If it's not Spam, is it pseudospam?

Perhaps someone out there knows more than I do about spam. Because, for the life of me I cannot figure out what earthly interest anyone (even a degenerated spammer) would have in spam that not only offers nothing for sale, but isn't even readable. Pure gobbledygook, like this:

IP Address: 128.131.36.156
URL: http://645f64c6f83d287b34c.com
Title: e3c0b66724b3d272c
Weblog: e3c0b66724b3d272c

Excerpt:
55670b199eb2eacc0b6a2c97d7c901d1 41ffe81096980678e.

The IP turned out to be the "Technical University of Vienna":
inetnum: 128.131.0.0 - 128.131.255.255
descr: Technische Universitat Wien
descr: Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10/E020
descr: A-1040 Wien
netname: TUNET-F
descr: LAN Technical University of Vienna
country: AT
admin-c: TU917-RIPE
tech-c: TU917-RIPE
rev-srv: tunamec.tuwien.ac.at
remarks: 192.35.241.70
rev-srv: tunamed.tuwien.ac.at
remarks: 192.35.241.71
status: ASSIGNED PI "status:" definitions
remarks: for trouble-reports contact trouble@noc.tuwien.ac.at
remarks: for administrative request contact hostmaster@noc.tuwien.ac.at
remarks: for security problems contact security@tuwien.ac.at
mnt-by: AS679-MNT
mnt-by: ACONET-LIR-MNT
remarks: changed: hostmaster@arin.net 19860613
remarks: changed: hostmaster@arin.net 20010731
changed: demel@noc.tuwien.ac.at 20000529
changed: demel@noc.tuwien.ac.at 20000629
changed: demel@noc.tuwien.ac.at 20010722
changed: er-transfer@ripe.net 20040405
changed: demel@noc.tuwien.ac.at 20040422
source: RIPE

route: 128.130.0.0/15
descr: TUNET
origin: AS679
mnt-by: AS679-MNT
changed: demel@edvz.tuwien.ac.at 19980126
source: RIPE

Etc.

This makes no sense at all, and when I get spam like this, they are typically sent at the same time from multiple IP addresses -- all showing similar incomprehensible gibberish. (I'm getting a lot of them, and they're a pain in the ass to delete with MT-Blacklist, as I have to delete them one at an effing time.)

I have this crackpot theory that people don't do things unless they have a reason.

Anyone out there have the slightest idea what the reason might be?

posted by Eric on 03.16.05 at 04:58 PM





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Comments

A) To increase Google PageRank; and B) to piss you off.

By the way, Wordpress has a number of spam-fighting plugins, and a "mass-edit" mode for comments.

j.d.   ·  March 16, 2005 07:12 PM

Google page rank of what? There aren't any URLs in these things.

Eric Scheie   ·  March 16, 2005 08:45 PM

a test-run of the real thing?

Anonymous   ·  March 16, 2005 09:04 PM

simply their spam bot is a tard and eefed up its spam. Spam is rarely delievered by a person. Spam is sent my programs that often infest computers like viruses and send the garbage out without the poor host even knowing that its happening.

The purpose of this was someone made a spam bot that probably 80% of the time is efficiently spamming sites, but is ill suited for spamming yours. Case closed??

scott   ·  March 16, 2005 09:57 PM

This post is coming from an AI seeking to attain the next stage. If the number string is read aloud by a device physically modeled on the human voice track its goal will be attained. Whenever I post about odd spam I alter the text just in case.

triticale   ·  March 16, 2005 10:19 PM

Obviously marching orders from from Karl Rove.

bryan   ·  March 17, 2005 02:37 AM

Well the gibberish is hex code. It doesn't translate into anything sensible if read as ASCII, so who knows what it is supposed to mean.

Chefen   ·  March 17, 2005 02:50 AM

Hex code? Does that mean some witch is placing Satanic terrorist instructions in my blog comments?

Eric Scheie   ·  March 17, 2005 05:48 PM

It could be another character set (like Chinese) that isn't being decoded properly or scewed up somewhere along the way.

It could also be some sort of identifier to see who is open to spam (maybe a way to probe for nofollow tags.)

Phelps   ·  March 17, 2005 11:02 PM


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