The Spambot List by Kwicko

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

The Spambot List

POSTED BY: KWICKO
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 5, 2010 17:23
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:39 AM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Seems we're being infiltrated lately, and it continues. We've got threadjacks, title changes (see "Serenity Back on SyFy's Schedule" post, which I just had to edit because the thread title had been changed to "Professional Term Papers") and an abundance of new users posting nothing but SPAM posts pimping their stuff for sale on other websites.

Any way to fix 'em?

So far, the guilty parties include:

Henry123
Dorotha
SarahLawson (two "No Title" posts last night alone)
Maria113
DAVID123
KELLIEPUF

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:45 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Haken should be able to block ips. It 's odd because it doesn't seem like bots, maybe just really good bots.

I hope the pain of keeping things spam free doesn't get to be too much... another nudge to folks to donate to Haken for keeping the site going.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 5:35 AM

FREMDFIRMA

By the timing, Mikey, it seems to be one person, and if so getting them chopped by their provider would be simple enough cause their tactics are pretty primitive - and given that they're likely responsible for the outage as well, they could be criminally liable as well, particularly if they did not cover their tracks well, and the amateur nature of it convinces me they didn't.

-F

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 6:02 AM

KWICKO

I'm not convinced it IS bots - more likely it's "human bots", people in boiler rooms being paid pennies per hour to flood websites and chat rooms with their garbage.

In other words, they're just other versions of PirateNews. (Yes, that's snark, and I'm mostly kidding.)

What worries me is that I've seen this kind of behavior kill boards before. It just becomes too much of a hassle for the site's owners/administrators to try to keep up with the attacks, especially in light of the diminishing returns of what the site was originally set up for.

Thing is, I'm not sure what we as loyal Browncoats can do, other than just to keep trying to alert Haken to their presence so he can nuke them quickly without having to waste all HIS time trying to go through every post to see who's spamming and where. I mean, we don't have the admin power to do anything ourselves (and I'm certainly NOT lobbying for that power, because I've had it before on other sites, and I don't want it, because no matter what you do, you're the asshole for doing it. Or not doing it. You can't win as a moderator), but we can try to make it as pain-free for Haken as possible, and hopefully those responsible will get tired of not getting any decent results, and will move on.

Meanwhile, if you see ANY links for "term papers", "essays" and the like, DON'T CLICK ON THEM! Treat them as viruses if that's what it takes to make you not click on them. And if you'd like to report the author of such links to this thread, I'm perfectly happy to change the title to "The Spambot List" or some such, so that Haken can pop in here to see where his actions are needed in order to thwart their efforts.

One thing I ask, though - Let's NOT use this concept for retribution against people we have gripes with around here. For instance, PN is a nuisance, but a real human who participates in conversations here and offers actual information, no matter how whacky it may be. KingEicholz is barely more than a troll, but he's not plastering the board with term paper links and the like, so he's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking strictly about the posts and users who are here ONLY to post links to their for-profit sales sites. Those are the people abusing the system at the moment.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 6:05 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

By the timing, Mikey, it seems to be one person, and if so getting them chopped by their provider would be simple enough cause their tactics are pretty primitive - and given that they're likely responsible for the outage as well, they could be criminally liable as well, particularly if they did not cover their tracks well, and the amateur nature of it convinces me they didn't.

-F

See my post above, Frem - I'm thinking it's something more along the lines of a boiler room in East Timor or somewhere. Once the first user gets in and successfully posts their junk, it opens the floodgates marking this site as a "legit" place where they can spread their disease.

I view it as an attack. Sure, it's a cyber-attack because it's done with computers, but it's at heart just the old-fashioned brute-force attack, wherein you have the proverbial million monkeys banging away on keyboards.

I doubt it comes from one person, but I don't doubt for a moment that they're all coming from one source or one company.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:39 PM

KWICKO

And the latest to join the party is Maria113...

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 9:02 PM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Add DAVID123 to the list.

Damn reavers!

--------------------------------------------------
Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 9:57 PM

11THHOUR

These spam posts also read like a bad Google translation from some other language. FFF.net must be targeted because it appears to have a good percentage of students who post here. The offers of term papers and essays certainly seem aimed at students.

Several different spam posters offer different website addresses to click, but they're probably all coming from the same source. Having different web addresses is just a way to track which post and website gets the best response.

The spam posts could be deleted... but is it better to leave them so Haken can track the source somehow? There might be a way to block them, or it could also be a case of ever changing logins and not being able to keep up with the ongoing registrations.

Spammers suck.

11th

>>>}———————————————)))======<[]>======(((———————————————{<<<

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Thursday, December 31, 2009 4:49 AM

KWICKO

Thanks, gang - Keep tracking 'em down. It's all about clickthroughs and diminishing returns, if I'm seeing it right. Once they stop getting any response by posting and registering here, they'll move on. I hope.

Meanwhile, just keep posting 'em up in this thread, and I'll keep adding them to the very first post here, so Haken can hopefully just pop in, have a look, and go from there.

I'm just guessing here, but I'm keeping an eye on a new user named "fastadvcash"; doesn't that sound just a bit TOO convenient? No posts so far, but I won't be surprised to see his/her first post be a link to a term paper or essay site...

I really, really wish I had access to a type of "e-grenade" - a virus or "spike" that you could send back up the line to the IP of wherever this junk is coming from, which would fry their systems. I'm not sure such a thing even exists, but it would damn sure be nice to have if it did.

Meanwhile, we watch and wait, and keep listing 'em. I'm really hoping Haken can trace all the IP addresses. Actually, I'm *really* hoping they all trace back to the same place, 'cuz it would make it SOOOOO much easier to block it then...

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010 5:13 PM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Put KELLIEPUF in the containment unit.

--------------------------------------------------
Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010 5:23 PM

KWICKO

Done, and thanks!

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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