Interesting Forum Spam

[the goat]

I had this post show up on a vbulletin forum of mine today. I haven't ever seen anything like it. Is it possible that spammers are becoming polite?


Abama is good!!!
Hello! It's spamer's programm. Please delete this topic to let me know, what

this forum/guestbook is moderated!!!

Anyone ever see anything like this?

[vangogh]

I've had email spam like that, but I haven't seen anything like that here or other forums I moderate. I've had emails that said "sorry for this spam" or something like that. They could just be testing to see if it makes it through. Could be complete laziness. Could be someone who figures either you'll find the spam or won't so it probably doesn't matter what they say.

[the goat]

What made it strange though, is that it had no links in it. Just what you see there. It's as if they were saying "we're looking to spam here, but hey if you delete this we won't be back".

[vangogh]

Maybe it was just testing to see if the account could be created and their software could create a post. Could simply be someone testing some new software.

[orion_joel]

I have seen things like this once or twice, and it could be doubled edged. Just like email spam that they attempt to get a response, to know if there is someone there or not, or the phone scams, that ring with no one on the other end just to see what times people are home to answer the phone.

Not really that it will actually be of any use to them on a forum i wouldnt think, but it really depends on their motive i guess.

[vangogh]

I'm thinking it was someone testing their software. They had to send out something to see if it worked. The message is pretty much saying that too.

[Business Attorney]

I have seen something very similar but not quite as blatant. There was another program that put a pretty spammy post on a number of forums that seemed to be clearly trying to test the forum. If the post wasn't deleted, they added that forum to their list of forums to spam.

I figure that the creators of that program knew that there were plenty of unmoderated or even forgotten forums to attack with their program and they didn't want the buyers of their software to find that the majority of their posts were immediately removed. I guess even purveyors of spam software need some quality control. :)

If a test post isn't blatant enough, it may slip through even a well-moderated forum. If this is a spam program testing the waters, then the message makes perfect sense.