scam bots on gh?

[PlayBox]

i just saw a scam bot on geekhack for the first time. is it common here or they just started finding their way here? anyone else saw them?

[Findecanor]

I see and report them all the time.

[PlayBox]

I see and report them all the time.

same

[fohat.digs]

They have been hitting on us for years, but more so recently.

Our  Moderators  Deserve  Credit  for a lot of sweeping up that we don't see.

"Geekhack" is a great name, but unfortunately it is a magnet for bothersome trolls.

[Leslieann]

Any forum on Google search gets hit.
What you see is just the tip of the iceberg.

Based on my own forums, for every spam that gets through and deleted within minutes, 3000-5000 posts/accounts were blocked and for all of those nearly 1/4 million attempts were made to create an account.

And that probably pales in comparison to the number of SSH attempts on the server.

[PlayBox]

i think im gonna use this thread as a record of scam bots i found here. today i found another one, advertising a cheap knockoff game (not gonna name the stuff they advertise)

[PlayBox]

ah **** here we go again, another one advertising i think homes or something

[HoffmanMyster]

There are so many of them. We're doing our best to stop them from getting through, but of course that's not possible. Please report if and when you see them.

You should see the list of accounts awaiting activation - for some reason many of the spam accounts don't actually follow through with activating the account so we have thousands of spam accounts sitting in limbo. I go through and clean it up every so often, but it's a massive chore to do even that.

[user 18]

Yes, this is a constant battle. The majority of what I do is ban spammers and remove their posts. Many thanks to everyone who submits reports of spam/scams/sketchy links, you are a huge help!

[PlayBox]

Yes, this is a constant battle. The majority of what I do is ban spammers and remove their posts. Many thanks to everyone who submits reports of spam/scams/sketchy links, you are a huge help!

i do that everytime i see a bot

[suicidal_orange]

i think im gonna use this thread as a record of scam bots i found here. today i found another one, advertising a cheap knockoff game (not gonna name the stuff they advertise)

By far the most common are gambling, links to "reviews" (lists of affiliate links) and online games, the most ... interesting(?) ones I've seen were for guns, hookers and mail order brides. 

A common tactic is to post something that looks legit then come back a couple of days later and edit in something completely irrelevant to the topic in the hope no-one's looking, so keep an eye out for that too

[yui]

Yes, this is a constant battle. The majority of what I do is ban spammers and remove their posts. Many thanks to everyone who submits reports of spam/scams/sketchy links, you are a huge help!

i was always kinda worried it bothered moderators as you'd likely have 100s of reports for the same message, now i know that it actually helps
and by far the ones i see the most seems to be for school cheats of sorts, actually do not remember seeing gambling or guns advertised

[suicidal_orange]

Yes, this is a constant battle. The majority of what I do is ban spammers and remove their posts. Many thanks to everyone who submits reports of spam/scams/sketchy links, you are a huge help!

i was always kinda worried it bothered moderators as you'd likely have 100s of reports for the same message, now i know that it actually helps
and by far the ones i see the most seems to be for school cheats of sorts, actually do not remember seeing gambling or guns advertised

All the reports for a post get grouped together so we only see it once with lots of names attached.  It's rare there's more than one report for scam/spam.

Can't believe I forgot about the cheat essays - easily the most common!

[PlayBox]

another weird bot advertising a sus website in a post about keyboard durability

[PlayBox]

this time was really hilarous. 5 bots in one thread

[HoffmanMyster]

this time was really hilarous. 5 bots in one thread

Just banned those - thanks for reporting

[PlayBox]

starting to see more bots you mods gotta have to start looking for more creative ways to avoid bots on gh