It was the oddest collecton of spam-related searches I’d ever seen:
print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam loading
print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam
print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test
spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test delete loading
spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test delete loading yahoo
print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam loading yahoo beta
spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test delete
print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test yahoo loading
print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test yahoo
What, I wondered, did it all mean? What is a silk test? Is this some bizarre new spammer lingo? Perhaps a spamming program?
Intrigued, I did some further digging.
It turns out that SilkTest (or Silk Test) is a software tool for doing regression and functionality testing. It was originally offered by Segue Software, which was asquired by Borland.
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According to Borland, “Borland SilkTest is the proven choice of QA professionals for powerful functional test automation. Intuitive GUI record & replay capabilities coupled with a stable, easy-to-use testing language lets test engineers build functional and regression tests that don’t break with minor changes to the application – a problem that makes most functional testing tools too costly to implement. SilkTest delivers time-tested stability and support of major enterprise environments in a cost-effective package that makes functional and regression test automation a must-have instead of an expensive nice-to-have.”
SilkTest features include:
Easy to use interface
Built in recovery system
The object oriented concept
Record & Play
Multi-kind application testing
Automatic generation of results
Browser & Platform independent
24 x 365 unattended testing
Distributed Access to Test Results
Cross Platform Java Testing
Testing Across Multiple Browsers and Windows Versions
Support for HTML, XML, JavaScript, Java, Active X, Windows controls, and Visual Basic.
Single-recording testing for cross-platform Java testing with the Silk Bean.
Against Over 35 Databases.
Link Tester
Validation of Advanced Database Structure and Techniques
Now, this is all well and good, but I still have no idea what SilkTest’s relation to spam is. What are all those odd searches, such as “print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam loading” about?
My best guess is that someone has been creating some anti-spam systems, and is using SilkTest to test them, although that still doesn’t explain the searches.
Anybody else got a better guess?
In the meantime, if you are looking for information on SilkTest, you can find the [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead], and there is an excellent Tutorial on Silk Test here.
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I chanced on your question, probably out of your original contest, so I can’t tell how you came across these “searches”
Were you doing a search on the word spam?
At any rate, in addition to the response given by the experienced programmer above, I would add the human element. What kind of person would use the word spam in naming something? Almost certainly not a real spammer! That person would hide their purpose with some obscure name. Instead I think it highly likely you have found the work of a test person who has created a series of tests focused on product protection from various spam scenarios. The tester would create a series of test actions and give the group a handy self-decriptive name (at least meaningful to the author) – much as you surmised. What I don’t understand is what you mean by “spam-related searches”. You know what you were doing, but we don’t. In what context were you searching, and with what tool, so that you got back these hits? Why were you suprised?
Hi, I’m an advanced user of Silk Test. It’s extremely useful for emulating a user using a website or an application. It has it’s own programming language called 4test which is extremely powerful and makes the product very very flexible to cope with almost you throw at it. This tool could easily be used for spamming by training it to sign guestbooks, post in forums, even manipulate instant messenger programs. You can attach a SQL or Access database to it as well for test data, which in the spammer’s case would be first and last names and email accounts etc. Feel free to email me if you have any further questions.