I was just visiting the Portland Pattern Repository Wiki, which I read regularly but don’t contribute that often. Anyway, I made an attempt to update a page that I had contributed to before to find that security has now been enforced on the wiki to avoid spammers and denial of service attacks.
Question for you… what do spammers gain by posting to a technology wiki–or any wiki or blog for that matter? Do people actually buy what they are selling from postings like that? Do they garner a good-enough reputation from spamming to gain name recognition and a constant stream of orders for their products? Same question for email spammers… do people actually buy that stuff? My wife, BTW, has no need for penal enlargement products, yet she gets a steady stream of “quality” offers for them.
Perhaps the masses are more stupid than I thought. Oh well, those spammers keep me in business implementing better and better information security systems and policies for my clients.
What are your thoughts?