I want to share some thoughts that I had recently about YouTube spam comments. We all know these early bots in the YouTube comment section, with those “misleading” profile pictures and obvious bot like comments. Those comments are often either random about any topic or copied from other users.
OK, why am I telling you that? Well, I think these bots are there to be recognized as bots. Their job is to be seen as a bot and be deleted and ignored. In that case everyone feels safe, thinking all bots are now deleted. But in reality there are more sophisticated bots under us. So the easy bots job is to get delete and basically mislead us, so we don’t think that any is left, because they are deleted.
What do you think? Sounds plausible, doesn’t it? Or do I have paranoia? :D
this applies possibly to phone calls, text messages, email, comments on forums and sites like youtube and many other things.
check: does user respond? if yes, user will engage. add to will engage list.
check: how does user respond? delete or reply? if reply, add to repeat text/voice call list. if delete add to spam defender list.
will engage list: continue to send. engagement is attention. they are acknowledging and thus may be able to attract their attention in some way for advertisers.
text/voice list: same as engage list but also opens lines of communication. chance to upsell. chance to phish with support scam.
spam defender list: continue using default spam tactics. add higher level phishing techniques. consider adding to spearphishing list.
spearphishing list: has spam experience and can use computer/phone. possible tech worker. gather more information. attempt to infiltrate. cross reference username with leak db’s. do they reuse their passwords?
all of the above: collect ai training data.
i don’t know how true any of this is, it’s simply how i imagine some of it works. i might be paranoid. how you react is part of how you get classified into a list or group.
I wonder what list that ear piercing high Ab with the trumpet 3 inches from the phone when I was having an exceptionally bad spam day put me on.
Mailing lists for Spotify and Pro Tools, plus you get signed up for a ‘free’ with an asterisk lifetime subscription to sirius radio that can’t be cancelled.
You know, the truck I had at the time somehow never had it’s Sirius radio shut off. Although, I never got billed for it either…
The truck might have had one of their ‘lifetime’ subscriptions.
Sirius sold lifetime subscriptions. Some people who purchased one were led to believe it was for the rest of their life. Sirius worded it to say it was the lifetime of the device. Their ‘lifetime’ service got cancelled on them after a merger with XM Radio, or they’d replace their vehicle which had a different but still a Sirius radio and could not transfer lifetime service.
There was a class action lawsuit filed. The lawsuit was settled in 2021 (subs had been sold as far back as the early 2000’s) and made ‘lifetime’ refer to the subscriber, not the life of the radio. People with inactive subscriptions could cancel it and get $100. An active subscription could pay $35 (instead of $75) to move it to another radio, each time they wanted to move it. Except that settlement was dismissed in 2022 and it’s no longer possible.