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Wow, this is a new strategy for spambots. Taking the content of another comment (in this case http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086932 http://news.ycombinato

by sorbus 16y ago

Wow, this is a new strategy for spambots. Taking the content of another comment (in this case http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086932 ), and posting it in the same thread (ensuring that it's somewhat relevant ... well, not in this case, as it's out of context) but with a link to a website at the end. Still has the new-account thing, though. Has anyone else seen this happening? If you're not a spambot, I am, of course, very sorry for the accusation, but you must admit that the evidence is on my side.

StavrosK 16y ago
I saw that comment and thought it was mine, so I was wondering why you were accusing me of being a spambot and was confused. Then I saw the username, I hope HN doesn't start to get overrun by spambots...
- sorbus 16y ago
  Quite sorry about the confusion; but no harm done, at least. If you have showdead turned on, there are lots of spam posts around - mostly just bunches of links from users who are dead (they can post stuff and see their own posts normally, but no one else can) - but this strategy is rather worrying, because it's harder to catch automatically. On the upside, the community is large enough now that most of these posts should be caught and flagged. Simply skimming through noobcomments looking for spam might not work as a strategy anymore, though, especially if they start grabbing comments which originally contained links (especially citations) and then replacing them with legitimate looking links to new sites; basically, if they figure out a way to stop the links from looking spammy, they're going to require a bit more human effort to catch, which might let lots of them get through - especially by posting on older articles which have fallen off the front-page. (Great, I'm giving advice to spammers now. Bit worried about posting this, actually, but someone else is going to think of it - probably already has - so I'm probably not doing any harm.)

by sorbus 16y ago

StavrosK 16y ago

I saw that comment and thought it was mine, so I was wondering why you were accusing me of being a spambot and was confused. Then I saw the username, I hope HN doesn't start to get overrun by spambots...

sorbus 16y ago
Quite sorry about the confusion; but no harm done, at least. If you have showdead turned on, there are lots of spam posts around - mostly just bunches of links from users who are dead (they can post stuff and see their own posts normally, but no one else can) - but this strategy is rather worrying, because it's harder to catch automatically. On the upside, the community is large enough now that most of these posts should be caught and flagged. Simply skimming through noobcomments looking for spam might not work as a strategy anymore, though, especially if they start grabbing comments which originally contained links (especially citations) and then replacing them with legitimate looking links to new sites; basically, if they figure out a way to stop the links from looking spammy, they're going to require a bit more human effort to catch, which might let lots of them get through - especially by posting on older articles which have fallen off the front-page. (Great, I'm giving advice to spammers now. Bit worried about posting this, actually, but someone else is going to think of it - probably already has - so I'm probably not doing any harm.)