Weird Science

[Guest Kalifornia]

It might be spam. Does it appear that he is trying to sell anything or appear that he is trying to diredct you to a specfic web site?

 

Then it could be as you pointed out simply a young guy trying to hook up with you who has little knowledge of English.

 

Let us know how it turns out if the latter.

 

Mark -Kalifornia

 

"I *am* a moderator. I didn't notice that policy change.

I *have* noticed your continued open hostility to everything about this site and wonder why you still come here if you hate it so. But it's a free country. Wail away, dude. Complain to someone who gives a shit. I'm sure you'll find someone, somewhere." deej

[eastbayguy]

Starting about three weeks ago, I started getting e-mail at my gay.com mailbox from a correspondent inside the Former Soviet Union. This person sent me a picture, purportedly of himself, showing a good looking, youthful but probably >18 year old guy. The picture appeared to be taken in a housing area of some sort.

 

What's weird is that this person's grammar and sentence construction is horrible, yet he never mis-spells any words. Sentences often just do not make sense, and do not seem to convey any particular thought. Questions I ask of him often produce no result or attempt at an answer. (Could be lack of ability to comprehend English.) The person has never asked me for anything, or suggested I send him money, porn or any of the usual scams you run across from the FSU.

 

One thought that keeps crossing my mind is why did my profile get selected out of 1.3 million on gay.com?

 

The thought that keeps crossing my mind is that I'm corresponding with a bot. If so, is there any way to fake it out or confirm it? The mail analysis tools on gay.com do not provide visibility in to the originating IP address. I've forwarded the mails outside gay.com and poked around in the headers. Nothing of interest is visible in the headers. The return address is hotbox.ru which appears to be a paid e-mail service.

 

If this is some nice kid from the FSU who just wants a US pen pal, I'm fine with that. Hopefully his English will get better. Meanwhile, I don't want to be providing hilarious water-cooler conversation for some Soviet programmers who are working on a bot project for some company outsourcing in to the FSU.

 

Anyone else had/having a similar experience? Thoughts, please?

 

--EBG

[Boston Guy]

Oh, gosh, this is a 2002 example of the Turing test!

 

If it is a person, he could be looking up words in a dictionary, and so getting correct spellings, but combining them with insufficient knowledge of English grammar and syntax to make sense much of the time.

 

The Turing test can be difficult to solve. It will be most interesting to see what you conclude. :-)

 

The only suggestion I can give at the moment would be to phrase extremely simple questions, using very basic words, asking for personal information. (How tall are you? How old are you? How old is your mother?)

 

BG

[eastbayguy]

>Oh, gosh, this is a 2002 example of the Turing test!

 

Ironic, in that we are applying the Turing Test to purported correspondence between two gay men. You'll recall that Alan Turing was gay.

 

>If it is a person, he could be looking up words in a

>dictionary, and so getting correct spellings, but combining

>them with insufficient knowledge of English grammar and

>syntax to make sense much of the time.

 

If a human was looking words up in a dictionary, you'd think a few total non-sequitors would turn up. I sense a spell checker or a program with a set vocabulary somehow.

 

>The Turing test can be difficult to solve. It will be most

>interesting to see what you conclude. :-)

 

Tonight, I had a bright idea about showing a few of the e-mails to native Russian speakers. Perhaps some of this will ring a few bells with a native Russian speaker. Also, I'm going to ask one of my Russian colleagues about the Chuvash province, where this person purports to come from.

 

>The only suggestion I can give at the moment would be to

>phrase extremely simple questions, using very basic words,

>asking for personal information. (How tall are you? How

>old are you? How old is your mother?)

 

Have tried that--no acknowledgement. Just more stream of consciousness. Will try it on a simpler level still, see what results that produces.

 

As always, BG, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

 

--EBG

[SFViking]

I want my own Russian AI bot!

 

I'm so jealous.

 

Ask him (it) if he'd be willing to correspond with a friend. Ask him if he and Simone are related.

[eastbayguy]

>It might be spam. Does it appear that he is trying to sell

>anything or appear that he is trying to diredct you to a

>specfic web site?

 

Definitely not spam. No attempts at all to solicit money or anything from me, or direct me anywhere. What's so bizarre is the phrasing of the e-mails. I've seen about every spam variation around, which is why this is so interesting.

 

>Then it could be as you pointed out simply a young guy

>trying to hook up with you who has little knowledge of

>English.

 

>Let us know how it turns out if the latter.

 

I'll definitely post an update. Just sent off today's response, will see what comes back. Meanwhile, it is a fascinating puzzle to solve.

One which has definitely caught my interest.

 

--EBG

[Boston Guy]

>Ironic, in that we are applying the Turing Test to purported

>correspondence between two gay men. You'll recall that Alan

>Turing was gay.

 

Exactly. :-)

 

>Tonight, I had a bright idea about showing a few of the

>e-mails to native Russian speakers. Perhaps some of this

>will ring a few bells with a native Russian speaker. Also,

>I'm going to ask one of my Russian colleagues about the

>Chuvash province, where this person purports to come from.

>

 

That's a very good idea. Perhaps they'll recognize Russian grammar sequences.

 

>Have tried that--no acknowledgement. Just more stream of

>consciousness. Will try it on a simpler level still, see

>what results that produces.

>

 

Well, that suggests a program. Perhaps you could try sending a very simple email with just one or two very simple questions?

 

Or maybe it's the CIA. :-)

 

BG

[Barry]

He could also be using a translator such as Babelfish to go from Russian to English. I've found that for some languages, unless you keep the sentence structure very simple, the translations are often difficult to understand.

 

Barry