Possible Bots joining FT
 

I've noticed a number of new users that have cropped up in the last month that are visiting high numbers of other users' profiles. These new users have no posts, all have similar features in their profile (long ICQ number, "Man" for biography (even if the username and profile picture are female :p), and all have external websites in their profile.

One of them linked to the Google search results for something called XRumer, which appears to be some sort of "forum promotion tool".

I worry that the registrations of all of these users may be a sign of a mass spam attack to come. I've only got a couple of usernames, as initially I thought nothing of it. But admins/mods, feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to share those usernames that I do have.

Cheers ^
wijomas

If, when you see those suspicious posts, you will use the "Report Bad Post" link (the little red triangle in the lower left of a post) the moderator(s) of the forum will get an email with a link to the post (or in the case of forums without named moderators, the senior moderators get such notices).

That is the fastest way to call attention to suspicious posts.

Thanks cblaisd - but they have not made any posts yet. This is what strikes me as odd, all these users signing up, with similar details in their profiles, and viewing other users' profiles in huge numbers.

A simple google search of one of these users reveals that they have visited over 200 FTers profiles, but have still not made a single post....

wijomas, I have also noticed a few bot-like FT 'members' visiting profiles.
I gues they are indeed bots, indexing the profile pages, as part of their job of indexing FT pages.

If these are indexing bpts for search engines, they may be harmless.
I'm happy to compare IP addresses for any names if it becomes an issue, to get an idea of the sources of these so-called bots.

Cheers,
BB

Looks like someone is doing some research on "us"...

http://members.shaw.ca/deercroft/wwaa.xls

Interesting :rolleyes: Ah well, I guess that's better than the "spam-storm" I thought was coming! :D

wwaa
 

I thought that was BlondeBomber's compilation of what's already
in Who We All Are - looks pretty harmless to me, as this is stuff
we've posted ourselves in one public thread.