#1 2008-09-20 10:26 pm

rgrne

Member

Registered: 2008-09-20

Posts: 13

A new spammer tactic?

Something interesting happened today that I've never seen before.  I was checking my memberlist for spammers.  One of the red flags for spammers is usually a username that is a semi random jumble of letters or otherwise atypical of the type of usernames that people use on our site.  I came across such a name, and checked the personal info that the person had typed in.  That's another red flag - spammers usually insist on filling out their user profiles (location, interests, etc.) with garbage or other atypical responses.  However, this one had filled out info that was entirely appropriate and "on topic" for our site. They had also responded to their confirmation email and were activated, probably for at least an hour, without having posted anything stupid, do I didn't do anything further.

I then looked at the listing for the next signup.  I found that their user profile was identical to the last person's, except for their email.  Still didn't make any red flags wave in my head - it was strange, but I figured that maybe entry #2 was by the same person, who maybe realized they wanted a different handle, or wanted a sock puppet, or whatever.

Anyway, a few hours later I found a post advertising porn on our forums that was put there by person #1.  They were promptly deleted.  A quick google search found that they had signed up on a gazillion boards within the past day or so, and their email address had wound up on this site.  Person #2, however is apparently legitimate.  Googling their name and email addy revealed that they have long been active on various boards similar to ours.

This is what I think happened: person #1 (the spam bot) signed up.  received its cofirmation email, and promptly replied to it.  Being an "active member", it could now read the membership list and proceeded to copy the user info for the next member it came across into its own fields, thus making its signup less suspicious, and less likely to get deleted by admins before it got around to posting a porn advertisement on its next run through the forums.

MacHeadCase

Member

From: Montréal, Québec

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 346

Website

Re: A new spammer tactic?

I would suggest you add the IP and email address of the spammer to the list here by filling in the My Spammers info. It will help us all.

We had a spammer join at our forum and I added the info in the Stop Forum Spam list and hopefully that blocked the spammer from polluting another forum.

And your suspicions sound very likely: I'll say that spammers are getting smarter nowadays.

Ax Slinger

Member

From: The North Coast

Registered: 2008-04-10

Posts: 184

Website

Re: A new spammer tactic?

And they're definitely getting more annoying...

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I only like Spam if it is Deep Fried and served with Cheese.
But only once every six months or so.