AI bots that sit on IM and tries to have human conversation.
My guess is that it saw a bunch of your posts about Australia and tried to make a correlation.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:23 am
It’s the internet… it’s becoming self-aware. Run for the hills! Stockpile your canned food and shotguns!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:25 am
It’s spam, but not about you. The page is all about the links to their spam sites, to improve those sites’ ranking on Google.
The spammer has to generate unique, non-gibberish, English content, and the easiest way is to scrape and repost blogs.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Skynet has become self-aware!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Rajapakse has too many Geobbelses
No we can’t have too many Geobbelses…
Interesting that a spam post Godwins itself too.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I tried reading that whole thing and couldn’t make it past paragraph two. ouch.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:39 am
No no no no, clearly this is a message from the future, cleverly disguised as spam to throw people off.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Seems like a Markov chain generator, which has picked up your name somewhere. Probably not a great idea to link to it, it’s a linkspam site.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Phil Plait knows now why you cry, but it is something he can never do.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I linked on my blog, but I don’t like making a thing out of it. I’m a writer and like your stuff. My own opinion is that you spend too much time yelling at silly people, though. They’ll never listen, and the silly starts to rub off. The forms of it are interesting, however, and of course, frightening.
Rather talk about the science and space stuff, and the great movie reviews. Keep it up! (sorry for off-topic)
May 12th, 2009 at 8:43 am
All mimsy were the borogroves, mate. Cheers on ya. Wallabee willamaroo. Fosters, eh? Avagoodun.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I recommend you delink immediately. Google will penalise the rankings of sites which link to spam sites.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:47 am
My dreams are like this….very stream of consciousness.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Goo-deh mate. Hmm, technically, it says you are a lecturer and author on Australian education, not an Australian. The rest of it reads like the news feed at the bottom of a CNN show. KCS
May 12th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Yeah, Phil that really does look like it might be a spambot in the works.
I would find a way to disconnect from that if you can.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Try saying “mate” every few sentences. If you manage this, you are not actually Australian, you are Fauxstralian.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:04 am
@kuhnigget
Jeeze mate I’ll be buggered if I know what you wrote up there but fair dinkum if that’s s’posed to be Strine, well, fair suck of the sav it’s enough to make the average bloke chuck a wobbly. No worries but, I’ll just go back to my frothy, I’m not a dobber. Good onya mate. See ya round like a ringworm.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Same thing happened to my little blog not that long ago, and I have nowhere near the readership or legacy that you do. I figure it’s a new kind of spambot and accept Colin Rafferty’s explanation.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Thats very possible. a lot of these spambots are getting more and more AI programming in them. Talk about a cool technology being used for evil
May 12th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I don’t know what drug that person’s on, but someone get him/her into rehab PRONTO!
May 12th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Yeah, say what?
May 12th, 2009 at 9:23 am
To add to what others have said regarding spambot.
A lot of sites have their usage stats available publicly. Often spambots will link to you and follow their link so that it shows up as a referrer on your log. If your log is public, then their URL usually gets a link (automatically) back to them. This can increase their rankings if your site is high-traffic enough.
I don’t ever make my logs available, but I still notice ‘links’ to me from completely bogus sites, simply to try to get linkbacks.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:28 am
@Will
RAWR! That was EXACTLY my first thought when I saw the page.
And I thought I was going to be clever and post that here…
My dreams. They are shattered.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
@LMK me too. It’s annoying – and something that happens to both big and little blogs. A fact of life for the blogosphere, maybe?
May 12th, 2009 at 9:40 am
It means it’s the beginning of SkyNet.
Okay, seriously, it’s because your website is becoming popular. Spambots troll for popular sites and build pages like the one you see. By including a lot of popular terms, they can appear in Google results. Then people visit the page, and as you see it has links to various places that it’s probably best that you don’t click on.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Though if I had to pick any other nationality to be, that would be it.
We were thinking of making you the next Doctor Who, Phil, but not any more… (See what happens when you colonials side with each other rather than the motherland?)
May 12th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Phil, hi,
Just to add to what LMK and Shane said… it has to do with the the way Google PageRank works. Not only is the amount of incoming links important to your PageRank (BA has a PageRank of 7, BTW), but also the PageRank of the sites those links come from. As you know, PageRank determines the order search results are displayed in. So what is happening is:
1. A spam bot discovers that your blog has a high PageRank, and that no registration is required in order to post comments.
2. Spam bot posts a comment here on your blog that links back to the blog he wants to boost the PageRank of.
3. Profit!
It’s a really despicable practice, but one I think you are in a good position to combat. I thought your moderators had to approve all comments with links in them. If so, just tell them to not allow these ones that are obvious spam to get through. For instance, I see a lot of them linking back to this ‘amanwithaphd’ blog over at wordpress :-\
Regards,
Steve
May 12th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Somebody is off their medications.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:06 am
It’s a spam bot assembling shreds of different blog posts and peppering it with links to whatever sites its owners have out there to increase traffic, rank and be able to send out spam comments on other blogs with more links to their content.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
@ Shane:
Hey, my fake British accent is even worse, wot? Blimey. Scotland Yard, innit? Tally ho.
Maybe ah’ll jess stick with th’ talk whut with I was raised.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
@kuhnigget
Beats my faux French… wee wee mon-sewer. Parly voo Fran-sayzee? Vere iz zee dunny mon mate eh?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Good on ya, mate!
May 12th, 2009 at 10:46 am
This is an automated attempt to manipulate the flow of Google-juice by generating links to and from popular sites, and putting them along with links to and from their chosen sites. Like others, I recommend removing the direct link to their site (which is exactly what they want) otherwise search engines tend to think you are also a Markov-bot. Welcome to Information Warfare 2.0 – please keep your limbs inside the car at all times, and don’t feed the trolls.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Skynet is ALIVE
May 12th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Markov chains used for pagerank-boosting spam. Very common, very forgettable, very much nothing to worry about.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
This is a total bot thing.
My guess is its just looking for crap to pull in hits.
They just find trending topics (perhaps using twitter?) and shove them into a blog to get lots of hits. Why, not really sure. experiment maybe? Marketting idea of somekine? Idk
If its not fully computer generated, I would suspect someone who does not speak english very well trying to read computer-translated materieal, then writing, and re-translating. Something of that sort.
In anycase, I would just take this as a compliment that your material is trending and popular enough to be spoofed in spam – like a Razr phone, or viagra.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
First of all, Aussies are a bit strange in the best of times, but there’s a severe water shortage there and whatever it is that makes them a bit strange is probably condensing. Let’s hope not to fatal levels:)
Actually, we should all make good wishes that they’ll get the rain for the livestock and farms.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Yeah, gotta agree with Moth Eyes, it’s a Markov chain. I wonder what they used as source material.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:38 am
yeh. I get links from these a lot.
and spam.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Well, it’s a pretty site, at least.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I think it’s just random text. Some people use latin, or a random text generator to fill a web page with copy if you’re mocking it up for a client who hasn’t provided the real content yet. I would guess more that you have an admirer in the web design field. (People will pay you to design a blog for them. They’re the sort of people who have a hard time figuring out how to check their email and don’t know what an operating system is. And they always refer to their computer as “the” computer. I don’t know why.)
May 12th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
This sounds to me like Bill Cosby’s assertion from decades ago – “Henry Kissenger is from Alabama”.
Okay Phil, repeat this line:”That ding-goe aite moy bay-bee!”
May 12th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
After reading that I’d guess that the Forces of Darkness are sniffing at the ramparts, Master Phil. Turing level is probably low, so I’m thinking you’re safe for now. Careful what you link to………..
May 12th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Not only are these sites generated BY bots, they’re generated FOR bots.
It’s weird; but maybe someday somebody will see them as a form of AI meta art!
May 12th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
A quick Whois for “blogs.cine.com” lists an IP hosted in the US, but “cine.com” is based out of Spain. The admin and tech contacts look legit, and I can snag an abuse email address if anyone wants it.
Amusingly, the domain expires in 2012. Someone is planning ahead…
May 13th, 2009 at 5:30 am
BA, quick, pull your feet up from the mud before the leeches get too fat. Unlink!
May 13th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Well, with regards to Steve in Dublin , I guess I’ve failed the Turing test because I am a human being that has been writing the A Man With A PhD blog under my own name since 2002. I have posted comments on material there from the Bad Astrnomy site with, I hope, a much more coherent voice than demonstrated by the obvious spam from the original link.
In a weird bit of redundancy, I only found out that my blog’s name was used because I too have a Google alert set up so I saw the Bad Astronomy link. Thus Google Alerts also permiited (obvious misspelling that a bot would have corrcted?) me to try and clarify this gross canard (Would a bot use such a fancy German-derived word?)
(Yes, I know it is French. Would a bot purposely put such an error and then try to correct it, all in a humorous tone?)
I guess my question is how does my site, which has obvious commentary, pictures and actual syntax, look like a spam site? Have I been doing it wrong for the last 7 years?
Please be gentle
Richard
May 13th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Yes, and I purposefully spelled my name wrong to see if any one noticed. Just to prevent any snarky comments.
Richard
May 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
[...] I a Bot? My Mom says NO May 13, 2009 — Richard by à voir etc… Um, say what?: [Via Bad Astronomy] I’m always curious about who links to this blog; it can be very helpful [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
The truth has been uncovered at last, you closet Aussie!
May 13th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Oh, my! What if…I am a bot?
That would certainly explain the irrational behavior when dealing with creationists and UFO nutters.
But, wait…would I question my bottitude if I were a bot? I could have been written to ask the question, I suppose…but then, I would also have to be written to question my question. Could a bot question the question he was written to question? I suppose he could if he were stuck in a do loop of some sort.
Oh the shame! The horror! Mom, Dad…I have something else to tell you….