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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!"
It's actually a pretty good stock.
Don't work. This supposed message is so obvious it's hard not to laugh.
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;
Bah. They could have been slightly more subtle. I mean, three frames in a row? For Pete's sake, how stupid do they think we are?
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Lisa: But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?
Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Smash: I'll show you. [opens the window, and shouts at Lenny and Carl, who are standing on the corner] Hey, you! Join the Navy! Carl: Uh, yeah, all right.
Lenny: I'm in.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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 seemingly random bolding of text in your comment gives me a sudden urge to buy stuff.
When I was in college in the sixty's I attended a talk on subliminal advertising and there were some rather interesting points. First, advertisers determined the speed at which it worked, then crossed the outstretched palms of their coin-operated congressmen to define a much faster speed as "subliminal," thus clearing the legal field. Next they performed a major experiment. At that time (maybe still, I don't watch the boob tube at all) Pillsbury had an ad where a cartoon "Dough Boy" would jump out of a roll of biscuits when it was hit on a table edge and proclaim the "wonderfullness" of the product. A subliminal spot of a pregnant woman was placed just before Dough Boy jumped out . . . and sales soared. There was also a major flap about some "scientist" who supposedly faked his data on subliminal advertising, which played right into the advertisers hands, of course, so who knows what to believe?
BillyDoc
A. There are 12 married
B. Four married posters under 40
B. Two guys that are dating (not each other)
C. Two girls who reads Slashdot.
E. An undetermined but very small number of folks who can keep the first FOUR letters of the alphabet straight...
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.