Spam via HN ... • Hacker News Board

Re: Spam via HN ...

#21

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Jan 18, 2010, 12:38 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #20

jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers. If it were for some large sum of money that I'm going to come in to it would be business as usual, this is different.

" think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers." Well (a) an HN'er is just someone who has filled in two text boxes. There is not even amoderator approval step to join HN and it is not like you have to have a certain amount of karma to see email addresses. (b) (I could be wrong about this but) you can see email addresses even when logged out if they are part of the "publicly exposed…

You seem to be very much intent on showing that this kind of behaviour is both to be expected and acceptable, we will have to disagree about that.

Re: Spam via HN ...

#22

Post by plinkplonk » Mon, Jan 18, 2010, 12:50 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #21

plinkplonk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" think the main problem here is that it seems to be HN'ers spamming other HN'ers." Well (a) an HN'er is just someone who has filled in two text boxes. There is not even amoderator approval step to join HN and it is not like you have to have a certain amount of karma to see email addresses. (b) (I could be wrong about this but) you can see email addresses even when logged out if they are part of the "publicly exposed…

You seem to be very much intent on showing that this kind of behaviour is both to be expected and acceptable, we will have to disagree about that.

"You seem to be very much intent on showing that this kind of behaviour is both to be expected"

Yes. If you put your email somewhere public you are certain to get spam. So yes it is to be expected.

"and acceptable"

No, it isn't a nice thing to happen to you but there is nothing that can be done about it once you've put your email id on a public page. So it is not acceptable, but it will happen anyway. I guess i am not surprised when it happens.

" will have to disagree about that."

shrug.

I guess I just don't get the sense of outrage about first putting an email id on a public, indexable, crawlable web page and then groaning and moaning about nasty lowlifes sending you spam. This is like wandering around in dark alleys in shady areas and then being surprised about getting mugged. I agree it shouldn't happen and in an ideal world it wouldn't but it does.

If you don't want spam, don't expose your email id on the web. Or have an extra spamtrap id if you must enter email ids into web forms. Obfuscate the id to throw off regex matchers. Have a good spam filter. That's the state of play as of today.

Re: Spam via HN ...

#23

Post by knightinblue » Mon, Jan 18, 2010, 1:01 PM UTC

The only real shame in this case is that HN is becoming a place for people to air their trivial meta nonsense.

You got an unwanted piece of email? Take a second to mark it as spam and be done with it. Sweet mother of god, you got it via HN?? Once again, take the exact same second to mark it as spam and be done it. But don't assume that it affects the big scheme of things concerning HN, because it doesn't. A single company trolling for emails is orthogonal to the evolution/erosion of HN.

P.S. You're feeling 'sad'? This is all it takes to make you feel sad? Jesus.

Re: Spam via HN ...

#24

Post by RiderOfGiraffes » Mon, Jan 18, 2010, 1:17 PM UTC

knightinblue wrote: post #23

The only real shame in this case is that HN is becoming a place for people to air their trivial meta nonsense. You got an unwanted piece of email? Take a second to mark it as spam and be done with it. Sweet mother of god, you got it via HN?? Once again, take the exact same second to mark it as spam and be done it. But don't assume that it affects the big scheme of things concerning HN, because it doesn't. A single co…

I've posted it because I think it's another marker that points to the continuing change here on HN. Yes, I've marked the email as spam, although not processed it the usual way because it is close to stuff I do for real. I've now made a tweak to the spam processing so that the email address I use here now requires the marker I name in my profile, rather than just being a hint. Sure, it took me 10 seconds to read the email, decide it was spam, check the source, adjust the filtering, and move on.

Submitting this item has let me see that others have got it, it is bulk, and to measure the expectation. At a casual glance it seems that most of the longer serving contibutors are saying the same thing - it's a shame, and it's a sign of the decline on HN. Most of the newer contributors are saying the same thing - welcome to the internet, why should you expect anything different?

The correlation isn't 100%, but it seems to be real. If I get time later I might actually go away and find out what the correlation coefficent really is.

But for now, it's information about those who visit/inhabit HN. If you don't find it interesting then you could take one second to sigh and move on, shaking your head about the sad state of people who post trivial meta nonsense.

PS: I'm not feeling suicidally depressed, but it has had an overall negative impact on my day. That's why I'm going off and doing more programming - that cheers me up.