I've been botted. I was botted once before, but that was by Russia after I posted a piece about Putin. This time I've been botted, not once, but twice, just a few days apart, by the good, old United States of America.
I can only presume these incursions were triggered in response to certain comments I wrote about the current administration. The strange thing is that the bots scanned from the beginning of the blog, from when I first started it in June 2013. At that time, Trump was still a lower Manhattan honky-tonk singer, or whatever he did before deciding to rule the world
These bots do no harm. They do not corrupt or delete files. They are computer programs that search for keywords. The NSA has thousands of keywords that can trip a red flag. Algorithms determine if a pattern can be established, each link warranting deeper levels of digital scrutiny.
Let me explain for a moment. To a certain extent, my blog allows me to track what blogs have been viewed and when, and what country the page views came from. I cannot get (nor would I want) more specific information than that, so you do not need to worry about me. Whether you need to worry about any three-letter agency(ies) monitoring my blog for hits depends on your level of paranoia, or prudence.
The Russian bot scanned every entry on my blog, but the two U.S. bots only went about half way through, so they haven't seen any of my newer stuff. I'm actually kind of *chagrined. Did the bots get bored? Did they decide I was no threat, just another ineffectual funnyman from the blogosphere?
It is an urban legend that someone actually said this, but I can appreciate the sentiment: "If I'm not being watched by the government, I'm not doing my job."
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