spam technique I just noticed: Administrators beware

Carlos

Well-known member
NewSpam.webp


I want you to sit there and take a pause. When you look at this, what do you think? It's just a signature, right?

But, I'm seeing a trend now: "Spammers" [it's too early to call them spammers] are using IN MESSAGES to trick YOU into thinking its a signature. But it's actually spam.

I had this similar situation on my forum recently, so I edited it, I let it go thinking he'd change his behavior. Nope. I caught another one, I gave him a warning. Stop doing it or be banned.

I found 3 other posts by him doing the SAME type of tactic, only with different wording, and with different "sayings" for the link.

As for the pic: I reported this to the mods, but I wanted to share with the community to be very aware of their posts looking exactly like this.
 
They've been doing this for years. I have signatures turned off on my forums so its easy to spot.
 
That's pretty easy to spot and I know that spammers have been doing this for a long time...there are so many tricks out there but 99.99% of all spammers are easy to notice ;).
 
With user group promotions, you could set the registered group to not have signature permissions, and then automatically promote them to a group that allows signatures when they have a certain number of posts, or a certain number of likes, or have been registered for a number of days etc. The possibilities are limitless :)

Coming soon in 1.1...
 
Yup, no signatures for guests. And anyone with 1 posts and a link in their sig is banned immediately.
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?
 
With user group promotions, you could set the registered group to not have signature permissions, and then automatically promote them to a group that allows signatures when they have a certain number of posts, or a certain number of likes, or have been registered for a number of days etc. The possibilities are limitless :)

Coming soon in 1.1...

This is a must have feature. I use it in that "other" forum software and have not had a spam sig link in a very long time
 
With user group promotions, you could set the registered group to not have signature permissions, and then automatically promote them to a group that allows signatures when they have a certain number of posts, or a certain number of likes, or have been registered for a number of days etc. The possibilities are limitless :)

Coming soon in 1.1...
Thanks. Been waiting for this for awhile...

That's the way I had my vb set up years ago.
 
To be fair, nothing new here ..

This has been going on since I run vBulletin 2.2.1 about 8 years ago. Fake signature inside posts. Or words linked in the color of text - etc. They're quite easy to detect by experienced moderators.

Fake signature or not, it looks like spam, it's useless post == spam
 
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?

There's a clear difference between spam signatures and signature links .. mods recognize this.

"Mortgage house. House sale"

vs yours ..

"My site: example.com"
 
They've been doing this for years. I have signatures turned off on my forums so its easy to spot.
Yup, no signatures for guests.
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.
 
View attachment 17564

I want you to sit there and take a pause. When you look at this, what do you think? It's just a signature, right?

But, I'm seeing a trend now: "Spammers" [it's too early to call them spammers] are using IN MESSAGES to trick YOU into thinking its a signature. But it's actually spam.

I had this similar situation on my forum recently, so I edited it, I let it go thinking he'd change his behavior. Nope. I caught another one, I gave him a warning. Stop doing it or be banned.

I found 3 other posts by him doing the SAME type of tactic, only with different wording, and with different "sayings" for the link.

As for the pic: I reported this to the mods, but I wanted to share with the community to be very aware of their posts looking exactly like this.
Did you take that pic with a camera? Why not screen cap...anyways tho

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."
It appears that they are just leading into the signature, so yes it could be part of the sig but it is pretty easy to identify. When I first saw this thread I was thinking OMG...something big and new for spammers...must read to prepare myself, but after reading it was more or less like "Wait, they've been doing this or things similar to this for years, this isn't new????????"
 
Did you take that pic with a camera? Why not screen cap...anyways tho
Photoshop won't let me paste my screen cap today. :|
It appears that they are just leading into the signature, so yes it could be part of the sig but it is pretty easy to identify. When I first saw this thread I was thinking OMG...something big and new for spammers...must read to prepare myself, but after reading it was more or less like "Wait, they've been doing this or things similar to this for years, this isn't new????????"
You're not understanding me. Nobody in this thread is understanding what I am saying.

The "signature" is not really a signature, its part of the ACTUAL post.

Message body + Signature in message body = Result in picture in OP.

What they've been doing for years is linking to spammy links in the actual signature box'es.. I have been seeing that for years, but not this one.

Other spam include a thousand keywords, and a thousand links in the message body.
 
Photoshop won't let me paste my screen cap today. :|

You're not understanding me. Nobody in this thread is understanding what I am saying.

The "signature" is not really a signature, its part of the ACTUAL post.

What they've been doing for years is linking to spammy links in the actual signature box'es.. I have been seeing that for years, but not this one.

Other spam include a thousand keywords, and a thousand links in the message body.
I understand that, but the post is leading into the signature, which are their names(post + sig, which is why most people identify them by that lul). It is like

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Useless Blah Blah Blah

----sig(part of post)----
final spammy part of post.
 
Oh, that's what you meant by "leading into the signature." Heh. Sorry. :(

Its just that I feel misunderstood in this thread.
 
I believe I understand.

Someone typed a line to make it look like a divider to the signature, then disguised the words which was a hot link. Somewhat like this.. (I think)
_________________________________________
generic text
 
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