What's up with all the bot accounts?

[Mochaboy]

At first it those intermittment non sensical posts were cute, but now these bot accounts are starting to respond to other people's posts.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4818

What's the story with those accounts, do we know where they're originating from? And are we insta banning them as we find and report them?

More importantly do I need to be worried about my account information being compromised?

[RetireeJay]

[mdfast1]

We ban and delete as fast as we see them. Your account security is safe, although, this site as with many other forums is hosted privately, I would assume you used a different username and password then your banking and email.

This is why you see all the restrictions on the site (minimum post length), new user's can't post links. We are trying to minimize bot impact.

[Mooselake]

They're not bots, in the automatic robot sense. Spam for hire organizations hire actual people in low pay third world countries to sign up and spam forums. They seem to interact because they do, they'll read a few posts to gain some superficial knowledge and then generate a kinda on topic post.

It's like playing whack-a-mole. Whack one and two more pop up somewhere else.

Flag any suspicious posts (and thanks if you already are; it really helps) and somebody'll look at them. Just remember that there's also non-native English speakers and people with less developed writing skills, so not all of the poorly worded posts are spam.

I've been a bit lax in my anti-spam duties lately. I had a knee replaced a few weeks ago, with some minor complications, probably because the implant was CNC machined instead of 3D printed. The pain meds and only having access to a tablet mean I'm not keeping up. Hopefully it'll only be a few more weeks.

Kirk

[plexus]

[Mooselake]

Canadian moose are tougher!

It's a balance thing, can't make it around the corners and down the stairs on three legs. Moose on narcotics are a bit stranger than usual, too.

Kirk