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Spam attack!

by: Laura

Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 18:27:44 PM EDT


So, don't click on any of these new user's links, it will only make it worse. And now the little fuckers are posting comments and diaries!

Google says we're not alone in this, other sites are having the same problem. Whether or not anything will be done about it is the question. Since Saturday there have been near 200 spam accounts added here. Before that it was one or two a month.

W
T
F

:-(
Laura :: Spam attack!
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Spam attack! | 32 comments
don't know if there (0.00 / 0)
is a quick solution. I read that Booman Tribune has been having the same problem for at least a couple of months with no relief. I saw their user numbers go from the 4000's to the 10's of thousands. Not what you wanted to hear, I'm guessing.

"May we live long and die out"
Not sure if it's my imagination but I think the bandwidth is being borked by this (0.00 / 0)
And I have to delete them by hand(supposedly there's a way to do a mass deletion but there are several valid newer users to protect). Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck.

[ Parent ]
New Pffers every few minutes (4.00 / 1)
An embarrassment of Bitches.
These unmanned drones are smart (0.00 / 0)
confoosing me with a space before their names. Like fake Socrates!
Since I posted this diary...15 new accounts (0.00 / 0)

I sent an email to one of 'them' just for the hell of it... (0.00 / 0)
--- On Mon, 10/5/09, Sejomoje sejomoje@yahoo.com wrote:

From: Sejomoje sejomoje@yahoo.com
Subject: Spamming Cuntface!
To: rosieg360@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009, 11:01 PM

Fuck OFF!

Re: Spamming Cuntface! Monday, October 5, 2009 11:05 PM
From: "Rosie Gonxo" rosieg360@yahoo.com To: "Sejomoje" sejomoje@yahoo.com

Whoa! What are you talking about???? So much for participating in your site - ASSHOLE!


hahaha (0.00 / 0)
whoa! lol :o)
sure that wasn't one of those legit new users? :o)

Wish I knew how to help you with this but I'm clueless about it...among other things I'm clueless about.

"May we live long and die out"

[ Parent ]
No. (0.00 / 0)
This "rosieg360" was banned under the name "rosie360" 3 minutes earlier, lol.

Here's a lengthier description of what's going on, at Eurotrib.

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=di...

[ Parent ]
God this is so funny. (0.00 / 0)
There are actually people dedicating loads of time to these ventures. Poor saps. I wonder how much they pay to be played like that.

'Rosie' writes me back again:

I wasn't spamming. Next time - make sure you check your facts. I wanted to join the community as a participant. I don't even have anything to promote for spam - you cocksucking pig fucker!

Should I continue the courtship? Invite her back? ...fuck, now I can't even remember what she was trying to sell in the first place. Diaper cake recipes? Bamboo flooring? I wonder if 'Rosie' even knows.

 

[ Parent ]
Seems kind of odd. (0.00 / 0)
Do real people usually respond to e-mails if they are involved in a spam attack?

And why on earth this blog, I wonder?

[ Parent ]
The email address is the dupe's, (3.00 / 1)
I'm assuming. The leviathan doing the spamming is a larger entity, being paid to do so. I have sympathy for neither. You can detect the deceipt, even in the lowest rung, so screw em all. "I want to join your community" or whatever. No. She didn't want to 'join the community'. She had links to sell crap, or theoretical crap, or advice on how to get theoretical crap. I deleted about 80 accounts today. Over at Eurotrib there were nearly 1000, and at Booman a few months ago, many thousands. There is a theory floating around that soapblox is being targeted unfairly because it hosts lefty sites. Who knows.

This is telling example of the limits of this sort of technology - remember when homeland security was trying to sell the idea that the internet could be monitored without actual humans? Well, it doesn't work. Even with the most basic goals, ie marketing. These bots base their reputation on page hits, which mean nothing. They say 'oh, you'll have no problem starting an internet business...we'll help you...our methods get the most views for your product blah blah blah.' Yeah. Your ad for modular homes and acai berries will get viewed. By me. Just before I delete all traces of it.

[ Parent ]
Nice breakdown at Eurotrib (3.00 / 1)
[ Parent ]
Yeah, I read it (0.00 / 0)
but didn't completely understand it. I'm getting a better picture now as I think about it. What a hassle and waste of time.  
[ Parent ]
It's basically just another thing that will ruin the internet (4.00 / 2)
And nothing will be done about it because the victims aren't 'important'. Sort of like those criminal payday loan places...and megachurch TV.
[ Parent ]
They do, believe me (4.00 / 2)
I have exchanged mails with several, from Eurotrib.

Some of them just wrote to ask why their new account wasn't letting them do this or that (as in, place spam links in their User profile). They seem to think there's nothing wrong with what they're doing, and that they have a right. (They're encouraged to think this by the bigger fish that are making $$$ by selling them "Internet Marketing" tools.)

This is the boilerplate I sent them back:

Unfortunately your account registration was denied because you have been identified as a poster of commercial backlinks. Perhaps you didn't notice this warning on the sign-up form:

       European Tribune is an advertising-free discussion site which does not permit backlinking to sales sites or to articles and reviews linking to sales sites, whether in user pages, posts, or comments. Any such links posted by a user on this site - including in user profiles - will be deleted.

       European Tribune reserves the right to terminate without further notice the account of any user contravening site rules, and in particular of any user identified, by our criteria, as a commercial backlinker.

       Internet marketers who follow the instructions of  backlinks packets (like those of Angela Edwards, for example) should be aware that sites are featured in those lists without the sites' prior knowledge or consent. Following the instructions offered by such packages may expose you to identification and involvement in legal proceedings.

You may feel that opening an account on our site entitles you to immediate access to your user profile where you may post what you wish, but that is not the case. If "backlinks builders" like Angela Edwards gave you that impression, we're sorry to say that you were had.

No spammer ever replied to that...

[ Parent ]
Eurotrib (4.00 / 3)
got hit in July. These things always start on the first of the month, when a "links packet" is released for sale on Black Hat search engine optimisation forums - one a month.

The links are those of community sites that have good Google page ranking. The spammer who has bought the packet will do all thirty sites (or pick and choose). The aim is to open an account and use the place to post backlinks that raise the Google PR of fake blogs or "reviews" that in turn lead to the money pages, ie where something is on sale.

In other words, these wonderful human beings are out to use your good Google PR (which you got because you have real content) to bump up their pages where they sell you investment tips or hair-loss lotion.

Get ready for a heap of this shit. We have disabled getting on for a couple of thousand accounts on ET since 1 July. BooTrib has suffered too, and DKos (though sheer size there makes it less of a problem), MYDD too, no doubt others.

It's whack-a-mole, I'm afraid. As you say in another comment, Laura, there are valid new users to protect. We can help by explaining WTF is going on, and by giving you our updated list of spammers to help you identify the little buggers. Email me: afew at eurotrib dot com

Soapblox told me they're debuting some new tools this weekend (0.00 / 0)
They were vague about it though. Who knows.

I may email you for the list, but I don't see yet how that would help, really...

[ Parent ]
"sites that have good Google page ranking" (0.00 / 0)
How could we possibly get effected here?

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it", Helen Keller, communist.
[ Parent ]
i was wondering the same thing (4.00 / 2)
perhaps you have a large contingent of secret admirers/readers who choose to remain as lurkers?

The defectors have started an underground railroad to smuggle other rebels out of hostile territory
[ Parent ]
Oh, you know it! (4.00 / 3)

[ Parent ]
999 guhzillion of 'em (4.00 / 3)


For attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. -- A-Hep
[ Parent ]
some of them are your readers! (4.00 / 2)
don't be so humble.

The defectors have started an underground railroad to smuggle other rebels out of hostile territory
[ Parent ]
I was replying as if 'you' was this blog (4.00 / 1)
So I do take humble credit for at least 333 guhzillion of those lurkers and lurquettes.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. -- A-Hep
[ Parent ]
You know it's weird (4.00 / 3)
for certain searches, we really are just obscure enough to be important. I've done quite a few searches in the past years only to have pff, fsz, or here come up near the top - image searches too. (Of course Eurotrib has a bit more to worry about, they link to kos and have a larger group of regulars) How that ties in to acai berries and the sales of modular homes and penis pills is anyone's guess. The only way this operation would be successful is if the spammers went unnoticed, and many people clicked on their links. Which would never happen, at any soapblox site. Yet they continue with the 'project' so I really think there's some sort of spitefulness going on here, soapblox has been attacked for months now, with absolutely no 'results' on the spammers' side.

More likely this really is just a classic pyramid scheme where the little guy is too dumb to know that his target audience is not being contacted by the people he's paying to do just that.


[ Parent ]
sad (4.00 / 3)
people wouldn't be doing this if they had decent jobs, imho. shows the terrible state of the economy if nothing else.

The defectors have started an underground railroad to smuggle other rebels out of hostile territory
[ Parent ]
I agree (4.00 / 2)
When you think of this, the lottery, people sending in 'seed' $$$ to billionaire televangelists, etc., well...it amounts to a real shadow sector in the ongoing redistribution of wealth. There will be a tipping point, soon.
[ Parent ]
You all will get a kick from this (4.00 / 2)
one of the new spammers had just two links in their profile:

how to get your ex back
bacterial vaginosis

hehehe (0.00 / 0)
awesome.

The defectors have started an underground railroad to smuggle other rebels out of hostile territory
[ Parent ]
Fuck. Soapblox IP ban not working. (0.00 / 0)
And here I am getting carpal tunnel from it.
it seems to be a trend (4.00 / 4)
One of the culture oriented sites i go is flooded.  Every other comment is about who to be a goldigger and meet rich single men in your area.  I had assumed it was some kind of bot.  At my last job one of their many useless consultants had us using what was actually his firm for SEO.  It was more or less a call center like sweat shop in some Oregon college town where kids with no experience did shit like this to increase back links.  Thats the point IMO.  Its not to advertise but to help their rankings elsewhere.  This is why we are forced to do that Captcha text everywhere now.  SoapBlox is just an easy target since they use decades old technology anyway

what noom would say
It is all about backlinks (0.00 / 0)
but those at the top of the pyramid have found a way to fool those at the bottom into doing the work(the extremities of the bot are human), I think. IOW the sweatshop workers pay to work in their own sweatshops, literally laboring under the impression that they'll eventually benefit from their employer's(the SEO-sters) 'knowledge'. Cult behavior.
[ Parent ]
Do not delete the botmost (3.33 / 3)
The botmost does not want to sell you anything.

The botmost wants you to sell your soul to the botmost.

All for the common good of course.

Spam attack! | 32 comments
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