Chalk this post up to paranoia if you'd like. Either that or a keen sense of the inherent evil in human nature and the expression of that evil in diabolical marketing schemes meant to abuse a poor blogger like myself.

If you're a blogger, you know what "comment spam" is. For the rest of you, comment spam is basically when some crappy spam company puts fake comments on your blog postings in order to increase their Google PageRank listings (which are based on the number of links to your site). Although my blogs are hardly world-class Kottke-esque affairs, I get my share of comment spam. I use the excellent MT-Blacklist utility to keep this crud at bay, and can easily delete any posts for penis-pills.com or the like as they come in. Recently, though, the spammers have gotten a little tricky. Here're the details...

The comment started off pretty innocent, looking like one of the many clueless newbie comments that any message board experiences:

I am new to the internet and I am web surfing and I did a search in the search engines on "real estate company blog" and I found your web blog. I am a Halifax Real Estate Agent in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and I heard blogs were specialized discussions on topics, thus my interest in searching for a real estate blog on the WWW. I just wanted to see how the rest of the world thinks and see what trends and technology are happening in the real estate market. I also am interested in a blog for myself, that is if I can understand the technology of operating a blog and from what I see here I am somewhat hesitant right now even though it was interesting reading.

Respectfully yours
James B. ,
[Link omitted]
Halifax Real Estate Agent

Clicking through to the link provided I found a very simple webpage for the same real estate agent with the following info:

Hello there, my name is James B. and I live in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, Canada. I am a Halifax Real Estate Agent, which is an awesome job as I get to meet alot of nice people selling their homes. There are a vast variety of houses for sale here in Halifax and it keeps this real estate agent very busy. When I amnot selling real estate in Halifax I like to golf and play baseball hockey and tennis. I will be adding pictures of the different houses I have sold as well as pictures of my  family and friends and other interesting information about myself.

Like any good stooge, I was seduced by the details offered, with the "golf and play baseball hockey and tennis" and was starting to believe this was real. But I'm from New York, so it takes more than a couple of misspellings to get my confidence. I noticed that the page I'm visiting is on the dubious-sounding server "a-purfectdream-expression.com" so I decide to check out the root url.

A-purfectdream-expressions show up as a greeting cards site with this description:

This is our New Free Online Greeting Card Sending System where you can Create your Free Online Greeting Card BEFORE YOUR EYES using one of 12 Java Effects Applets with each and every picture. It is you that makes A Purfectdream Expression Greeting Cards something we all can be proud of and enjoy. This is just a start to our entry page for our greeting card website with lots of new exciting things coming very soon, so please come back often and enjoy.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring. By now I'm sure this is a scam, but I can't really figure out the angle. Is this porn? Viagra?

Then I notice an "Enter" button at the bottom of the page. Finally, the smoking gun! I click on the link, giving some monkey in russia a 10 cent commission, only to find...an online casino! Wow, I almost thought this was going to lead to something exciting, like WMDs or imported prescription drugs. No, just run of the mill spam.