[Tenshi]

First and foremost, I want to thank all of the mods! They are going well above and beyond the call of their service in hunting these posts out and removing them. I imagine they have removed almost 100 just from our current problem alone! Their work is more appreciated than I have words to express...

Mm, we were kind of overrunning the "Current Page" thread, so I figured I would make us a new thread for specifically this purpose. The irony is, we can delete this thread or something if it's ever not needed anymore XD

Electricpanda mentioned that the Tomgeeks forum is having trouble with the same bot, which makes me wonder. I would wager that this bot scours the webcomics top100 or some similar list, and then tries each link. If I were making the bot, I would then pull the HTML from the page and seek each <a> tag. Using that, you could search one or two links deep to find anything with "forum" in the <title> tag. Once you've got that, registration links are easy to hunt for a bot, only a few alternate methods.

The person does the visual blocker thing, and viola. We have a spambot.

The fact that they're not hounding us until deleted might mean that they're keen on the fact that other bots take a while to be banned. Or maybe this is one person manually sending the bot back to us again and again? Maybe they get paid per post, or something.

...I don't know why, but I find spambots as interesting as computer virii and physical bacteria/virii. Which is to say, incredibly interesting. On the other hand, if I ever meet the person who has a sick enough mind to keep sending this crap down our forum's throat, I'm going to break their arms. **positively sweet smile**
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. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton

[TheBritishInvasion]

Tenshi's right, a great big thanks to all the mods for dealing with these pests.

Which brings to mind an excellent idea for an invention; spammer-begone!

I've always wondered if these spambots actually work, I don't look at their threads, in fact I rarely read the entire title but the people who make them must go to a lot of trouble to do so. Are these threads worth it or are they just jerks who enjoy annoying others?
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Britland as dubbed by AsA
Avatar courtesy of Footloose
Keeper of Tengu's electricity and Willow's 'what did you just say' eyes.

[Tamir]

One thing to consider is that they affect Google. If they succeed in creating lost of links to themselves in lots of sites, they will show up higher in a Google search.

And unfortunately, I think there are people who are likely to click on the sort of links they give anyway. Not on this forum, but on others.

[Tenshi]

I've checked a few threads, it's the same canned message. There are certain programs and browsers that a person can use to automatically pull links from webpages, and then cache them on the user's machine. I suppose if any of us had those programs installed, we would be generating revenue for the spammers...

Though the fact that this guy keeps logging in and spamming us further makes me think it's just some sicko who enjoys annoying others.

Edit: And Tam's got the right idea too. Though don't you have to click a link for google to shunt it higher, or is it just number of times it appears?

Because all the links he's posting for airfare are different. Text codes before a url before a .pl extension...

The mortgage ones get random extensions some of them to google notebooks.
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. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton

[Tamir]

I don't believe you need to click on the links, but rather Google needs only see them. I could be wrong, however - I really can't remember the specifics of Google mechanics right now.

[electricpanda]

It's affecting Tomgeeks and Earthsong because they're hosted on the same server, I think.

I did see a video of how spambots work, once! Basically, you get a special spamming program, which contains an address book of the most common forum types: BBCode, Invision, Powerboard, etc. It then spams everything it can in it's address book with default messages and such.

So, uh, it's basically like junk mail - they don't single out forums by looking for them, they just know where all the houses are.

[JackAce]

Once, on another forum, I honestly saw a spam post that was an advertizing for a spamming service.

I don't remember the exact text, but it basically came down to: "Click here to have your ad posted on message boards all across the internet!"


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Please click on my Eggs and Hatchlings.

[Tamir]

More ironic would be a spammer advertising anti-spam software.

[Ravenna]

I don't like these spammers who are spamming our forum with this junk. They are smelly, nasty and probably have no friends. I just hope they know that. XP

Back on topic, I'm not a computer whizz, so I couldn't comment on how they keep plaguing us the way that they do... But it seems that a lot of the same images keep popping up. Could it be the same virus/spam-writer?
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Bernard [about the job]: The pay's not great, but the work is hard.
~ Black Books ~

[Asa]

Just adding my thanks to the list...
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Self-styled Forum Grandmother, because I hand out nicknames and hugs whether you want them or not. ^_^

Keeper of the Library and the Gateway to Haven

Nem: "It's the sort of face you just know is getting ready to poke you with something sharp."
BS: "...then insist you eat a brownie."
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If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended...
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

[Tinu.]

Ditto. I'm so thankful I rarely see any of the spam junk.

I'll leave you all to your technical discussions now. >>;
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong

"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein

[Nem]

I'm just glad this is a relatively low post count spam bot. It could just post a thousand threads, or post its advert a hundred times in every topic and there'd be nothing we could do about it then other than ask the Lady to ban it.
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Tyris]

[Tenshi]

@Tetris: I looked and looked for that thread, and could not for the life of me find it. Now I know why: the title XD

But yeah, this is more of a "I hate spammers, and I love our mods" thread...

BTW, when I logged in after class the forums were completely clean! Given that this bot is logged in more than I am (and that's difficult, I promise you), I'm very impressed with everyone who has the fancy "delete" button.
_________________
. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton

[Cypher]

Unfortunately, it would seem that the bot isn't done. I just found a new thread. Grr...

More permanent measures will be required. I suggest seeking out the person/company/whatever who sent the @&#$ thing and doing anatomically impossible things to them.

Nobody messes with my forum!
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Mors Certa, Vita Incerta.

Officially dubbed Pez by AsA
Cypher = code = problem = puzzle = Puzz = Pez

Keeper of Skogul's berserk rage, and the Endless Void.