Hidden GeoCache Hyperlink - What is Bait?

[Guest Prime Suspect]

There's a hidden hyperlink at the bottom of almost all geocaching.com pages. It launches a "bait.asp" page, which appears to be a randomly selected page of words, and randomly created email addresses. A portion of the words are hyperlinked back to the "bait" page. The emails are also hyperlinked to initiate a "mailto:" to the bogus email address. A new page is randomly created each time it's accessed. The only constant seems to be the phrase "by the Jilly Boel Consortium" (that's not a typo). I assume this is a reference to the song "We Didn't Start The Fire".

 

If you're using Internet Explorer, you can accesses it by opening up just about any GeoCache page, then press:

the F6 key

the Tab key while holding down the shift key

then the Enter key

 

If you're using Netscape 4.7 or newer, you can do the above, but instead of pressing the F6 key, just click once inside the Location box (where the URL is) once to highlight the URL. The press Shift-Tab and Enter.

 

Or if you're feeling really lucky, you can try to find the tiny transparent GIF image centered at the bottom of the page (under the copyright year). I've been able to locate (cursor turns into pointing hand) it using Netscape, but not IE.

 

My question is, what the heck is this for? Is it to screw with bots? Mess with search engines? Give headaches to email harvesters? Just for fun?

[Guest Choberiba]

Many spammers crawl the web looking for future victims. This places bogus information onto their spool.

 

That's my understanding anyway.

[Guest navdog]

Quote from Jeremy on a previous thread:

 

"This is the gibberish thing.

http://www.geocaching.com/bait.asp

 

It's spam bait. Many spiders go around web sites and grab email addresses. I created an invisible link on each web page to point to this page, where it creates bogus email addresses. Hopefully the spam spider grabs them and ends up going into a huge loop, messing up their data. At least that's the idea."

[Guest jeremy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by navdog:

 

Quote from Jeremy on a previous thread:

 

"This is the gibberish thing.

http://www.geocaching.com/bait.asp

 

It's spam bait. Many spiders go around web sites and grab email addresses. I created an invisible link on each web page to point to this page, where it creates bogus email addresses. Hopefully the spam spider grabs them and ends up going into a huge loop, messing up their data. At least that's the idea."

 

---

 

Yep. Just wanted to quote navdog quoting myself . Unfortunately it's a common way to attack email harvesters and I'm sure they've already grown wise to it.

 

Jeremy

[Guest jeremy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by navdog:

 

Quote from Jeremy on a previous thread:

 

"This is the gibberish thing.

http://www.geocaching.com/bait.asp

 

It's spam bait. Many spiders go around web sites and grab email addresses. I created an invisible link on each web page to point to this page, where it creates bogus email addresses. Hopefully the spam spider grabs them and ends up going into a huge loop, messing up their data. At least that's the idea."

 

---

 

Yep. Just wanted to quote navdog quoting myself . Unfortunately it's a common way to attack email harvesters and I'm sure they've already grown wise to it.

 

Jeremy

[Guest Cape Cod Cache]

I use a hotmail.com for my geo-stuff... Founds etc. Not a bit of SPAM. 8 months and counting. We have a pretty cool group here, let's keep it that way.

 

CCC

[Guest Ramness570]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cape Cod Cache:

I use a hotmail.com for my geo-stuff... Founds etc. Not a bit of SPAM. 8 months and counting. We have a pretty cool group here, let's keep it that way.

 

CCC

---

 

You are lucky! I had a hotmail account and it got junk mail every now and then. But my AT&T email address! man i get at least 15 spam/junk emails a day and many of them are the same thing. I am so tired of getting "in debt" "refinance now" "hey do you remember me" "info you requested" "stock tip you asked for".....

 

------------------

Brian & TabascoX

Senior Memeber Southeast Xterra Club

Geocaching since October 2000.

[Guest Rich in NEPA]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramness570:

... But my AT&T email address! man i get at least 15 spam/junk emails a day and many of them are the same thing.

---

 

I, too, use AT&T Worldnet service but typically get only one or two junk e-mails per day, and they usually come via one of my secondary "other member's" e-mail accounts and not my primary account. Sometimes the send-to address is "Undisclosed Recipients at xxxxx.com" or other similar cryptic nonesense. I'm in the habit of forwarding all SPAM and all junk mail to missed-spam@worldnet.att.net but can't say if it does any good. Additionally, I use a Cookie Manager [Cookie Pal v1.7a] with my Web browser and e-mail client, and I reject (and/or filter) ALL cookies unless they are from sites that I trust, such as this one. It can be a bit of a PIA at times, but take a look in your COOKIES folder sometime!!! Mine has less than 75.

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

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? A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ?

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[This message has been edited by Rich in NEPA (edited 28 October 2001).]

[Guest wapa2ee]

i get lots of spam but none that

i think originated from this site

 

most of the spam i get comes from family using my system to surf with