DSLR Photography Forum

I'm seeing increasing "hi and bye" posts in the Introduce Yourself section...what's going on? Are we getting scammed/ spammed/ phished or whatever the word is, by people pretending to be other than they are? Er...why do they do it and what's the threat from this activity?

People will log on and post something along the lines of "Hi everyone im new hear and from Philidelphia, this looks like a great site." Their signature line (or the message itself, because the signature takes more time to set up) will have links to hair replacement, IT services, or other commercial websites. The more inventive will avoid those obvious links, but use the 'website' section of their profile to create the link.

My understanding is that the point isn't really to get people to click on it, but rather to boost the page rankings for search engines. Third-party companies get paid to deliver better 'search engine optimization', and this is one of the ways that they do it.

Sometimes the spammers will be more sophisticated, and actually seem to be replying in a relevant manner to the actual subject of the thread. Using Google to search for phrases from their messages, or even just the user name (if it's sufficiently unique) will show very distinctive 'spammer' traits.

For example, the most recent user to register (as of the time of writing) is calling itself "flickr.minded". Sounds photographery, right? But that user name also shows as a member on 'www.digitaldrum' and 'www.sylvaniatelephone'. Sounds fishy, right? Well, here's what their tagline will be, if they ever get around to posting a message (links broken

[urI=http://www.writeyourbookmasterclass]Novel Writing Tips[/url]
[urI=http://www.writeyourbookmasterclass]Writers Workshop Mini Lessons[/url]
[urI=http://thewordqueen/writing-services/ghost-writing/]Ghostwriters[/url]


…but us, being the friendly people that we are, will often give people the benefit of the doubt and welcome them to our forum. This creates those odd gaps in the conversation when they're later removed. To fill some of that, I thought it might be entertaining to post a follow-up 'bye' post to that one introductions thread that's getting hit a lot lately, and I may have secretly been hoping for an excuse to talk a bit about how spammers behave.

That's excellent Matthew; thanks so much for that reply...I honestly am too naiive and had no idea of this. A sad thing indeed that there always be people who feel no qualms about sullying a safe, feelgood place like ST.

...but what if I'm interested in hair loss treatments or leaning how to write my own novel?

Toad Wrote:...but what if I'm interested in hair loss treatments or leaning how to write my own novel?

Listen here Baldy, just paint little rabbits on your head. They look like hares from a distance.
And why do you want to write in your navel?
Just kidding honestly.

The key to writing your own navel is to do it upside-down, so that you can still read it. The other option is to write backwards, but that's a little more difficult.

(And I got tired of waiting, and just deleted my sample spammer.)

Zig, please never feel that you'd be better off if you expect less from people.

I've been playing around a bit with the user list, checking out - as in 'roach motel' - people who have been registering recently. It turns out we have some celebrities in our midst; for example searching for our (former) user "donnaj8887" on Google gave 'about 18,400 results'. Most of them are tremendously blatant about what they're up to, and its not hard to figure out the rest.

The thing is that spammers never actually need to post a message, just having their signature listed on their profile page creates a link that helps the sites that they're working for. So far it's been a case of the nail that sticks up getting hammered down, so now I'm waging a small personal campaign to reduce the rest of them as well.

Good man.
Ever considered working for the tax office?

The tax office is a good idea.

This morning I've already deleted another six spammers who registered since I was here last.

Hair removal, eh? Note to all new members. If you are just a spammer with no serious interest in photography, please go away!

Who said spammers don't enjoy irony?

I've changed the link to something more appropriate, but I do have to wonder if "Age Defy Dermatology & Wellness" know that people are using disreputable business practices on their behalf. Their toll-free number, which is valid in Canada, is (877) 243-3339.