Re: Consulting the Spam Texts Oracle
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 6:36 pm
Ah. Thanks.
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=107217
In regards to spam, I think it is easy to forget or not notice how much information is available on the internet. For example, my County Auditor publishes a lot of information about every housing sale and about every lot in the county (For example: here is a report for this week's sales for my county: http://waynecountyauditor.org/Reports.a ... eTab=Sales ; ). I don't how common posting this information is in other states, but it seems to be popular in Ohio. All that being said, it would be relatively easy to scrape this data or data like it from the internet and use it for mailings. (I've started getting "Welcome to buying a house in the neighborhood!" mail. My guess is that they probably scrape this data and are paid by local businesses to do create mailings and send them to the names and addresses that they scrape. (For example: https://www.ourtownamerica.com)Nanohedron wrote:Some of these folks are a lot more hands-on and detail-oriented than your average spammer. Every now and then when vetting new C&F members, we find spammers who went to a lot of trouble to seem legitimate. Some of it's pretty impressive, but so far there's always some sort of dead giveaway in there somewhere. We don't see these more resourceful cases very often, though.awildman wrote:Maybe they are just casting a wide net and it was pure coincidence. Either way, I feel that this goes quite beyond 'normal' spam.
But as you say, it could just be a lucky catch from a wide net. I'd operate on the assumption it wasn't though, just to be on the safe side. Reporting it will go a long way in the States, as the FCC is keen to nab these people.
I hope that was an intentional pun.Nanohedron wrote:The bank and loan amount, though, is hitting a bit too uncomfortably close to home for my liking.
I remember finding a concertina and accordion forum in my youth; the first thing I did was post a question about a cheap $50 concertina and then I got blocked immediately for being a spammer. (I was able to make an appeal and was unblocked, but I really didn't hang around much longer.)Nanohedron wrote: As to C&F spammers, the vast majority merely want to sell gold, insurance, real estate, designer goods, or offer dating services; that sort of boring, predictable thing. At least they're up front about it. But every now and then someone actually demonstrates a clue of what this site is about, and they try to fool us that they're into whistles or Trad, and similar. I always have a grudging admiration for those because of the efforts they went to; not much pity, though.
I wish it had been.AaronFW wrote:I hope that was an intentional pun.Nanohedron wrote:The bank and loan amount, though, is hitting a bit too uncomfortably close to home for my liking.
That seems rather reactionary of them; not everyone will know that a $50 concertina is going to be pretty worthless. But maybe it could have been in how you posed the question. OTOH, from personal experience I can understand why admins might be skittish, especially if they don't have screening processes to help them. Until we finally settled on our present screening model, things were almost like the Wild West around here, with anyone being able to join and post right away with but a click and nothing more (seriously, I might never have been admitted otherwise; I was an even bigger putz then). Obviously, that made for a big gamble in Board quality, unless you consider p0rn and homophobic trolling on a family website to be laudable expressions of free speech. Back then, the mod could only chase down malicious newbies' offenses after the fact, and hope the cleanup was timely enough. And then one day the spam really started to fly, and it's been that way ever since. If anyone thinks we're doing all this management simply for the power trip, think again. It's a bloody adventure, folks.AaronFW wrote:I remember finding a concertina and accordion forum in my youth; the first thing I did was post a question about a cheap $50 concertina and then I got blocked immediately for being a spammer. (I was able to make an appeal and was unblocked, but I really didn't hang around much longer.)
Lots of things, and that's good. This is useful stuff for any admin to know, and maybe other people could also make use of at least some of it to good benefit, too. Much of it, I think, is common sense. But bear in mind too that the following examples are only within my particular filters and strengths; another mod might share them, but have others as well. Ben certainly has strengths that I do not, and vice versa, so that makes for a good team. Anyway, your vast majority of spammers won't profit by what follows in this post - trust me on that - and if there are any remaining few that are truly ahead of the game (whatever that means), I haven't seen them yet, so I think it's safe to lay bare our darkest secrets, here.AaronFW wrote:What types of things tip you off that they are spammers or inauthentic?
And what should turn up today but a perfectly classic textbook example of the above: The tell was about having musical interests and a desire to socialize (the first part in particular suggests a human did the application), but it was too conveniently vague, so I then compared the username and email address and found a mismatch, here of opposite gender, with one of the names in nonstandard spelling (a typo, perhaps, but c'mon: in what is supposedly one's own beloved name?), and a weird surname in addition to tie it all up. All the spammer flags of this type that could possibly be flying were present and accounted for. It was like Christmas on steroids. To confirm my suspicions, I then applied the following:Earlier, I wrote:Another good tipoff would be usernames bearing a proper name (Sarah, say) but having an email address with a different one, of either gender or combinations thereof; I can't recall when that wasn't ever a dead giveaway. Proper names themselves are often worth looking at, because sometimes they or their combinations just seem weird, and a spammer is almost always behind it.
Upon Googling the email address, sure enough I found four spammer list entries (one is usually enough for me), and those four made up the sole content of the entire page, which made my job even easier. In addition, the locations (plural, mind you) were from different countries, and each was on the suspect list as well, as if by then I needed any more convincing. Talk about having things handed to you on a silver platter; it left no question in my mind, and I can't say I was surprised.Earlier, I wrote:Certain IP and email addresses are on spammer lists. That's usually our first go-to when we're suspicious but unsure.