JULY 23RD, 2009
By BILLYJACKS
Damn Twitter to hell. The spam is out of control. You’d think it was a Hotmail inbox circa 2002. Constantly with the garbage. And I’m not even talking about all the “lets see if this trends” retweets. I’m talking about the bot nets who are abusing the API to post thousands of bullshit messages trying to get you to click to some website that has nothing to do with the message.
I was searching twitter for tweets about Ebay when I stumble on some obviously bogus tweet about how microsoft is buying ebay. The start of the tweet was a recently trending topic followed by some random celebrity name. Then I notice another about Ebay that also mentions that another random celebrity died. So I searched a phrase they both had in common. I found a page full of tweets that only spanned 3 or so minutes. Mostly different user names, all using the Twitter API to post.
It’s all garbage like: Monkey Island trend?LATEST Miley Cyrus has invaded south KOREA , OMG OMG !! earned $2,612 thanks to this to this http://tiny.cc/rYoV
Miley has been busy today. According to the same set of spam bots; she has died in a car wreck, drown in a boating accident, and invaded South Korea (poor SK).
I wait a while and look back to the screen, there are like 475 more new tweets that match my search. Those tweets all had one of three shorted URLs via another service. Unfortunately, there is no obvious easy way to report abuse. The site is designed for that sort of crowd shouting so a bot net is right at home. I wonder how many people where lured away off to fake looking youtube windows that claimed you needed a new Flash player to view or javascript or pdf or jpg exploits?
I really do see value in twitter. Or at least I’m trying. On the same note though, it’s like walking through the midway at a carnival. There’s a lot of random normal folks walking around bumping into one another and sharing a little bit of conversation. For the most part it gets drowned out by the asshole running the scam everyone’s a winner dart game though that’s $3 a dart so you can get a roach clip with some feathers or a 6″ by 6″ Bon Jovi mirror. No matter how many balloons you bust, that stuffed animal your kid wants is $30. He’s shouting all kinds of nonsense to try to trick you into getting robbed. He’s got a megaphone in the form of a bot net (or an army of over zealous fans who want to help make the trend list).
I’m going to start flapja.ws for hard core communicators that only need 70 words to share thoughts. Think of it, half the characters = half the keyword stuffing = less spam. That or double the volume of the shorter messages…
JULY 16TH, 2009
By BILLYJACKS
YouTube is all about sharing. Share some videos. Share some revenue if you are a affiliate partner. Since they are in the sharing mood, they decided to go ahead and share some more stuff.
They share your zip/postal code even if you don’t list a home town. Say you edited your profile to not show your age (or first/last name or anything else). YouTube still shares it. The only way to protect the information is to go in and fudge it all on your account settings.
You can’t change your age once you’ve made your account. If you want to truly hide your age, there is a setting to do so under Account -> Profile Settings -> Personal Details -> and mark Do not display my age. Of course erasing all this info doesn’t matter now because sites that have been scraping it already have it all posted.
It appears that this was recently discovered by users in the help section because a member noticed their account info posted on a 3rd party site. The thread also has instructions on how to that grab member info thanks to the API tool.
At the time of this posting, YouTube staff had yet to step in on the thread. Who knows, maybe it isn’t a big deal and we’ve all already agreed to share what YouTube didn’t appear to share. In my opinion though, if I don’t want to share my identifiable information (First/Last Name, Zipcode, Age, etc) with YouTube users then why would I want to share them with anyone who happens to play around with the API tool?
JULY 15TH, 2009
By BILLYJACKS
I hope that I’m not ever in the same position as this poor chap…
Here he is having to give thanks for being saved from an impromptu gender re-assignment surgery performed by Dr. Canine. According to the seller of this beautiful piece of Mexican folk art, the text translates to Read more »
JULY 10TH, 2009
By BILLYJACKS
I spent a lot of time reflecting on one particular issue. You see, Jesus loves you. Love is grand. It makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. It can make you forget your problems.
On the other hand, there is this Read more »
JULY 9TH, 2009
By BILLYJACKS
A few months ago I was able to attend a fantastic 45 minute seminar on spirituality hosted by a group called the Future Religious Leaders of America. It truly was amazing. It was like the clouds pulled open and the bright lights of the heavens washed down upon us right through the ceiling tiles in the hotel conference room.
The 43 people there who were presenting were noticeably excited. They proclaimed that never had they seen such power in a group of people. Four of the seven attendees, including myself, were invited to receive a discount on further spiritual training for only whatever cash we had carried into the room. I almost feel bad for them because that meant I got to go along for less than the cost of a case of beer.
This leads me to why it came to be that I didn’t post here on my website for four plus months… Until just last night I was finally able to prove myself strong enough to withstand the poisons often found out in the natural world. Up until now I was shielded from television, Internet, newspapers, radio, and practically all modes of communication with unbelievers.
I’m back now though and better than ever. Expect regular posts. I’ll share my new knowledge with you all.
