spam technique I just noticed: Administrators beware

And, that's certainly not big, not new, and has been in use since I started building communities.
 
I changed the title a bit, let me know if you want it to be something else.

No one knows everything, and I think it is great to exchange information like this :)
 
Well you said photoshop wasn't working for you...

If you run windows you have a form of paint...it's just a screen cap anyways...now if your going to do a mockup or something yeah paint sucks...but if you can make an image look good by manually editing individual pixels than you may or may not be considered beastly.

At any rate if you need a screeny that is a sure-fire way to get one on windows...or go download fastone screencap and use the capture button with the down arrow on it and hover your browser window in the content area.
 
The quality on paint sucks, so people will think I have a bad computer. Photoshop makes images look good if you save it in larger size memory.

That's why I perfer screen capping and gettin' them into photoshop. This problem only happens sometimes, not all the time.

Just not interested in rebooting my computer for this.
 
I think it looks aight...it's just a screen cap...and who cares...people don't judge you by what quality your computer is or for that matter a image rendered from a capture of your screen...at least I don't. If your looking for help or trying to display a point and provide details to some subject matter any image is worth a thousand words.

Untitled.webp

2.webp
 
Carlos said:
You guys missed my post's entire - point.

These spammers aren't putting "signatures" into the actual sig box, but rather in the messages themselves. So, I don't think that this has been happening for "years."

The reason why I took the image very close to the screen is to show you the difference in their methods - You see that black line in my pic? Anything below that is PART of the post... A signature, like the one I have right now has a light blue dot line...

So, with this in mind. The spammers are trying to confuse you into thinking that's part of the post. Now you can't distinguish the difference between a post, and a post with a signature.
Click to expand...
Thats the point I'm making I don't have signatures turned on on my site so no one can have one. So when the spammers do this it sticks out like a sore thumb. They've been doing it since at least when I started with my first forum back in 2006.
 
If the 'spam' is part of the message, what is one really supposed to do about it, and why would it be any more of a problem than regular links posted in a message and not disguised as a signature?
 
I think Carlos's post stands as a good warning to new forums owners who may not be aware of the many spammer tactics that are out there. :)

Yes, us old hats have seen it all before, but it doesn't hurt to share stuff like this as we all need to learn from somewhere.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
steven s said:
I typically add a link in my signature when joining a forum. So I'd be banned from yours on the first post? Guests can post on your forum or sigs not visible to guests?
Click to expand...

I have turned off signatures for guests on all my XenForo forums. But to clarify, every situation is different. And as someone stated before I can easily tell if someone's link in their signature is spam or not. 9 time out of 10 it is going to be a spammer. But in your case, I am sure you might get a PM for more clarification if the link I go to is fishy. (not saying your site is fishy! :))

Also, some spammers will dig up old threads that have not been posted in for months. That is an immediate red flag if they have a link in their signature or not. Some of these spammers know they need to get their post count up before they tag a specific account with a link.
 
Carlos said:
You guys missed my post's entire - point.

These spammers aren't putting "signatures" into the actual sig box, but rather in the messages themselves. So, I don't think that this has been happening for "years."

The reason why I took the image very close to the screen is to show you the difference in their methods - You see that black line in my pic? Anything below that is PART of the post... A signature, like the one I have right now has a light blue dot line...

So, with this in mind. The spammers are trying to confuse you into thinking that's part of the post. Now you can't distinguish the difference between a post, and a post with a signature.
Click to expand...

AH I see what they did in your post. Looks like they were trying to simulate a vBulletin signature. So even IF signatures were turned off for guests, a guest would still see this type of signature.

To bad they didn't match the signature to the new XenForo style. :) But yeah I guess you could call this a new/different technique.
 
I don't understand what the spammer thinks they are getting away with... Do they actually think hiding the signature in the post is going to make people click on their link in the "signature"?

So they're trying to get around the "no signatures for new members" forum rule, by faking a signature that hardly anybody will click on? Or maybe he thinks he's being clever in that google will index his site, because the forum has a "nofollow" on *real* signature links. Doesn't seem like a bright spammer to me.

As a moderator, I think it'd be pretty easy to spot if you knew that new members couldn't have signatures.
 

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