On Catching a Liar: Anatomy of a Spammer

Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren't so exciting. - Bill Gates

Why the Animosity?I hate spam. I immediately erase it if I get one. It’s analogous to a thick-faced salesman knocking at your door then places his foot at the door gap to get your attention. They wear different masks and specialize on different communication medium. Some are telemarketers, others in the form of “e-mailers” and blog post commenter. They are insensitive, out of topic and devoid of proper decorum.

Blog spammers,, in my opinion, are one of the worst. They disrespect owners by ramming their way into other people’s blogs. And since a lot of visitors not only read posts but comments as well, they also used it as a platform to sell their wares.

First Encounter
Take for example this comment I erased in my KaBlog Station Page:

“I just made $1003 this week working from home for google. I cant believe how easy this is. Im recommending this to everyone, check out this guys google blog makemoneywith-google.com”
It seems harmless and “friendly”, but in effect, designed to increase traffic of the linked site by dangling possible monetary gain on naïve readers. To counter it, I went directly to the spammer’s page and leave this message:

“If you want to put ads, do it in your own blog. Don't go around spamming other sites with your ads. Do that again in my site and I'll recommend that you be remove from this network.”
This incident happened a month ago and then thought nothing of it. But last week, I was blog-hopping on some of my friends KaBlog Station page and noticed ALL of them have spam comment similar to what I deleted. They only differ in monetary value, but verbatim, they are all the same. It made me assume these are all software-generated, randomly inserting monetary numbers for each comment. I went back to the spammer’s page and things got interesting. Somebody responded to my comment.

Can’t Hold His TongueA certain Joey Parman, a KaBlog member, left this message on the spammer’s page:

“Wala akong malay sa sinasabi mo blogus! Before you make any threats you might want to consider other posibilities kung bakit may pumasok na ads sa site mo na allegedly saken galing. For all you know it could be a malaware na nagamit ang pangalan ko. Please refrain from making harsh accusations. Kahit magsumbong ka pa! Hindi ko gawain ang sinasabi mo.”
Nagging QuestionWhat has this spammer, whose profile is female from New York, USA, got to do with Joey Parman from Taguig City, Philippines, that he thinks my comment was addressed to him? I don’t know him or mentioned his name nor did the spam comments ever use his name for that matter. Unless the spammer’s page and "DakilangAlalayMo" are owned by one and the same person, I can’t think of any other reason for him to “sing”. Claiming to be another “Jackie Bermejo” does not hold water either, since the spammer’s page title and URL address are in concordance with what it actually do – to advertised “MakeMoneyWithGoogle.Com”. If that too was hacked and changed, why didn’t he report it to the proper authorities of KaBlog Station?

Possible AnswerKaBlog Station is a social networking site. If you want to comment on a page, you should be a member and log-in first. To do that, you must register. Since the intention is to spam, an existing member created a fictitious account to divert attention away from him. Nice deception and smart, but not smart enough. He forgot one thing, the "code of omerta” – keep your mouth shut!

The ball is in your court Joey. Try to make sense and have a plausible alibi this time.