Bot invasion?

[C C]

Perhaps I'm just getting overly suspicious or paranoid, but...

Is there a type of sophisticated virtual agent out there which doesn't seem to have the goal of spamming in an immediate or upfront way? Which is to say, maybe they're stealthily delaying by days or weeks the insertion of a homepage URL in their contact details, which is actually for commercial purposes?

These potential candidates (if they are such) seem to be programmed to recognize travel-related topics and can snip member names and bits of details from a post to plug into assorted templates so that they appear more legitimately social than the nonsense conversations of traditional spambot / chatterbot hybrids.

Heck, are there even other motives now -- besides spamming -- for the "join a discussion board and post" species? Like a forum being infiltrated purely for mildly malevolent amusement, or just to trial-test some of these critters?

[Magical Realist]

Heck, are there even other motives now -- besides spamming -- for the "join a discussion board and post" species? Like a forum being infiltrated purely for mildly malevolent amusement, or just to trial-test some of these critters?

It is the dawning of AI in spambots, who naturally gravitate towards travel subjects because they are afterall stationary pieces of machinery in some room somewhere. Note the intermittently incoherent phraseology. Oh, and they all seem to know each other too.

"My name is Jacky jack.Travelling is my passion and force me to spend his measure time through this passion."

[C C]

Ah, I see they are doing some gradual or light surreptitious spamming after all. Wasn't aware of all their thread activity. Quite a strategy; some sign-up weeks or months in advance, then disappear and come back and start interacting with some newer ones so it lends more credence to their being real. Can't even be 100% sure they are all bots; the erratic English might also be the case via the North American tourist agency recruiting career spammers from East Asia, Africa, etc.

Back when I'd dispense automatic "Welcomes" to new members without waiting to see who / what they were, I even gave those older ones a few token reputation points when they originally registered and posted. Have added negative points to try to take those back; but even if they're bots, they might still be capable of voting for each other to increase the appearance of legitimacy.

[stryder]

I've known about the "Sleeper Agents" for a while. The reason that particular technique is used is down to how some automated anti-spam systems can only check at initial sign-up, so some bot writers think that if they leave it a little while their bot won't be noticed.

Sciforums had a very large database of users that fitted that criteria, all they needed was one day where the Bot commander decides to bring the forum down and all those sleeping bots could be awoken to spam the forum up. It's one of the main reasons I try to strip bots out (and spammers in general) as they appear.

Sometimes though it's actual human spammers that attempt to negate the initial sign-up process, with the first couple of posts actually being ones where they communicate with people that respond before they turn it to automation or run off for every to pastures greener.

There is also something else that I'm going to identify to the anti-spam group in relationship to why they "Sleep" so long, hopefully they'll consider adding it for future use.

(Anyways I guess it's time for a Purge)

[stryder]

I've purged 4 accounts, one main spammer account and three sockpuppet accounts that were aimed at advertising a "bus tour" firm (although the legitimacy of such a firm is something that can always be questioned within the confines of spam)

The main account was a human instigator that had posted in response to a number of posts for 6-8 months, I'd ignored them for the most part because they were just one account and it was subtle, but since they stepped up their pace, they got purged.

[Magical Realist]

Looks like the spambots are back. I've taken to responding to them with surreal comments. It was Captain Kirk's strategy of exploding the superartilect with nonsensical statements and behavior.

http://www.surrealists.co.uk/surreal_ins...erator.php

[stryder]

Pakistani spammers.  I'm not sure of their motives, be it illicit funds from semi-legitimate practices or something far more nefarious (pre-emptive exploration of a larger "Hack")

In any case I think they are only a partial bot which is why CAPTCHA's are ineffective.  It could be currency related, think of the "Outsourcing of work to cheaper countries" as a reference.  The Average Pakistani wage is apparently 255 USD per month, which means that Human spammers could well be hired to run spam rings if they earnings are far greater than the cost of employing them.  

I mean it's a little different than being in a gang in Mumbai (India) that cuts a limb off to make an easier time of begging.

There is potentially a more legitimate way for such people to make money without spamming, for instance Amazon's Mechanical Turk (wikipedia.org) has been running a while.  (I would assume it's filled with people from countries that have a wages in a low value currency like China and Pakistan)  I don't know however if it would be as lucrative as the spamming.

What Members can do:

• Report the posts.
  In a heavily trafficked forum this would likely be necessary, however here we can actually spot the posts pretty quickly.
  
• Give spammers negative reputation points.
  I put this as a fall back encase I was away and somebody spam's the place up. It will take pulling together the actual members to devalue spammers contributes to the point that they automatically get "sinbinned". This locks them out of being able to post anywhere other than the "Empty Room" subforum.
  
  The idea is that should someone accidentally find themselves there (which would be difficult considering the number of negative rep points they would require and the level of points members can give per post) members can bring their reputation back to the point where they can post again by giving them positive reputation.
  
  (Incidentally Respected Members have more than three times the power of Registered members.)
  If you want to stop a spammer on your own using this method however concentrate your negative reputation points for the day on one spammer at a time, otherwise you might find that you reach a specific limit on the reputation per day. (which is three times greater than normal members)