The Saga of Irish Rover And The Crew(censorshoipped edition)

[IrishRover]

we're cloise to foinoishoin' oiur foinal version of Sayoiara,
tois' grand stuff woirkoin' woith me froiend Nick and Salt Lake Whalefishers.

lookoin' foirward to hear yer thoiughts oince tois' all doine.
slaointe.

[Niall]

is there a reason why the last posts here keep getting deleted?

[Zuzana]

is there a reason why the last posts here keep getting deleted?

The spam keeps getting removed - including the replies to the spam posts. You are not the spammer in question, are you?

[IrishRover]

whats 'n' whois beeoin' deleted ?
moire censoirshoippoin' at action, ois oit..

[philipchevron]

whats 'n' whois beeoin' deleted ?
moire censoirshoippoin' at action, ois oit..

No, it really was spam, as far as any of us could tell. It was in some sort of cyrillic or Arab language and may even have been illegal.

[DzM]

whats 'n' whois beeoin' deleted ?
moire censoirshoippoin' at action, ois oit..

Spammers have found their way through the normal protections Medusa has been employing. For some reason this thread has been their target for the last few days, with about four or five Cyrillic posts a day pointing off to penis enhancement sites.

We've been manually removing them while we figure out how to more properly block this latest wave. If you REALLY want we can restore the posts.

[firehazard]

Spammers have found their way through the normal protections Medusa has been employing. For some reason this thread has been their target for the last few days, with about four or five Cyrillic posts a day pointing off to penis enhancement sites.

DzM, the admin on another board that I visit where they got afflicted in the same way recently was telling people not to respond by posting "reply" messages in the forum threads after the spam postings because it only encouraged the spammers to think they were getting a response. I don't know if that's true, it being way beyond my technical knowledge (which still thinks counting on the fingers of both hands is a pretty neat idea), but maybe you can tell me?

And Oirish, yes, to echo others, it most definitely was spam. And I shouldn't think you'd want it in your thread. Why it's all ending up in this thread is an interesting puzzle...

[DzM]

Spammers have found their way through the normal protections Medusa has been employing. For some reason this thread has been their target for the last few days, with about four or five Cyrillic posts a day pointing off to penis enhancement sites.

DzM, the admin on another board that I visit where they got afflicted in the same way recently was telling people not to respond by posting "reply" messages in the forum threads after the spam postings because it only encouraged the spammers to think they were getting a response. I don't know if that's true, it being way beyond my technical knowledge (which still thinks counting on the fingers of both hands is a pretty neat idea), but maybe you can tell me?

I can't speak to the spam s/he is getting. Perhaps it's true for their flavor. Typically, though, the spam posted to forums is done by "robots" (programs that automate the posting process). The intent really isn't to get live people at that forum to read the message, swoon at the great offers, and buy (though of course that's icing on the cake if it does happen). The bigger goal is usually to abuse the "relevance" algorithm of Google, Yahoo!, and the others. They typically assign a higher "relevance" to a page with many links from many web sites pointing back to it. Public fora are an easy way to make lots of web pages point at your viagra store. In most cases the spammer will never know if someone replies to their spam. They simply don't care and will never followup on it. Replies are not their measure of success.

And Oirish, yes, to echo others, it most definitely was spam. And I shouldn't think you'd want it in your thread. Why it's all ending up in this thread is an interesting puzzle...

Again, it's down to the robots and their hunt algorithm. In this case it looks like their random seed is really bad and just keeps pointing them at this thread. The pattern has been:

* Robot requests thread/topic page (probably to verify that it exists)
* Robot requests post form
* Robot requests CAPTCHA image
* Robot posts spam
* Robot verifies message posted

The whole sequence takes about two seconds and, other than the CAPTCHA image, is done with no image downloads (images are used to make the forms and threads look pretty - all that presentation stuff like background texture, headers, smiley faces, etc) or any other files that are not strictly a part of the posting process.

[jennylois]

Oirish, your thread, like you, is forever controversial. Looking forward to hearing Sayonara!

[philipchevron]

The whole sequence takes about two seconds and, other than the CAPTCHA image, is done with no image downloads (images are used to make the forms and threads look pretty - all that presentation stuff like background texture, headers, smiley faces, etc) or any other files that are not strictly a part of the posting process.

Is it possible the spam program is set to identify locations with an unusually high non-English language content? English as she is spoke, that is.

[IrishRover]

oik, oi haven't seen em' messages so doidn't knoiw what oit was.. as oit can be noithoin' gooid oi have a feeloin' oi actually haven't moissed anythoing; spammers, they shoiuld walk the boiard, cyroilloic oir arab soiunds same to me, cyroilloic even woirse hoinestly as thats oiffoical wardenly letter oin thois land of hells; tois' weoird letters and wroitoings.. remoinds of the pagans way too much, even of slavery oim foirced to.. oi soimetoimes have a feeloin' oi have to put a few of thoise crap weoird letter oin the paper just to keep me extra coiver untoil moisery ends.. thois shoip's truly allergoic to cyroilloic

[Niall]

is there a reason why the last posts here keep getting deleted?

The spam keeps getting removed - including the replies to the spam posts. You are not the spammer in question, are you?

nope it wasnt me, I did however think it was a genuine post, hence my reply asking for a translation

[DzM]

Is it possible the spam program is set to identify locations with an unusually high non-English language content? English as she is spoke, that is.

Very unlikely. On a phpBB system (of which the Medusa fora is one) all the threads/topics are numerically identified. This one is 5748. The bots will typically try to access a low(ish) numbered thread, verify that it's publicly viewable, then post to it. They are generally unconcerned with the content of the thread.

It's also worth noting that IrishRover's saga isn't the only thread/topic being so blessed. The Wishful Thinking topic (things people would like to see on a second box set) is also getting a lot of penis enhancement love.

[firehazard]

The Wishful Thinking topic ... is also getting a lot of penis enhancement love.

Evidence of a sense of humour among evil spamming robots?

[Low D]

The Wishful Thinking topic ... is also getting a lot of penis enhancement love.

Evidence of a sense of humour among evil spamming robots?

Maybe they are developing intellegences. It'll be I Robot but with bots... even creepier, if you ask me.