Thoughts on FF Scammers and Trolls, the Death of Craigslist Oh, My!
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Posted:Apr 6, 2018 8:56 am
Last Updated:May 9, 2018 7:45 pm
2562 Views
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Craigslist Personals went away a couple of weeks ago, you may have heard Congress passed a bill aimed at getting after , an admirable goal. The law is turning out to be a shotgun where a rifle is needed, Craigslist just shut down *all* personals rather than having to deal with the small number of ads.
The far larger problem on Craigslist, however, was that it had been taken over in the past few years by huge numbers of spammers and fakes. I did an in-depth, detailed study a few years ago, and found at that time that roughly 92% of the W4M Casuals ads in Craigslist were duplicated word for word in dozens of cities, not merely in the US but in all of the English-speaking countries. LOL, you couldn't be the same chick, want sex that same night, and be in all those cities at the same time! And oh, how they wanted you to text them, send them a personal email, so they could collect your phone number and email addy, sell those to third party marketers.
Why does this matter here on FriendFinder, and why today? Because all of those trolls and spammers have been chased out of most of their swimming pools, and are busy looking for new places to swim. FF didn't shut down, so now it's a ripe target. Actually, FF is not the target, you and I are.
There has been a huge uptick in fake profiles on FF in the past few weeks. There has always been a small number, but I am getting 2,3, 4 flirts a day now, - Flirts are the common way to go for the spammers, they are unlimited, don't cost a penny, a single click of the mouse and dang, what's not to like? Spammers also use Instant Messaging, I suspect because it's harder to track and trace. A high percentage of my IM traffic is fake, and besides that, IM is extremely unreliable and buggy, so I just don't use it all. But spammers will also just show up in your "Who's Viewed You" list, quietly figuring you'll notice and write to them.
How can you spot a spammer? I can offer clues for guys, maybe less for women, since I haven't paid a lot of attention to guys' profiles (lol!) I'm using a trick I learned on Craigslist, explained below.
You have to understand first, a spammer wants to maximize his or her fishing chances, but minimize the labor. So once the spammer has put in the effort to write up a nice bullshit profile paragraph or two, he/she wants to use it over and over again - in different profiles, and on different dating sites. In Craigslist land, you could just repost the same ad text over and over again in different cities. Doesn't work as well on FF like that, BUT I *AM* FINDING FF PROFILES WITH DIFFERENT PICS, AGES, CITIES but SAME DESCRIPTIONS. Hmmm. You can't search on profile text in FF. But you can in Google Search, more on that below..
For men, the fake ads seem mostly to come out of Russia and the Ukraine, judging by the language used (Hmmm, how, odd...) and have descriptive bio's and text that are highly romanticized.. They don't talk about sex, they talk about love, LTR's romance, searching for fine, upstanding men. Here's a couple of samples:
"I am a very romantic and caring woman who is madly in love with life. Yes, I am a hopeless optimist who always believes in the best,"
"I am kind, caring, with a good sense of humor. I am charming, curious, sensual, and I like to spend time actively, meet with my friends"
Sounds good, right? Well. Copy and paste one or another of those sentences and a half into Google Search, put a quote mark on the front and the back to keep it whole, and click SEARCH. You'll pop up the same sentence and a half anywhere from ten to twenty times, on a bunch of different websites. And if you can get into the website, the pics will be totally different, the locations will be different, and the ages. Doesn't take a rocket scientist, just a little detective work when you're suspicious. And be suspicious of the language. The Russian and Ukrainian languages (I took two years of Russian once upon a time) do not contain the word "a"... so you frequently will see sentences like "I am happy lady" or "I am friendly person". So a spammer whose native tongue is Russian, not English, may not know or notice, but we sure do! Even the "I" sometimes disappears. Am just being cautious guy here.
Here's from an FF profile who flirted with me:
"I can say that I am matured, independent and hardworking person."
Note the missing "a", and the stilted language. If you copy and paste this into Google search, at least at the time of writing this blog, you get entries on multiple websites, including: www.foreignladies.com in the Phillipines, www.foreignladies.com in South Bend Indiana, another separate profile on POF in Phoenix, AZ..... and on and on.
You can report abuse to FF - supposedly. They don't seem to be doing much about it. And the profile might be CONFIRMED, it might actually be a paying member, doesn't matter. There's money to be made off of us, so investing a little isn't a big deal. And if it's a spammer paying FF $25/month to be a member, well, FF may not be in a hurry to get rid of them.
I realize that most of the readers of my blog may be women. But don't doubt for a moment, you are targets as well. One of the best defenses on Craigslist, if you're in the same city, was asking if they were willing to meet up for coffee today or tomorrow. It's hard to do that when the spammer lives in Bulgaria, Pakistan, or Nigeria. There will always be an excuse, a reason they can't meet today.
Ehhhhhhhhh. Sigh. WTF.
Good luck!
As always, love to hear your comments, it's important. The more comments posted, the higher this post sorts in the lists, and the more people see it.
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Thoughts on pain, pleasure, and the eeewwwhh factor...
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Posted:Feb 2, 2018 9:34 am
Last Updated:Feb 14, 2018 11:45 am
2107 Views
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As I've been on FF, friends and strangers from time to time comment about some of the activities they've seen on my profile... and more, I'm sure, say nothing - but just wonder to themselves. One lady, perhaps a bit of a newb, thought she was just all into it, until suddenly she wasn't, and I was “sick”, lol! I thought perhaps some enlightenment would be interesting, even fun.
Some years ago, I simply couldn't watch a video of someone – man or woman – being whipped, cropped, administered pain in any way. I would cringe, turn away, wonder how he or she could possibly stand it, so awful... I've understood for a long time that we humans are curious and strange enough that we can fetishize almost anything, but pain? Really? Eeeeeeewwwhhh!
Then one day I bumped into a video, a version of which I've put up on my profile, I titled it “The Pain Blog” to accompany this little essay. The version I saw years ago was just the last two minutes, the light to moderate tap, tap, tapping, fascinating to watch, considering nothing really was happening... for a minute or two... until suddenly one of the longest, slowest ejaculations I'd ever seen. LOL, it was a Meg Ryan “When Harry Met Sally” moment for me – I'll have what he's having! This guy was very, very clearly having some fun! WTF? And that was how my personal exploration began.
I'd read over the years that there is a connection in the human nervous system between pain and pleasure.. and I've discovered, lol, empirically, it's absolutely true. So, some observations. There is a clear threshold level for pain – somewhere between light and moderate for most folks - above that threshold of intensity, which can vary from person to person, the pain will simply deaden all other sensation, including sexual pleasure. And that might be something someone might learn or want to explore at some point, but as a separate subject... However, below that threshold of light to moderate intensity – pain and pleasure, applied in an alternating way on the same skin, produce an amazing intensified and enhanced feeling – for each, for both. At the instant of change from pain, and for some time after, the pleasure is deeply enhanced - and, laughing, the same is true for pain following the pleasure.
A small, light flogger that can be controlled in intensity, and soft fingers, a warm wet mouth, changed back and forth every thirty or forty seconds, a minute... not necessarily in equal amounts of time, is simply one of the most astonishing, intensely addictive experiences on the planet. And, the threshold level – the point above which pain simply deadens – can be shifted during play. Feeling the incredible pleasure that always follows the light pain, the mind quickly but almost subconsciously understands that the intense, enhanced pleasure is happening because it follows the pain – it is intuitive and clear at that instant, though not rationally thought about – and so, the mind does not object at all to the next round of pain, actually wants it, knowing what will follow, will always follow. A loop is set up, and if skillfully performed, the intensity of the pleasure is increased (of course, along with the pain), the threshold slowly climbs higher and higher, the lucky “victim” feels more and more intensity until it becomes, strangely, difficult at times to even distinguish pain from pleasure. All you know is that you want more, more, and more of this intensity.
Skillfully done, it can take your mind, your world to another place, shrink your existence, your sense of body, to just that one small place. This may be, in fact, the beginning of the infamous, vaguely defined and ill-understood “subspace” we all read of.
These last ten to twenty years, the start of the twenty-first century, will in the future be looked on as a golden age of neuroscience, our understanding of the brain is advancing in rapid leaps and bounds. A type of nerve cell in the skin, c-fibers, are now understood to be responsible for the detection and transmission of both pain and pleasure.. and in turn trigger certain proteins and receptors in the brain. The c-fiber cell, activated by one type of stimulation, simply becomes additionally “fired” by the second stimulus, if done before the intensity level of caused by the first stimulus has subsided.
So, a second viewing of that video I put up.. The lady is for the most part not exactly alternating pain and pleasure, but even so, it is very clear, the guy is not a screamer or a moaner, but he is obviously enjoying the entire experience... because, it is enjoyable.
And, this offers insight into other behaviors involving pain – why doms, or dommes, often begin their flogging at a low, tapping level, slowly and steadily increase the intensity – they are shifting that threshold of the pain/pleasure c-fiber boundary upward, never quite crossing (lol, unless they do...), and driving the receiving brain deeper into that intensity.
There is, of course, one other requirement, lol... there has to be a very curious mind, one that is not afraid to experiment, to experience the edges that ordinarily seem... scary.
A last comment... there is little doubt that the science, and the effect, applies equally to both sexes. Lol! I've long felt that the whole concept of D/s is a substantial oversimplification of a much more complex reality. Another subject, another essay. But pain and pleasure are not themselves related to power and control.. they are more tool and method.
Like to hear others' thoughts - Feel free to comment!
And to the sapiosexuals out there - comments matter, FF uses them to increase visibility.. So if you like the intellectual side, walk the walk and leave a comment! Thanks..
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