Apple's Ping Overrun with Spam | Hacker News Reader

Apple's Ping Overrun with Spam

readwriteweb.com

66 pointsGarbage27 comments

OT: We're so used to tech buzzwords that sometimes we don't realize our secret language sounds odd. Just look at the title of this post literally. It's pretty hilarious.

Welcome to the open web, Mr. Jobs.

I know it's funny and all, but in all seriousness, perhaps we underestimate just how damaging the rampant, often out of control spam on "the open web" is to the consumer experience. Keeping Apple products clear of that sort of stuff has been a big win for them so far.

Unfortunately for Apple they'll have to deal with this more and more as they grow beyond simply being a premium niche provider to mainstream. It's easy to keep a walled-garden clean and orderly but once you grow beyond that and need to connect people's outside "messy" lives with your product, it gets much tougher (see Microsoft)

I'm waiting for the fateful day when the virus makers see Apple OS' as a true target. Apple and Apple users have been living in a walled-garden and they don't know the difference between a grass snake, the game Snake and a cobra, because they're protected from the dangers of the open web by being a minority.

The bigger problem is that Apples exceedingly proprietary nature will likely lock-out any of the established or establishing anti-virus/trojan/malware/spyware companies from stepping in quickly when the flood occurs.

Phishing is cross-platform.

Pretty sure they're "mainstream". :)

According to Alexa, apple.com is in the top 50 sites on the internet (#42 - coincidence Hitchhiker fans?) and top 30 (#27) for the U.S.

So yes, I agree they are "mainstream" and welcoming them to the web probably isn't necessary...

I'm not sure how open it is when they have my credit card. I get the feeling a ban on iTunes might not be a happy thing.

Well, the whole thing is nothing but a vehicle for Apple's own iTunes store link spam. It's ironic that Apple didn't realize anyone else could use it to spam their users too.

Comment #4 from the page:

"Email me for a free iphone!!

free-iphone99@hotmail.com

Thx RWW!

Posted by: free-iphone | September 3, 2010 8:39 AM"

Actual spam, or brilliant parody?

Yeah, that was my guess. The fact that it was the fourth comment makes the parody angle more likely still.

The launched with so few featured artists and recommended users, that everyone ends up following Lady Gaga, Rick Rubin and Alexandra Patsavas, so naturally spammers gravitate around them.

the only way to battle spam is to either A) moderate all comemnts or B) close all comments

Anything else can be bypassed

That is the only way to battle spam with 100% effectiveness, yes. But there are other ways to do it that can still be very good, even though they're not perfect. The filtering for comment spam in Ping is subpar, and I don't think the difficulty of the task excuses the fact that Apple has done a poor job.

The spam filter on GMail seems to work well enough.

talking about comment spam here.

What's the difference between email spam and comment spam, exactly? Why don't online forums use Bayesian filtering to get rid of comment spam?

I haven't followed SpamAssassin in several years, but have any startups ever tried running their comments through it?

As you point out, it seems like many of their rules for emails would apply equally well to blog comments.

Doesn't Akismet work the same way as gmail's filter?

Yeah, you missed the point here.

...or C) limit comment rights to a group of responsible, traceable people

...or D) moderate new registrants for a probationary period

...or E) enlist some of your users-in-good-standing for moderation

...or F) moderate just those comments which an automated system flags as having high spam likelihood (links, images, emails)

...or G) require some small demonstration/forfeit of value (such as a posting fee) for each post. (Risking a non-probationary account that took effort to create is a special case of this.)

...or H) blended variants of the above

none of those will work 100%

They don't need to work 100%, just better than it works now.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Wow I love this comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com