DOS Games Discussion

Since no one objected to the idea of having a spambot report thread, I decided that it would be more effective that using the PM system to report bots.

So here's the first one:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20237

Bot profile:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13044

Note from Admin:

I'm going to edit posts as I process them. I'll stick a tag below the post stating the status of the message (whether it's been deleted, or the user is pending deletion based on their next post, etc.)

MrFlibble wrote:Since no one objected to the idea of having a spambot report thread, I decided that it would be more effective that using the PM system to report bots.

So here's the first one:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20237

Bot profile:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13044

I like this idea.

The post has been removed and I've banned the account.

It'd be nicer if we had a newer version of PHPBB2 with Spam Bot reporting features

Me -> <- emmzee

To be fair, the forums where I picked the report spambot thread idea encourage the users to employ all methods: report via PM, report in threads and report with the report post function (which they do have). Apparently they have spambot "invasions" every now and then and try to have everything covered just in case.

[Edit] Also please remove this:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic ... 448#120448

Bot profile:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13039

Not a spambot apparently, but this user's advertising what seems like an MMORPG website:
http://dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20232

[Edit] More spam:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20244

More spam:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20250

Thanks for keeping up on this, MrFlibble. I've added some new terms to the spam list so hopefully it nips some of these posts in the bud.

This thread seems to attract spambots, better lock it up I guess:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9320

[Edit] Same bot also posted here:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic ... 611#120611

More spam:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20267 [Thread removed]
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20266 [Thread removed]
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic ... 669#120669 [Post removed. Will keep an eye out on the poster.]

I'm out of bandwidth for another few days and it's a pain in the butt to manage these on my phone. I'll hopefully clean these up on Wednesday or Thursday.

Done deal. I also added the root of the URL to the spam words list.

Thanks!

http://www.dosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20278 [Thread removed]

Looks like somebody beat me to it this time haha.

Here's another spambot:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13019

At first it made a number of innocuously looking messages, then waited for a while and edited them to insert links.

[Banned user: analivia]
[Removed posts by user]

I wondered what the payoff for that one was going to be, assumed it was just racking up post count. That's more clever than I'd heard a bot being, but makes sense. Creative at least, as irritating as it is.

Spambot design gets very clever sometimes.

One type grabs a random post from another user, then apparently runs it through recursive translation so that the end result looks like a vaguely on topic post by a non-native speaker.

When I encountered a bot of this type for the first time, I even had doubts that it was a bot (it also did not leave a link anywhere at first). But luckily it chose to "borrow" a post from a user who would leave her signature right in the post. Of course the recursive translation did not affect the name in the signature, and this was a straight giveaway that something was fishy

Just to note, I've been editing your posts in here MrFlibble with the actions that I've taken.

Understood, thanks!

Here's a few more 'bots though:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13053
[Banned user: Emma11]
[Removed post by user.]

http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13015
[Deleted post. Looks fishy, but there's no link on it and the post somewhat makes sense in context with the rest of the thread.]

Another bot, an obvious one this time:
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/profile.p ... le&u=13074

It just copies parts of other user's posts in the same thread.