Dragoncat |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh my god I just noticed one of the spammers has the handle onemoretry.
That's so pathetic it's adorable.
Manwolf |
New personal best: Flagged one created 4 seconds earlier
Ahhh!!!! You best my 5 second time! Back to flagging. Must flag faster. Kindle don't fail me now!
Get this one next. He's posting in an already-established thread.
There was one in Mark's stalker thread that I flagged earlier, is that the one you linked?
Rosita the Riveter |
Can´t you just block korean IP´s?
That new spamwave is korean and most probably comes from there, as there most probably arent many Pathfinder Players (yet).
That there aren't many is not good enough reason to ban those that exist, especially if Paizo ever wants to make inroads into South Korea like they did China.
Kalindlara Contributor |
Papa-DRB |
Either a moderator is really fast this morning or the downtime yesterday afternoon put a search and destroy filter in for the Korean spam.
Was watching General Discussion, saw three posts and was waiting for the fourth so I refreshed. Bam! All were gone.
Just saw the same thing happen, two posts one about 2 minutes old the other just over a minute old. I had flagged them at about 15 seconds each and all of a sudden, Bam! they were all gone.
Good job guys!!!!
-- david
edit: Again again. 4 flagged and within minutes gone !!!!
edit2: I really hope that it is a filter and not Cort wielding his physic ban hammer.
Winslow Dalpe Software Developer |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Very happy to hear that the forums are more palatable to everyone this morning!
We all appreciate your understanding and cooperation. In order to keep our enemies ignorant, I can't say much else beyond that.
But, hey... Half the fun is in speculation, right? :)
As usual, please continue not posting in spam threads, and let us know if you spot any wild new tactics from them.
Cold eyes, cold heart!
Orfamay Quest |
What do they even gain from spamming here?
Technically, little or nothing. However, they don't (yet) realize that; I think our lax anti-spam policies in the past -- well, I say "our" but really mean "Paizo's," doncha know? -- may have put us on someone's valued-target list and it could take a while to get off.
Rather like my still getting junk mail for the person who sold the house to the person who sold the house to the person who sold the house to me.
Winslow Dalpe Software Developer |
Manwolf |
If you're going to continue reducing spam like this, your going to have to come up with a new forum game for us so we don't get bored.
If you're still looking for stickers for the hammer, you have to get a Monster sticker don't you?
Steve Geddes |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Does anyone know how their business model works?
They're still merrily spamming away, despite it being (presumably) obvious that there's negligible benefit to them. I can only presume they are an outsourced IT "service" and get paid-per-post - so the fact they're not actually ranking higher on search engine results doesn't matter to them.
If I was paying them out of my marketing budget and found out they were basically charging me for meaningless activity, I think I'd consider it tantamount to fraud.
Orfamay Quest |
Does anyone know how their business model works?
Yes.
They're still merrily spamming away, despite it being (presumably) obvious that there's negligible benefit to them.
It's not at all obvious.
They're not targeting people on this forum, they're targeting the Google spiders; the actual operatives were given this location as a target because no one's checked recently to see if Google spiders actually index this site.
I'm also willing to place a small wager that there are other search engine spiders that simply ignore that flag, and those search engines will still see and process all the links.
Orfamay Quest |
Orfamay Quest wrote:So how does it? Do they advertise somewhere? How much does it cost?Steve Geddes wrote:Does anyone know how their business model works?Yes.
Most of it is word-of-mouth, because they would in practice be advertising a violating-people's-terms-of-service service, which would open them up for liability from the target company. This one is also using a botnet, so it's highly illegal for other reasons.
Doesn't make the business not profitable, but it does mean that you have to know someone who knows someone. In that regard, it's not unlike dealing cocaine. You probably don't know where your connection gets his stuff or who he knows,... and the higherups like it that way. If you nark on your connection, then he gets shut down, but the big operation continues.
Orfamay Quest |
I mean I wonder how they're still spamming even when their posts are being taken down immediately. They could go somewhere else and get much more bang for their buck.
The "research arm" of the business, the one that picks which sites to flood, is different than the "operations arm." Either research hasn't yet twigged that this site is no longer as vulnerable as it was two years ago, or it just doesn't care. The costs per post are low enough that a certain amount of wastage and lossage are budgeted in.
Steve Geddes |
Steve Geddes wrote:Orfamay Quest wrote:So how does it? Do they advertise somewhere? How much does it cost?Steve Geddes wrote:Does anyone know how their business model works?Yes.
Most of it is word-of-mouth, because they would in practice be advertising a violating-people's-terms-of-service service, which would open them up for liability from the target company. This one is also using a botnet, so it's highly illegal for other reasons.
Doesn't make the business not profitable, but it does mean that you have to know someone who knows someone. In that regard, it's not unlike dealing cocaine. You probably don't know where your connection gets his stuff or who he knows,... and the higherups like it that way. If you nark on your connection, then he gets shut down, but the big operation continues.
Cheers. I guess dealing that way means you give up on accountability, so you'all never know you're paying for meaningless activity.
Orfamay Quest |
Orfamay Quest wrote:Cheers. I guess dealing that way means you give up on accountability, so you'all never know you're paying for meaningless activity.Steve Geddes wrote:Orfamay Quest wrote:So how does it? Do they advertise somewhere? How much does it cost?Steve Geddes wrote:Does anyone know how their business model works?Yes.
Most of it is word-of-mouth, because they would in practice be advertising a violating-people's-terms-of-service service, which would open them up for liability from the target company. This one is also using a botnet, so it's highly illegal for other reasons.
Doesn't make the business not profitable, but it does mean that you have to know someone who knows someone. In that regard, it's not unlike dealing cocaine. You probably don't know where your connection gets his stuff or who he knows,... and the higherups like it that way. If you nark on your connection, then he gets shut down, but the big operation continues.
Well, you're paying for increased sales. No sales increase means you stop paying.
But, yes, you really might not want to know just how the increased sales are coming about.
Steve Geddes |
I doubt whoever is paying cares - I think they'd be much more concerned about spending money for posts which last two minutes rather than better targeted posts which last two days.
There was a four hour period earlier where three (I think) people were making two posts each, then creating new accounts as those were deleted. The cycle was around two or three minutes - I guess that's six extra posts for Google to count - but it could have been hundreds if they were on less heavily policed sites.