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Recent trends in spambots

Archive: 18 posts

So I've gotten my second PM from a forum I haven't visited in years. It seems that spambots now register on forums with the sole purpose of sending a cryptic PM to every registered member. One even had the gall to pretend they were the administrator (a quick glance at the user profile confirmed that they were not, but the "Occupation" field was written as "Administrator" to complete the charade).

Also, it seems they sometimes leave cryptic messages on random forum threads which don't seem like spam at first glance, but simply seem like off topic posts. More often than not there is a link to a website, which is not referenced at all in the post.

This raises many questions for me.
Are there any more spambotting trends we should be wary of, and possibly set up countermeasures against?
What is the point of bothering average forumgoers with spam in the first place?
Is the small niche of most fansites really that lucrative as a target audience to bother spambotting them at all?
Does this kind of spam ever actually result in something positive for the advertised websites?
Wouldn't targeted advertising such as those offered by most advertising services be much more effective than random spam, even though spam is "free"?
How do the spambots even get around the many anti-bot registration questions most forums have on registering?

Discuss. 		2010-01-21 17:10:00

Author:
Gilgamesh
Posts: 2536

Don't know much about forum spam but for emails I'm getting a lot of mmorpg ones.

I used to play WoW so i get a lot trying to scam me out of my account (I can't even remember the password so they're not gonna get it xD). Also just got an Aion one which I haven't even got an count for so yer mmorpg's in general.

Aside from that I get the usual 'mens products' and 'womens products' and lots of ones which the title is literally '7843267432734267' probably because they've just run out of ideas 		2010-01-21 18:05:00

Author:
Shermzor
Posts: 1330

Maybe they are in fact human beings.2010-01-21 18:06:00

Author:
Syroc
Posts: 3193

There was one that posted here a couple days ago. And there's some really annoying ones on youtube. Me and Foofles have encountered quite a bunch on our videos. He got hit quite hard today too.

Link from MNRC

http://www.mnrcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1055		2010-01-21 18:46:00

Author:
JKthree
Posts: 1125

It is not new. It is only new to you - unfortunately, it has been happening a while.

Also - some of them are not bots but people.		2010-01-21 18:57:00

Author:
ButterflySamurai
Posts: 98

Oh, seriously? Well, not sure if it's anything to do with this, but I got a pm from some new guy who I've never heard of before telling me to go back to a site I used to be a mod at because it was full of (insert f noun here)... Then sent another pm about some other member from there who wanted my "****"... sooooooo yeah. This could be that, IF you're talking about pming people on forums not on the forums they're on... unless it was some newbie telling me to go back even though I never saw them before... eh w/e I suppose.2010-01-21 20:27:00

Author:
RockSauron
Posts: 10882

Oh gaul. You have officially scared me. Think about it. Anyone on here could be a spammer and we wouldn't even know!2010-01-21 21:37:00

Author:
qrtda235566
Posts: 3664

*Sir we have a code red there onto us!*



I havent seen this type of spambot but i was on a different forum once and this guy posted a nude video on like every thread :O		2010-01-22 00:42:00

Author:
Snrm
Posts: 6419

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Haha, just kidding.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up on the spammers.		2010-01-22 03:11:00

Author:
Frinklebumper
Posts: 941

I always thought they were payed to do it. By the ones that say "Buy our perfume n Viagra n stuff plz!" (Not exactly like that)

Oooor They are held in some basement with a man pointing a gun at the spammers head telling them that he's needs loads of purchases or else the spammer will die.

But naaa that could never happen.

I've even received one that says "Don't laugh. Earn up to $169 a day" So they obviously know what they are doing.		2010-01-22 06:22:00

Author:
Pantyer2
Posts: 652

Oh gaul. You have officially scared me. Think about it. Anyone on here could be a spammer and we wouldn't even know!

You wanna buy some cheap meds? (http://tiny.cc/0auBy)		2010-01-22 12:26:00

Author:
Rabid-Coot
Posts: 6728

They are paid.

It can be split up 3 main ways. It could be done other ways resulting in more or less groups but 3 is the easiest.

Indiscriminate programs looking for known bugs in software, such as vBulletin.

There are also people employed to write normal posts on multiple accounts until that account has enough posts to be trusted and that account is then sold (For a less than a dollar per account) to a spammer with username/password in tow.

There is also the fully human method, which renders CAPTCHAs completely irrelevant - actual people signing up to forums who may or may not post useful content who send spam to as many people as possible before they are banned.

None of which are new. They money for this kind of work is not worth the effort - if you stuck at it for a week, you may get one sticker set. There are people looking to hire people to do all of the above on most freelancing/outsourcing sites and there has been for a while.

It is not so much a recent trend as sampling bias - it has been going on a while, you are just coming into contact with it recently. That is not to say that it is more common now than it has been, that the trend is a recent one or that it is a rising one.		2010-01-22 15:18:00

Author:
ButterflySamurai
Posts: 98

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ooh i love hangman. I'm gonna guess A?		2010-01-22 16:16:00

Author:
Doopz
Posts: 5592

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Zomg he's a bot! His sole purpose is to spam up our forums!		2010-01-22 16:23:00

Author:
ARD
Posts: 4291

Like JKThree said, there's also a growing trend with YouTube. Is this new spam wave some sort of "get on the bandwagon" deal?2010-01-22 18:47:00

Author:
Unknown User

upid-stay idiots-ay...at-thay is-ay orse-may ode-cay!e-hay isn't-ay a ambot-spay

OMGGGGGGGGGG hes a spambot!!!		2010-01-22 19:13:00

Author:
theswweet
Posts: 2468

spamspamspam2010-01-22 21:16:00

Author:
Unknown User

I'll be laughing my butt off if a spam bot advertised this:

"Hate spam botz? Download this awzome spam bot bloker at S P A M B O T B L O C K E R . N E T!"

Ha, SPAM BOT FAIL!.NET 		2010-01-22 23:18:00

Author:
CyberSora
Posts: 5551


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