Spammers everywhere

[Andrew_McDonald]

I noticed that there has been a flurry of spam accounts on these forums in the last month or so. Most of the posts I've seen are several weeks old, which implies the forums aren't being monitored very closely. Is someone going to get on top of the problem?

[Harold_G_Intel]

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for your input.

We are aware of this issue and working hard to address it.

If you can point me to posts that you believe to be SPAM, I will checkthem out.

Best regards,

==

Hal G.

Intel Software Network Support

Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others

[Andrew_McDonald]

Hi Hal. Two different accounts spamming here for instance:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showthread.php?t=104566

And posts here:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showpost.php?p=182187
http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showpost.php?p=181562
http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showpost.php?p=181774

In fact probably easier to point out whole accounts:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/profile/559292/
http://software.intel.com/en-us/profile/539206/

etc. Just needs more active moderation I think, these posts are pretty easy to spot.

[Harold_G_Intel]

Thanks again Andrew. Posts have been deleted. There are some changes in the works which may help alleviate this issue in the future.

-Hal

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I check for spammers on pretty much a daily basis, and I know that ISN staffers do so twice a day on weekdays. Just this morning I deleted five spam posts that showed up since yesterday. Unfortunately, forum spam is a major issue everywhere.

If you see a spam message, please click on the Report Abuse link in that post.

[shadab_khatib]

What do you mean by spammers in the forums?
Should normal users like me be cautioned about them?
If yes then how?

[Steven_L_Intel1]

What we see here are typically posts advertising streaming of sports events. If you see a post that seems out of context for the forum (it should be pretty easy to tell), just report it and don't click on any links in the post. Just like any spam, really.

[Andrew_McDonald]

Thanks guys. Yes, this just means spam posts advertising stuff, or robots building up to do the same. It doesn't mean people harvesting email addresses or something.

Some of these seem quite sophisticated rather than just straight-forward spam ads for sites. Sometimes they're duplicated from the text of other posts with links inserted, or even apparently procedurally creating posts presumably toboost an account's credibility.

Anyway, good to hear you're on top of it. Spam is the bane of so many web forums!

[TimP]

The only extra precaution which has been attempted on these forums is to require a captcha entry (where you enter a character string presented in distorted graphics). Not surprisingly, it didn't help much. I haven't got an answer as to why these forums don't require a verification of valid email return address when setting up an account (something about limitations of the chosen software framework?) Many of the spam posts come from a one-time temporary email account, which could be prevented from posting by those standard precautions.
The habitual spammers know they won't be blocked on weekends (according to USA Pacific time zone).
As Steve indicated, our abuse button reports usually get attention twiice a day during those USA Pacific time zone weekday business hours. Steve and I have rights to delete posts, but I hate to do that myself unless someone requests it specifically, as I have been known to do so prematurely and without looking for additional spam from the same account.

[Bernard]

You can easily indentify spammers by the content of their messages.