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Rob Reiter
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« on: January 25, 2012, 02:07:10 PM » |
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Here's the background:
I run a photolab doing fine art quality inkjet printing for photographers and artists. My website has a link to an FTP upload page clients can send picture to for printing. After uploading, they are instructed to call or email me with instructions and contact info.
It's a useful feature for my customers, but the majority of pictures uploaded are basically spam, mostly mobile phone snapshots (but not always) and many of these seem to be from Asia, with a preponderance of stuff that appears to be from Indonesia, based on signs and text seen in the pictures. A lot of it features goofy teenagers mugging for the camera.
No orders are ever placed for prints, no further contact ever occurs.
Most of the pictures are small, although every once in a while I'll get a 5-10 MB file. Sometimes the images appear more "serious" but they still turn out to be spam. And it's not a drag-and-drop uploader; you have to navigate to the file on your hard drive and then click the "upload" button.
So, gaaahhh-what is going on here? I've had hundreds, if not thousands, of these over the last decade. I can't believe teenagers around the world have come to my website in a giggling conspiracy to drive me nuts, but that's what it seems to be!
If this is some weird robo-spam operation, what is the benefit to the perpetrators?
Anyone have any ideas what's going on here?
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louoates
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« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2012, 04:00:55 PM » |
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A few ideas.
1. If you can reply to their download send them a bill for, say, $1,000 US for your "processing fees".
2. You might try to mistype your FTP address to see if you can come up with a similar address for some teeny-bopper social network site.
3. Change your FTP upload page on your website.
4. Use Google image search to see where else that image pops up on the internet.
5. Don't let it bother you.
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2012, 04:30:41 PM » |
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Everything is done through a web browser and I have no link back (that I know of.)
Google doesn't provide anything useful.
It doesn't really bother me, I'm just curious as to what is going on. How are these pictures getting to me?
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EduPerez
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« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2012, 01:52:58 AM » |
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Perhaps somebody is using your site to share files; once the image has been uploaded, is it accessible from the outside?
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2012, 11:07:00 AM » |
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Nobody can access these files but me.
Sometimes they're uploaded one at a time, sometimes more. My FTP upload page has a limit of three files at a time and I don't think that has ever been exceeded but I'm still thinking this has to be some kind of robo action.
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degrub
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« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2012, 12:08:42 PM » |
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a few thousand over a decade ~1/day. Not a robo i would guess.
Since there is no other information about what the upload page is for or not for on the page, maybe folks figure it is a free service that they can upload a few files and then download them later. Especially if English is not the primary language.
Frank
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2012, 12:50:48 PM » |
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I'm leaning to a robo action since not once has anyone uploading this kind of picture ever emailed or called me afterwards, as I direct them to on that page. And plenty of these pictures do look like they may have come from English speakers, just not the majority.
Well, it's a mystery to me. I was hoping someone who may have had a similar upload service with the same experience would pipe up an say, "Oh, yeah, these pictures are coming from..."
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Justan
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« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2012, 03:13:18 PM » |
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Without knowing a lot more about the structure of the ftp site it’s tough to guess what might be going on.
I've been asked to look into some anonymous ftp sites that were used for undesired file exchanges and what you describe may be another example. Or it could be someone who runs the web host service sending you treasures of a sort. Or it could simply be the effect of a world wide audience, some of whom just want to send a pix for no obvious reason. It almost has the makings of a Twilight Zone like story.
Most web servers keep log files that contain, among other things, the ip address of the sender. If you have access to the server’s log files you may be able to use this information to identify the sender and perhaps institute blocks. You could also institute a user name and password to restrict uploads to only those to whom you provide the digits. Of course, you’d have to change those periodically as all it takes is someone posting on a web forum somewhere, “Look here’s an ftp site! Just use ….. and you’re in!”
On one of my web sites I get from none to many spam posts per day. It becomes just another duty to remove them. By being a publicly accessible site, the door is open for anyone to do this, for any reason…..
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2012, 03:37:23 PM » |
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My web host is Dream Host, so maybe I'll run this by them next, see what they think. I'm not so much determined to stop this as I am to understand it. I get far more email spam every hour than I get in a day from this  I see it as a kind of fascinating look at some sliver of society and a distraction from the daily routine. Here's what came through five minutes ago: |
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #10 on: January 26, 2012, 03:58:52 PM » |
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Well, Edu, that's certainly interesting! But like you said, what is everybody getting out of this?
Curiouser and curiouser...
and thanks for the eye!
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Ronny Nilsen
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« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2012, 06:31:30 AM » |
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Well, Edu, that's certainly interesting! But like you said, what is everybody getting out of this?
Curiouser and curiouser...
and thanks for the eye!
I would guess that somebody finds your site in the sites EduPerez found, then they upload. And when they find out that they can't dl the file again, they go somewhere else. And then a new soul finds your site in the sites EduPerez found and....  Ronny |
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Rob Reiter
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« Reply #12 on: January 27, 2012, 11:05:18 AM » |
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Somehow, I was hoping for a more mysterious conspiracy, or at least a peak behind the scenes of a vast illicit, if stupid, robo-spam plot. A misunderstanding about photo-sharing is disappointingly mundane...
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sdwilsonsct
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« Reply #13 on: January 27, 2012, 02:37:57 PM » |
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Somehow, I was hoping for a more mysterious conspiracy, or at least a peak behind the scenes of a vast illicit, if stupid, robo-spam plot. A misunderstanding about photo-sharing is disappointingly mundane...
Never assign to malice what can safely be attributed to incompetence. Or something like that. Scott |
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