Ah… but how many of those are spambots?

Two million pingers and still no Dr. Demento or Weird Al to follow

iTunes has over 160 million users. Considering Ping is part of iTunes, I’d say 2 million people actuallying trying it out is nothing.

“... a sufficient lucrative target…”

And/or easy pickings, since there apparently aren’t even the most rudimentary anti-spam safeguards, and, according to some, other more serious security issues (that they seemingly responsibly enough don’t detail).

But, for sure, if Apple does something and it’s attached to the very popular iTunes software and store, and the initial membership drive is yoked to a major iTunes update, I think it’s a safe bet that you’re going to catch at least a few eyeballs with your spam.

Well, two million users was more than enough for Facebook, which has a threshold of a million connections as requiring a special contract, to block access from Ping.  So Facebook certainly regards two million as a lot.

LoL @ u Nemo!

Facebook shut down Ping syncing long before Ping got to the two million mark.

I’m pretty sure the order of events was:
Steve Jobs shows off Ping with Facebook connectivity
Zuck goes off all “WTF” and “SMB” on the live stream of Steve Jobs
Facebook shuts down Ping syncing
47 hours later Ping hits two million active users

But these are early days.  And who could have anticipated that Ping would be such an early success that Apple would have to consider doing more to block spam than is done on other social networks?  Id at supra.

Yes, such a huge social network success that people are rounding up the actual amount of users to the next million mark, and dismissing it out of hand.

Let me put it to you another way. There are now 160 million Ping accounts, less than 1% have been accessed in the last three days.

@Nemo

The article you linked to says nothing of the kind. In fact, in it security outfit Sophos singles out Ping because it didn’t include basic anti-spam protections.

Just because other sites’ anti-comment-spam measures are not foolproof or completely effective does not mean they don’t exist.

That said, anyone who would try to hold up something like a sleazy, insecure and sloppily architected site like MySpace as any kind of measure of security would have to be a bit of a fool, to be sure. Happily, other social sites are considerably more effective.

Basically, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, eh?

I am certainly not snowed by spam on the social sites I do regularly use. Although I still have serious qualms about their security.

Basically, anyone who puts sensitive info on any social site or uses social site private messaging for such info is playing with fire.

That said, there is a wide range in effective spam-filtering and prevention.

Type does not equate to degree.

They’re certainly the type of spam that have attacked other socially enabled sites—but if you have any kind of footprint in the various soc media sites, you’ve probably noted that some are innundated and others are relatively spam free. For instance, while I’m not a huge Facebook fan, I have to say that I virtually never get spam there. Or another example: I’m a musician. I’m on a number of socially enabled music sites and on some, like SoundClick, I get rafts of spam. On others, like ReverbNation, I get almost none. It’s all the same type of spam, of course.

Different soc media sites have different strategies and tools of varying efficacy.

So, as noted,  type really does not  mean degree.

Hi, Nemo

Hope the rest of your weekend was pleasant!

On to business. You really aren’t aware of those reports?

Because a quick News.Google on ‘ping spam’ just now turned up 1,392 articles apparently focused mainly on that, among them:

Spammers latch onto Ping to pump iPhone survey scams - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/03/ping_iphone_spam/

Apple Ping network slammed with spam - http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0903/Apple-Ping-network-slammed-with-spam

Spammers Quick to Embrace Ping, Security Firm Says - http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/spammers-quick-to-embrace-ping-security-firm-says/?src=busln

And so on for another 1300+ articles, give or take.

But—wait! There’s recent good news:

Apple removes spammers from iTunes Ping - http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/090710-apple-removes-spammers-from-itunes.html?hpg1=bn

Cheers!

Well, whatever the extent of the problem was, kudos to Apple for apparently taking care of the problem so quickly!