Blogging Spam

I just deleted a "spam comment" to the previous post. Whats intersting is that it claims you can get a PhD within 2 weeks, simply by calling 413-208-3069, wow, imagine that! A doctorate within 2 weeks! The 'trackback' to that spammers account name reveals that they don't have a blog within blogger, just an account. Previously, spammers would make their account have a blog that had their spam message, that way people would see it. But I suppose that this represented a problem, because if you have a blog, there is a 'flag' option for a viewer to check, which apparently puts it onto a list for the people that run Blogger to review, iow, the spammer would be exposing themselves. So by not having a blog, but having an account, they're apparently able to get around that and spam people's comments. I googled around for that phone number, and apparently there are numerous accounts spamming the same message, on blogger and other blog pages.

Whats really funny is that, in a sense, anyone that did call that number, hoping to get a degree on the sly (there are degree mills out there that award advanced degress for cash), deserves to have their identity stolen and credit standing destroyed. I doubt that that number connects to a degree mill scam, but rather to a simple ID fraud scam.

Anyway, the number registers to South Deerfield, MA and a carrier called "Global Naps." That apparently is a co-location service, rather than a cell phone carrier, which is intereting. It might mean that the phone number is somehow being "freaked", that the entity at the other end of the line isn't in MA, but is re-routing information to that location.
Even more interstingly, Global Naps was involved in a FCC lawsuit:

http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2001/00-1136.html

That suit does seem to imply that this Global Naps company is involved in telephone communications. Also, from their website:
"Our primary focus is high volume, high ussage business customers". They apparently have a national distribution in their "Switch Sites", but a focus on the East Coast, with a location in Quincy, MA. Their website overall is pretty primitive, lots of flash animation, little substance, and they have a photo of Frank Sinatra as their Chairman.

More interestingly, there is no actual information about anyone involved with the company. Perhaps they don't want their information out there because then people would be able to make connections to criminal enterprises that operate through them, such as this Degree Mill scam that they enable.

I sent an email to info@gnaps.com to see if they had a response or comment to make about that illegal operation. Blogger, unfortunately, doesn't bother to give people the option to report whole accounts, nor do they make it easy to report such matters to them directly. This is probably because they aren't really interested in it. It will be interesting to see if "GNAPS" is concerned about this usage.

Update

My access to this blog was down for a while. I had given up on it, but I see that I have access again. Thats nice.

The foraminiferal project has been interesting. I have prepared a small poster on it, and will be doing a prresentation on it in the near future. I will say one thing though, I noted below that they can move around a little bit within the water column, thats what most of the literature says about them.

However, I have discoved an entirely new form of foraminiferal locomotion, saltation!

Because every time I'd try to move one of the things around with the brush, *SPRING*, they'd jump all over the place!

I am also now looking into doing some more research. I have a few possibilities right now, some biogeochemical research might be possible, or some paleontological studies might also open up. I probably won't be doing any more work with forams in the near future. They're actualy really interesting little creatures, but it seems like that sort of research won't take me in the directions I am looking to go right now.