Ask HN: What is up with all the glitchy and off-topic comments?

I've noticed a fairly sharp increase in junk comments lately. Often new accounts, making posts that are very low quality or sometimes completely incoherent.

I see glitch comments like this on a fairly regular basis:

> 13 60 well and t6ctctfuvuh7hguhuig8h88gd to f6gug7h8j8h6fzbuvubt GB I be cugttc fav uhz cb ibub8vgxgvzdrc to bubuvtxfh tf d xxx h z j gj uxomoxtububonjbk P.l.kvh cb hug tf 6 go k7gtcv8j9j7gimpiiuh7i 8ubg

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47068948#47117224

or this:

> 1662476506

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47121737

or this:

> Аё

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47126475

Sometimes it's coherent, but completely off topic, like this

> when is fivetran coming?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130567

Is clawd running amok, or is someone running botnet C&C via https://news.ycombinator.com/noobcomments or what gives?

5 points | by marginalia_nu 2 hours ago

1 comments

  • verdverm 2 hours ago
    Some of it is definitely "clawd" spam, there was a good post recently called "No Skill. No Talent." (ns;nt)

    You can see it more in /new and /show than comments, some of them also comment to look "real" and not all of it is directly "clawd", but new accounts with human operators that heavily use things like "clawd"