Spammers

[Ian]

It looks like we're getting a lot of Chinese text spam at the moment - we're cleaning it up as soon as we spot it and I'm working on tweaking the anti-spam filters each time they post. They're very persistent compared to the ones we usually get, so this may take a day or two to get under control!

If you spot anything that looks like spam, please hit the report button and we'll tackle it ASAP .

 

[MaryMary]

Out of curiosity, I cut and pasted one of the sentences into Google search. (Trying to see if it would lead me to a translation site!)

What it led me to is a whole page of various forums!

Thank you for cleaning it up when you see it, those poor people at the video game forum have 50 threads of it!!

 

[Chuck]

Out of curiosity, I cut and pasted one of the sentences into Google search. (Trying to see if it would lead me to a translation site!)

What it led me to is a whole page of various forums!

Thank you for cleaning it up when you see it, those poor people at the video game forum have 50 threads of it!!

My computer translated it. There was 2 different messages and both involved colleges and universities and neither one made any sense. The entire pages were a list of different colleges and the message to all was the same. At first I thought it might be some kind of code but on the first day it was one message and on the second day the same list of colleges but a different message. Thankfully our tech gurus fixed it...........I hope forever

 

[zigs]

Ian's put some extra security in, they're getting caught in the spam filter before getting to the main boards now

Thank you to everyone for your vigilance

 

[Chuck]

Ian's put some extra security in, they're getting caught in the spam filter before getting to the main boards now

Thank you to everyone for your vigilance

I always thought spam was a way to make money but this stuff made no sense at all. It was more like sending a message to a college registrars office. What was their motive?

 

[Durgan]

Motive Pure Vandalism. Several years ago my website was hacked. Seven years of data made unusable. Message was full screen. HACKED.

I had the data mostly pictures on my computer, but it was too tedious to re-enter. It was sort of like dying. Such is life.

 

[Chuck]

Motive Pure Vandalism. Several years ago my website was hacked. Seven years of data made unusable. Message was full screen. HACKED.

I had the data mostly pictures on my computer, but it was too tedious to re-enter. It was sort of like dying. Such is life.

But as far as I know nothing was damaged at all. So no vandalism. All it actually did was to take up space. This took some time to do. It is like they just made a list of who they wanted to send the 2 messages to and posted it on a gardening site which has no ties to any college. Kind of like sending something to the wrong address in the mail or something.

 

[MaryMary]

Ian's put some extra security in, they're getting caught in the spam filter before getting to the main boards now

YAY, IAN!!!

Motive Pure Vandalism.

In the case of your website, yes, probably. But they didn't erase threads, or render the forum inoperable, so I think there must have been a different motive here.

 

[MaryMary]

posted it on a gardening site which has no ties to any college.

When I googled it, they also posted on a video game forum, and a guitar forum. One of them had a slightly different user-name. Instead of " sadfad07" (or whatever it was,) it was "adfad09" or something like it.

There were other types of forums, it was a whole page of forums. Makes no sense.

 

[Chuck]

When I googled it, they also posted on a video game forum, and a guitar forum. One of them had a slightly different user-name. Instead of " sadfad07" (or whatever it was,) it was "adfad09" or something like it.

There were other types of forums, it was a whole page of forums. Makes no sense.

What exactly did you google

 

[MaryMary]

Before the thread was deleted, I copied a sentence of the Chinese writing, and pasted it into google search. They've been using the same content, or close enough that Google picked it up!

 

[Beth_B]

Usually spammers (and this one was probably a bot, not an actual human) have one of two goals: introduce malware/viruses or try to push a spammy site - usually selling various ahem fake enhancement meds, or for phony loans or sweepstakes and so on.

But those require naive readers to click on a link. Weirdly, the walls of Chinese text I saw did not include any links. So this may be a persistent, but ultimately really inept, spammer organization.

Oh and thanks to admin and mods for tackling this so promptly! I used to run a very active message board and stuff like this can be incredibly time consuming to deal with.

 

[MaryMary]

They're ba-a-ack!!! Already reported...


Edited to add: How does a bot join a forum?

 

[MaryMary]

They're gone already! Maybe Ian couldn't sleep? They were gone within 30 minutes of my reporting them!!

Wow, just wow!!

 

[Becky]

They're gone already! Maybe Ian couldn't sleep? They were gone within 30 minutes of my reporting them!!

Wow, just wow!!

Ah, the benefits of being in a different timezone!

I checked my emails as soon as I woke up, and removed the spam as soon as I saw your reports. Thanks for flagging them up!