[Pmwiki-users] Wiki-Spammers 2 - motives

[Patrick R. Michaud]

This is my second message on wiki spammers.

In Balu's message earlier today, he shares the following excerpt
from his mailposts log...

 * Main.HomePage . . . 2005-01-10 04:23 by bob
 * Main.HomePage . . . 2005-01-10 04:27 by bob
 * Main.HomePage . . . 2005-01-10 04:28 by bob
 * Main.WikiSandbox . . . 2005-01-10 04:33 by bob
 * Main.WikiSandbox . . . 2005-01-10 04:37 by bob
 * Main.WikiSandbox . . . 2005-01-10 04:38 by bob
 * Main.SideBar . . . 2005-01-10 04:44 by bob
 * Main.SideBar . . . 2005-01-10 04:48 by bob
 * Main.SideBar . . . 2005-01-10 04:48 by bob
 * Main.SearchWiki . . . 2005-01-10 04:53 by bob
 * Main.SearchWiki . . . 2005-01-10 04:57 by bob
 * Main.SearchWiki . . . 2005-01-10 04:58 by bob
 * PmWiki.WikiHelp . . . 2005-01-10 05:02 by bob
 * PmWiki.WikiHelp . . . 2005-01-10 05:06 by bob
 * PmWiki.WikiHelp . . . 2005-01-10 05:07 by bob
 * PmWiki.EditQuickReference . . . 2005-01-10 05:11 by bob
 * PmWiki.EditQuickReference . . . 2005-01-10 05:16 by bob
 * PmWiki.EditQuickReference . . . 2005-01-10 05:16 by bob
 * Main.RecentChanges . . . 2005-01-10 05:21 by bob
 * Main.RecentChanges . . . 2005-01-10 05:37 by bob

The question that often perplexes me when looking at logs like
this is:  Is this a human or a bot doing the work?  If it's a bot,
why is the bot so ... "restrained"?  Is it that the bot is programmed
to avoid various actions that would indicate it's a bot, such as
making too many postings in a short period of time, or posting to
large numbers of pages in a single session?  

Most attacks I've seen limit the attacks to only a dozen or so 
pages on a site, and I've never quite figured out why this is the case
if it's a bot.  Perhaps it's just a case of the parasite being 
careful not to kill the host organism?

Pm