Slick spammers

I just saw a pretty slick spammer scheme on my sons forum.

Someone signs up and post a question.

A few days later, new member signs up and post a link as a reply to the question.

How do I know its a spammer - both people have the same IP address.

Anyway, I edited the links and removed the hyperlink so its just text now.

 

They are meant to be able to automate this these days with programs I think like xrumer.

 

I've had this happen a few times; usually seems to be business cards they're advertising.

 

They're getting smarter! :lol:

I haven't seen this happen yet though.

 

Is there any way of identifying posts made by xrumer? (Other than the low-quality spam they usually contain.) I've got someone posting fairly good quality posts with a deeplink to their site in each, but I wonder if they're making the same posts on other similar forums.

 

Do a google search for the users email address, account name, ip address, or the first sentence of their post in quotes.

There is a site called "stop forum spam" - and it will usually list the persons username, ip address and email address. So if a google search returns anything from the Stop Forum Spam site, their a spammer.

And if you do a search for the first sentence in quotes and it comes back with 100+ results, know know they are a spammer.

 

they are not always automated bots posting.
in my forums we have unique register questions which no bot can possibly answer. so either the bots targeted us directly and have been told how to answer or these are real people, posting about 100 the same posts in a bunch of forums. i rather believe the second is the case.

the best way is that you copy the sentence containing the link and search in google with quotes for it. quotes, so that google is looking for exactly this word order.
in most cases i found several forums containing the identical thread. not as much as someone would believe it is a bot, but enough to get some sneaky advertising done.

i for myself dont think its too bad. its just some sort of unwanted advertising. just delete and it would be fine. the bots didnt come up with something against the NoSpam questions or picture gessings yet. as long as its no captcha, which nearly every bot can read by now, you wont have problems.
(my last real "bot" which has been banned was about 1 year ago.)

 

I have seen this a few times over the years on vBulletin.com. Its a tricky one to watch for.

 

I think you can still determine what is spam and who's regged as a spammer and what isn't and catch out the spammers. Normally, if it looks suspicious chances are it is.

I had this done at vbimageworks a few times and removed and banned.

There's a script you can use which stops anyone with less than X amount of posts from posting links. The post is put into moderation queue.

 

xrumer is phoning home

 

hahaha I love it and is classic - I think it is funny reading this type of thing - sure spamming is bloody annoying at times but overall at least they are continuously coming up with new ways of doing it.

I admire it! Yet still hate it!

 

It's sad though, sometimes if the spammers have a well-crafted, natural sounding post, the members fall for it and start talking to them. Then when you end up deleting the account everyone wants to know why you deleted their new friend.