More spam recently...

[Miller]

I'm sure everyone is noticing more spam posts recently. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm deleting them when I find them. Just give me some time. I'm not sure why there is such an influx lately... but just click on the "report to moderator" link at the bottom and I'll get to it.

[The Dude]

Yeah I've noticed. Thanks for taking care of that Miller. I don't know how anyone thinks that's a good way of selling their products. It's just really irritating.

[Miller]

I hear ya!!

[prouton]

What, you wouldn't want to ingest substances from, or provide your financial information to someone who creates deceptive posts in a scattergun method?  Golly, you're tough... 

[The Dude]

Yeah I know I really need to lighten up some.  I wish we could spam them back. I always check to see if they've left their e-mail unhidden on their account. One unlucky sucker was stupid enough to do it.

[Miller]

I've noticed we have more new members this month than any month since May 2007. (And that's only through 11/18.) There must be something in the registration process that has become a lot easier to spoof lately. (The new members really took off starting 11/11.) It seems most of the spam is only coming from one post per new member though so deleting the members wouldn't really help much either. Anyone else any ideas? It's been so long since I registered I kind of forgot what the process was...

[The Dude]

I really have no idea. This might be a thing to drop Rampy a PM about. The only security measure against that I see all that often is the scrambled box to keep bots from auto registering but either these people are registering themselves just to put one post in or that's not working somehow. I'm pretty sure we already have that.

[Miller]

Yea, me too. Oh well, just more deleting I guess. At least the one poster only posted a joke. (At least I think it was a spam based on the web address they gave in their profile.)

[The Dude]

This really is getting a bit ridiculous. I'm starting to wonder why it is the site is getting hit so regularly.

[prouton]

Umm...the "live person" challenge field (ya know, enter the letters/numbers that appear in the graphic) seems incredibly easy for a computer examination to decode.  The interference background is almost non-existent, and the characters are all in the same, block font.  I don't know if a failed attempt generates a fresh set of characters (requesting a new graphic returned the same set, arranged slightly differently), but if it doesn't that allows for retries that refine the guess rather than having to start over.

Given the narrow focus and relatively low traffic on this site, I don't believe someone is paying Slovakian day workers to sit in front of a computer and do this spamming by hand.

[Miller]

I remember reading that someone developed a program that can actually identify the letters in the boxes faster and more accurately than a person can. That was about six months ago and maybe it's finally made it's way into spammers hands. Just don't click (to encourage) and I'll keep deleting them.