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Subliminal Spam Using an Animated GIF
JohnGrahamCumming writes "Everyone's noticed the recent flood of image spam (including the SpamAssassin developers who are working on an OCR-extension to beat it), but take a look at this spam containing a subliminal message flashed every 17 seconds to try to entice you to buy the stock being pumped. Does this work? Warning: link shows the actual spam; don't blame me if you lose money on this stock!"
This really has nothing to do with subliminal messages, and everything to do with trying to defeat OCR software. I was seeing animated GIFs exactly like this where the "buy" frames were just blank, before they started adding "BUY!" to those frames.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Outlook doesn't support animated gifs (nor most CSS, but that's another matter...!) - I received one of these this morning but all it showed was the 'buy buy buy' frame - my response was 'what an utterly utterly pointless spam'.
Here's the four frames extracted.
Main image
Subliminal image 1
Subliminal image 2
Subliminal image 3
The subliminal images are shown for a fraction of a second every few seconds.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Not to help them out, but next time they need to leave the main text visible in the subliminal images.
How many people would actually sit and look at this image for 17 seconds? It only takes a fraction of a second to realize it's junk.
Did the blogger even READ the wikipedia article linked to? It says "These messages are indiscernible to the conscious mind". I can almost count the number of BUYs in the image.
I bet this is more of an attempt to get around OCR spam detectors that don't support animated gifs.
I seriously doubt the capbilities of a GIF to recreate a true subliminal advertisement. It's a bit dependent on the screen position, machine load, audience's focus, etc. With a movie or a a captured TV audience, it's a bit stronger. Also, this isn't a metaphorical allure, but simply a crude flashing.
For some things subliminal messages can work. For others, it is well-known to be completely ineffective.
I doubt this is going to be much of a difference in SPAM, and is rather a sales differentiation point for a mass marketeer. Somebody is paying extra for this, for sure.
(1) Send out spam using a new technique
(2) Post on slashdot telling people about the spam
(3) Get enormous viewership
(4) Profit!
Just wait for the new Viagra technologies slashdot articles.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
> Does it work?
Rarely and barely. Under very controlled conditions, with very careful measurement, a very slight effect which lasts a very short time can sometimes be found. However, most of the conditions under which people attempt to use it are so uncontrolled (ie. the entirety of whatever environment you're in is affecting you) that there'd be no way to detect the usually tiny effect. If anyone claims it has effect in such a situation, they have no clue how it works, and are probably trying to sell advertising to someone who is so desparate that they have even less of a clue.
The reality of the matter doesn't keep it from happening. Greed drives people to try things that would make even a habitual lottery ticket buyer snicker. For many years (and still, as far as I know) advertisers of tobacco and alcohol would have grotesque death images airbrushed into their magazine and billboard ads. This was based on the dual assumption that subliminals work, and Freud's theory that there was a ubiquitous "death wish", and it was stronger and more prone to manipulation in people who used these substances.
We've dispresnsed with the first, given that magazines and billboards are hardly "controlled" environments. Freud dispensed with the second before he died, years before this was ever attempted.
Despite overwhelming odds against it, advertisers still paid to have these images inserted into their ads. I know of one couple who worked at a commercial art house in New York who made $125,000 together in 1978 doing nothing but these. Large corporations will gamble large amounts way out of proportion for any real return just to grab a tenth of a per cent from competitors. John Sculley's biography about his Pepsi days talks about this greed effect (though not subliminals).
The very first "attempt at subliminals" (the "popcorn and Coke" experiment in a movie theater) was a hoax. Like all such material, it is properly filed on snopes.com, along with the rest of the story. http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
No, there is no cause for concern.
I did a Ph.D. on the use of preattentive perception (read "subliminal") on just-in-time memory support. This was the "Memory Glasses" project that got a bunch of media attention a few years ago -- you may have even seen me pitching it to Alan Alada on PBS's Scientific American Frontiers "you can make it on your own" episode.
The long and short of it is that, yes -- properly encoded, "subliminal messages" can jog your memory, but no, they don't otherwise work as sug,gestions or influence your behavior. If you're curious, you can actually read my dissertation on the Memory Glasses and find out more.
There was a lot of hype in the 70's and 80's about the evils of subliminal marketing, but it was all based on junk science with forged data.
parallax
The article on Wikipedia is actually pretty good. There may be some transitory or faint effects caused by subliminal messages. Advertisers have been trying to capitalize on this possibility for 49 years.
If subliminal messages had any significant effect we would know about it. They've been trying for years.
There have been interesting claims at subliminal messages in popular music. KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kansas, used a subliminal message to attempt catch the BTK killer, but it had no perceptible effect.
I'd say subliminal messages don't work.
Fun highlights:
So, after six years, the company has zero revenue and couldn't even get set up as a second-tier reseller of broadband over powerline products. Which is probably why the stock is at $0.38 and headed down.
If you go back to older related SEC filings, you can find the story of the "Hipster portable Internet access device" (didn't happen), and the previous history of Koala International Wireless as a vitamin company under the name "Kettle River Group" (also a flop).
This stock is not "poised for a breakthrough". Except maybe in the down direction.