As far as the internet is concerned, you’re a spammer until proven otherwise. In fact, many websites require us to pass a test just to prove that we are human. We might fool ourselves into thinking that we have the whole bot/spam think under wraps but truth be told, it’s much worse than we think; it’s controlling us!
In a perfect world we’d be able to detect a spam-bot from it’s movement around a website without having to interrupt a visitor (who could potentially be a human); actually, in a perfect world there would be no spam-bots at all but, due to the greed and idiocy of mankind, such perfection will never be achieved…
If there’s a crux to this entire issue then it would be this question: How exactly can we use technology to determine between something which is human and something which is not? It is definitely possible but with current methods we’ll never be able to guarantee a spam-free environment.
There is another really big problem though: many spam messages you’ll receive on a daily basis will have originally been typed out by a real human!
Take this example, I received this as a comment on an older post at 7:46pm tonight:
My name is Sabrina and I’m new to this site.
According to this message, a person, probably female, has arrived at my website and has been so enthused that she’s decided to write about her recent accomplishment (the accomplishment of being new to a website)!
Five things about this message make me 99% sure it’s spam
