More fun with “Craiglist bots”

See this post for more on these sex-post phishers.

For some reason, I got several apparent Craigslist bot responses on Friday to a post I made on Wednesday.

The “I’m so excited I can’t type” Reply

This one came from “Nga Abdullai”:

in nice shape and average good looking would like to give u massage dwviwsncq

And this from “Syble Rendina”:

hella excited to do this never done this before, kinda nervous as well kilgjl

I guess the intent is “You are so hot that I’m jerking off here just thinking about— oh fuck, I just came all over the keyboard.”

In addition to the note in the previous post about replies mentioning things I never talked about in my ad, these studiously avoid referencing anything I did mention.

The “Don’t Scam Me, Bro” Reply

From “Cory Raden”:

What's happening?  Im a real fella seeking something hot...my stat is 22 years old, 5'10, versatile and fresh.  I just got conned by a doode on here so I am trying to determine if you're real or not.  But yeah this is my buddy's email so I got to get trucking but if you wanna, I am currently on my profile site so let's swap phone #s and photos on there to be reliable.  This way we can verify to each other that we are both genuine. Don't even respond back if can't even put any time, I ain't trynna to get scammed again.  P-e-a-c-e!

It was followed by a URL, a pic of a guy playing field hockey (me.jpg), and a pic of a guy’s crotch in tighty whiteys with a hard-on (mine.jpg).

And an hour and a half later, from “Mariela Barocio”:

What's going good?  Im a real guy wanting something incredible...my stat is 22 years old, 6'1, versatile and fresh.  I just got conned by a doode on-line so I am trying to see if you're real or not.  Anyhows this is my pal's email so I gotta get bouncing but if you are serious, I am presently on my profile site so let's exchange phone #s and pix on there to be trustworthy.  This way we can show to each other that we are both legit.  Don't even respond back if can't even put any effort, I ain't trying to get scammed again.  Cya!

And it was followed by a (different) URL, a pic of a guy playing field hockey (me.jpg), and a pic of a guy’s crotch in tighty whiteys with a hard-on (mine.jpg).

I swear, it’s Attack of the Mad Libs or something.

The “Married and Down Low” Reply

This one came from “Catrice Strickland”:

hey, straight guy here curious of this, wife just went out of town and i am wanting to try... n

Gee, guy, if you want to stay married, maybe you shouldn’t use your wife’s e-mail address for cruising.  She might find out.

(You’ll note that other bot posts came from Syble and Mariela, also women’s names, and the only Nga I’ve ever met was also female.  Suggestion to the bot programmers: use only male names on replies to Men Seeking Men ads.)

All five of these had Hotmail return addresses, and all with the full name that was listed as the owner plus one or two random trailing characters.  So there’s another bot spot technique.

What is a “Craigslist bot”?

There are two types of Craigslist bots:

Posting bots are used to post ads to Craigslist.  In theory, this is a legitimate action, allowing people to compose personal or business ads offline — perhaps several similar ads for different items — and post them with a single button click.  In practice, though, these bots are usually a form of spam, producing ads (especially personal ads) aimed to get people to reply and be directed to a website or simply have their e-mail address harvested for spam mailings.  By some estimates, as many as half the woman-seeking-man personal ads are bot posts.

Here’s a site with recommendations on how to spot these bots.

Reply bots are more clever, replying to your posts to get you to reply back, again either to harvest your e-mail address or direct you to another site which will do God knows what.  They have apparently broken the CAPTCHA security measures to access the ability to send you e-mail.

Some of the advice in that post above is helpful for spotting reply bots.  Here’s the most recent exchange I had with a reply bot, and how I could have (but didn’t) spot that it was a fake.  He replied to my post, and included a pic of a shirtless reasonably cute guy who is even wearing “gay” underwear (2(x)ist brand), saying:

i would love to meet a nice guy for a fwb situation as well. i am free today to meet. how are you? what is your name?

• You can’t judge just by fractured grammar and capitalization.  I know plenty of real people who write no better than this, especially in online cruising scenarios.  It’s like their brain isn’t what’s engaged when they are e-mailing you.
• My post said nothing about “FWB” (Friends With Benefits, aka Fuck Buddy).  It was a straight-up (ahem) kink sex post.
• His post was sent at 1:44 am on Monday.  The odds of real guys being up and posting (and not strung out on something) goes down as the hour gets later, and reduces further after midnight on Sunday.
• Although his ostensible name is “Darren”, his return address was junk: tamikapateljtvq@yahoo.com
• The name of his pic file was also junk: fxKeDPlKwD0pTnkDLiPc9wxx.jpg

After I replied back that I was interested, but that I wanted to know what he was after regarding an FWB situation, given the kink sex nature of my ad, the bot replied (with two more pics, these with reasonable names like me13.jpg):

cool :) lets do this then yea?
let me know when ur free
just do me a favor and sign up on my profile
gaysingles
its a service i use to make sure the guys i meet are safe bc ive kinda had somebad experiences in the past
just make sure you say youre over 25 and it should be free
when ur done feel free to give me a call/txt (cells on my profile)
talk to u soon

“gaysingles” was a linked URL: http://www.safelydating.net/dl77, which redirects through at least three sites to resolve to http://tracking.singlesnet.com/redirect/5974?affiliate=127328.  singlesnet.com is owned by Match.com (along with almost 37,000 other domain names).

Needless to say, once you’ve received multiple times the same boilerplate “screening” text directing you to some site you’ve never heard anyone mention before, you know it’s a bot.  But you can tell a lot earlier, if you know what to look for.

Curiously, my final reply of “You’re kidding, right?” got no further response.  Guess they got the address they wanted, and now I’ll get Viagra ads.

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Updated on November 1, 2010

Posted a follow-up with several new bot replies.

Internet Search Engines

After a tiring Saturday night, not enough sleep, and my neck out of joint — I guess I shouldn’t have been in that position against the wall at Blow Buddies for quite so long — I was still trying to get through the late afternoon and then go dancing. Joking, one friend said that I could always buy some speed (an illegal drug that keeps you up for hours and hours).

“I don’t know where to buy any,” I said.  And then I covered his mouth, saying “And I don’t want to know.  I suppose I could always do a web search.  Yeah, I could go to Ask Jeeves and say ‘Where can I buy speed in San Francisco?’”

And then we laughed and postulated what would be returned:

“Where can I buy a fast car?”
“Where can I get a map of San Francisco?”
“What movies starred Keanu Reeves?”
“How can I set up my own crystal meth lab?”

We weren’t all that far off.  Check it out for yourself.

(Where’s Eliza when you need it?)