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Discussion Of Spam & Spammers

An awful lot of incoming spam from Minsk (Belarus).
No idea why--beyond chronic decline as a result of communist underinvestment.
 
Yithian said:
An awful lot of incoming spam from Minsk (Belarus).
No idea why--beyond chronic decline as a result of communist underinvestment.
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Communism fell there in 1991. It's dictator is very much in the Putin mould.
 
ramonmercado said:
Communism fell there in 1991. It's dictator is very much in the Putin mould.
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My impression--no expertise--is that unlike their Baltic neighbours they never really recovered economically.
 
MercuryCrest and I have made a pretty big effort at weeding out the latent spam accounts lately and spam has, well, more or less stopped for a while.

We keep on getting users registering who are clearly spammers but do not actually post or pollute their profiles with links.

Is this like the end of Zulu where the British think they have won and another army appears on the ridge?
 
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Yithian said:
MercuryCrest and I have made a pretty big effort at weeding out the latent spam accounts lately and spam has, well, more or less stopped for a while.
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They've both done a shed-load of stuff and kept this place running marvellously, whilst I've been basically nowhere to be seen (real life in a big way once again) so my utmost gratitude to the pair of them.

I'm now back-ish and playing catch-up, but there's no way on god's clean earth this place would run as well as it does - if indeed at all - without Yith and Mercury Crest. So publicly, thank you chaps :).
 
A couple of you noticed (and responded to) a new thread entitled 'Men Into Animals'. The text of the post was nabbed from a former thread and the poster is apparently posting from Vietnam, which is spammers' paradise.

Well spotted EnolaGaia.
 
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Yithian said:
A couple of you noticed (and responded to) a new thread entitled 'Men Into Animals'. The text of the post was nabbed from a former thread and the poster is apparently posting from Vietnam, which is spammer's paradise.

Well spotted EnolaGaia.
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Another new poster from Vietnam trying the same trick.

Registered twice today, posted thread with a text copied from another and been banned twice.

Keep 'em peeled and help us bust the bots.

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Min Bannister said:
Strange. What is the purpose of it? :confused:
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Supposition: they hope to get under the wire and accepted as genuine members in order to log in at a later date and introduce spam links into their profiles/signatures/status messages.

Edit: I'm assuming they are bots and not fleshy lifeforms as they are incapable of plausible original content and never respond to messages.
 
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Yithian said:
Supposition: they hope to get under the wire and accepted as genuine members in order to log in at a later date and introduce spam links into their profiles/signatures/status messages.
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Hmm yes, that sounds plausible. Will try to watch out for it. :spam:
 
Good God, we've got a text-paraphrasing spam-bot.

Original Post (2004):

Happened about 1995 in Sumatra ( Indonesia ).
I was in charge of a very large plantation which was on the other side ( separated by a range of mountains) of lake Toba. We had just extended the plantation by clearing virgin forest and planting rubber on the terraced slopes of a hill. As the planting of the rubber seedlings was contracted out, it was my duty to see that the job was well done. So my driver drove me one day to this remote part of the plantation, so that I may check the contractor's work. Now the hill where this rubber was planted was surrounded by a deep ravine, after which the mountain rose up again. There were about twenty terraces on the hill, and with my 4x4 parked on the road on top of the hill, I went down to the lowest terrace to examine the work( leaving my driver in the vehicle ). From the last terrace, the face of the mountain opposite me ( separated by the ravine ) was only about fifty metres away and covered in forest. While examining the work, I lifted my head and distinctly saw a black form rushing through the trees at ground level. I thought it was only a monkey and continued with my work. Within a minute of seeing the form I was jolted by a loud sound coming from the mountain opposite me. It sounded very much like a metal door closing ( ie. metal clashing against metal ). I stood dumbfounded for a second, wondering what it could be. I knew there was no one inhabiting that place for maybe a ten mile radius. I regained my composture and raced up the hill to my vehicle. I jumped in and told my driver to leave the place as fast as he could. As we were racing away, I asked my driver if he had heard the sound. He replied in the affairmative but said he did not have a clue as to what it was and was certainly frightened by it. Till today I cannot imagine what made that sound although some of my friends think it was door of a UFO base!​

New Version (today):

From the last terrace, the face of the mountain facing me (separated by ravine) is only about fifty meters and covered in forest. While checking the work, I raised my head and clearly saw a black figure running through the trees on the ground floor. I thought it was just a monkey and continued my work. Within a minute I saw a face, I heard a loud noise from the mountain across from me. It may sound like a metal door (for example, a metal touches a metal). I stood silent for a second, wondering what it might be. I know no one is there to be able to radius 10 miles. I got the mixer up and ran up the hill to my car. I jumped in and told my driver to leave as quickly as possible. When we ran, I asked my driver if he heard the sound. He responded in the affair but said he had no clue as to what it was and was certainly scared by it. Until today I could not imagine what made the sound even though some of my friends thought it was the door of a UFO base!​
 
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David Plankton said:
It was obviously spam but I was wondering how you managed to find the original post.
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I immediately suspected it was a copy and searched for uncommon nouns with few synonyms--can't recall which ones, but enough featured in both posts to generate a hit in the first few results.

Edit: Ravine--monkey--terrace, I think. How many posts are likely to contain all three?
 
Yithian said:
I immediately suspected it was a copy and searched for uncommon nouns with few synonyms--can't recall which ones, but enough featured in both posts to generate a hit in the first few results.

Edit: Ravine--monkey--terrace, I think. How many posts are likely to contain all three?
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Hello, I'm a talent spotter with an international research group based at Vauxhall Cross, we'd like to have a chat with you about joining our Korean team.
 
But isn't he already contracted to the Russians ?

INT21
 
Still more Vietnamese Text-Copying Spam.

I'm pretty certain that they don't have Worcester sauce flavoured crisps in South-East Asia.
 
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