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Just to clarify: I am using the word crook here in its 4th meaning. See the Freedictionary.com:

1. An implement or tool, such as a bishop’s crosier or a shepherd’s staff, with a bent or curved part.
2. A part that is curved or bent like a hook.
3. A curve or bend; a turn: a crook in the path.
4. Informal One who makes a living by dishonest methods.

Here is the story. On my other blog, that deals with Cross-Cultural issues, De Culturis Mundi there is an article about the homonym trap encountered by software writers, coders.

Today, I was notified that a new comment has been posted to the article. At first glance it seems to be a completely legitimate comment, saying:
Clear and well written explanation of the concept of of �homonym trap???. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up

What caught my attention was the signature and the “author”: - Don Lapre is a Superstar.
Very few people would choose such a nickname on the net, so I clicked on the URI provided, and I was taken to a website of an individual named (so he says) Don Lapre: http://www.j-ams.org/. For the mandatory email address the commenter also put webmaster@j-ams.org.

I didn’t see any reason why this vitamin-guru should be interested in the homonym topic, therefore I checked the IP of the commenter to see where was he coming from. Surprize, surprize… While this busy entrepreneur lives in Arizona, the commenter has been logged in from Sri Lanka! (IP: 202.21.35.240 , turbo2.eureka.lk)

I am aware that comment and trackback spam is the worst enemy of any blogger nowadays. I have proper protection, so the automatic robot scripts get caught and their comments/trackback killed. Occasionally, one or two might trick the system, but basically, it works OK.
To be honest, I still don’t understand the reason to mass-attack blogs with comment spam, since on most blogging systems the links in the comments have a “nofollow” class that prevents them to be spidered by the search engines - practically, making them useless if you are after enhancing your ranking. Don’t they know that?

But this comment I got today tells me a about a new development. Seemingly, the “webmaster” of D.L.’s site is hiring poor guys from the Third World to manually spam blogs with an apparently coherent and contextual comment, just to be able to insert links in their signature to the site they want/need to promote. I am saying it again: all the links in the comments section have a no-follow class, so it’s useless. Of course, they can always hope, some visitors of mine will click on the link. Now, because I am “evil” I left the comment up (for you, the reader), but deleted the URL, so there is no link to click.
I don’t think the “webmaster” - whoever he is - would act without the knowledge and approval of the site-owner. That’s why I came quickly to my conclusion stated in the title: Don Lapre is a crook and a menace to the internet.

I don’t mind him selling as many vitamins as he can.
I don’t mind him having any number of websites for marketing.
I really don’t care who he is and what he does.

All I care for: my blog(s), and whoever is using dirty tricks to post/send spam to my sites - I’ll publicly call them what they deserve.