autogenerated spam results
 

I have been with Limewire Pro for a while and I noticed that there are lots of fake files, wmv and jpeg, that are i-pod ads or ads for download sites.

often you get a result like this:

search: "wierd crap"
result: w_i_e_r_d__c_r_a_p.wmv

(lets put aside the fact that wmv is the most rediculous excuse for a video format that has ever been inflicted on mankind)

My suspicion was that some of these results are autogenerated.

I have verified this. I made up an improbable search. I entered:

traxally impople

and hit a search for video only. no results.

next I hit 'repeat search' for the tab.

Voila! traxally impople.wmv came up.

repeat the search AGAIN and you add:

t_r_a_x_a_l_l_y__i_m_o_p_l_e.wmv and Traxally Impople.wmv

I tried it with a few other improbable names and it always happens after the second search.

So much for my detective work, I am satisfied that these are autogenerated.

Now does anyone out there have any further insight into the mechanisms and implications of this?

Please share what you know.

Thanks!

This issue has been discussed a no. of times on the forum. Depending on which softw you're using you can filter them out. eg: Limewire using keyword filters.

Some interesting reading: Quality of Content on the Network & also Fake Movies & Why! & this wmv files & also this one A Curious Thing Happened...

How would a keyword filter help if the file name morphs to my search query? are you perhaps suggesting I filter *.wmv ? Sounds like a good idea if it works that way. I don't need .jpgs either.

while I thank you for your feedback, I also followed your links, and didn't find the means of blocking this problem that you inferred was about. Nor am any more enlightened on how the files are being generated to mirror search queries. After your search... Which they are as I have demon-strated.

if there is a specific thread that explains the causes, symptoms and or treatment, I would be interested in seeing it.

I'm not in the know personally. So which p2p softw are you using?

There's been discussions about blocking sites that spam since they fall within a range of ip addresses. But there's also been some concern over this b/c they use dynamic ip's not static ip's. So blocking ranges of ip's might help, but might also affect a lot of innocent people along the way.

If you're using Limewire then you can follow the image example below. Keyword filters can be added/removed anytime depending on type of searches - as long as you use the Apply button.

I am on Limewire Pro.

well I went and blocked *.wmv, jpg and asf.

I guess these jokers have written some code that monitors incoming searches and churns out files to match.

cheers.

If you use gtk-gnutella, you can ban search results from particular hosts, or any particular file regardless of its name, etc.

I don't need to block these results to prevent myself from being dumb enough to download them. Blocking things is elementary.

I was more intrigued about what sort of system was generating the files.

Check Stief's response here: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...125#post118125

Also someone said they traced the spam to Telstra Australia. Search the forum for Telstra to see it.

Sweet! Shall check it out.