5 ms·

Xrumer spams peoples websites. As I understand it this is the main strategy employed by blackhates. Email spam is illegal (CAN-SPAM Act). I hope that one day

Xrumer spams peoples websites. As I understand it this is the main strategy employed by blackhates. Email spam is illegal (CAN-SPAM Act). I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal. So it's not criminal to use Xrumer but in my opinion people who use it are on the same moral footing as common email spammers.

srl 15y ago
> I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal. Today of all days, be careful what you wish for.
stfu 15y ago
As far as I know Xrumer creates member profile pages on forums and adds a link to the "promoted" website to the profile. At what point do you see the criminal offense? By creating a profile and posting nothing on the forum? By adding a link where the form gives a legitimate linking-home option? Even so I feel a bit like playing devils advocate here, but Xrumer profile creation seems to me one of the least annoying activities in comparison to blog comments or other "visible" activities. Plus the "illegal" argument is always a double edged sword. Just imagine someone else Xrumer'ing your own website and the consequential explaining you have to do afterwards. As soon as Google (or law...) declares a specific tactic as bann-worthy people will use it against their competitors.
- puranjay 15y ago
  One of the motivations for this article was coming across a link on a Blackhat forum (yes, I keep bad company) about 'demoting' a competitor's website by creating hundreds of thousands of fake links to it overnight. While this tactic doesn't always work, the article's author was quick to mention that given a relatively young site, it can be extremely helpful in getting rid of the competition. I thought that was a very dickish thing to do. BlackhatSEO might not be illegal, but is ethically and morally wrong, plain and simple. And it makes the internet a crappier place. That's a good enough excuse to go on a BlackHat SEO crusade.
- TomGullen 15y ago
  No, it's also that program that leaves comments on your blog posts and creates forum threads and replies. Profile creation is only a small facet of it. Honest webmasters like myself have to spend time each day cleaning the junk these programs leave, as well as much of the time of our forum moderators.
nostromo 15y ago
Legal solutions don't work online, technical ones do. CAN-SPAM didn't stop spam. Bayesian spam filtering did. Every little annoyance in life shouldn't be subject to federal regulation.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > Bayesian spam filtering did. Really? Not taking out some big botnets? Not a move away from email and onto social networks? This article suggests that email spam, at a three year low, is still at 70% of all email. (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says_spam_levels_fall_to_lowest_in_three_years http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says...)
  - chc 15y ago
    It's not that spammers have stopped sending it; it's that, for most people, spam is not 70% of what makes it to their inbox.
  - nostromo 15y ago
    My broader point is that CAN-SPAM did nothing to reduce spam. http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/alexdec2009.htm http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/alexdec2009.htm I believe anti-SEO legislation would be just as ineffective.
    - GigabyteCoin 15y ago
      Most laws have little effect on the outcome of any "lucrative business practice".
- TomGullen 15y ago
  CAN-SPAM has been very successful in shutting down big bot nets and sending some of the biggest spammers to jail. Also this isn't a little annoyance, it's wasting time and resources for everyone just like email spam is. Daily me and some volunteers on my site spent time cleaning up the junk that these blackhats use.

srl 15y ago

> I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal. Today of all days, be careful what you wish for.

stfu 15y ago

As far as I know Xrumer creates member profile pages on forums and adds a link to the "promoted" website to the profile. At what point do you see the criminal offense? By creating a profile and posting nothing on the forum? By adding a link where the form gives a legitimate linking-home option? Even so I feel a bit like playing devils advocate here, but Xrumer profile creation seems to me one of the least annoying activities in comparison to blog comments or other "visible" activities. Plus the "illegal" argument is always a double edged sword. Just imagine someone else Xrumer'ing your own website and the consequential explaining you have to do afterwards. As soon as Google (or law...) declares a specific tactic as bann-worthy people will use it against their competitors.

puranjay 15y ago
One of the motivations for this article was coming across a link on a Blackhat forum (yes, I keep bad company) about 'demoting' a competitor's website by creating hundreds of thousands of fake links to it overnight. While this tactic doesn't always work, the article's author was quick to mention that given a relatively young site, it can be extremely helpful in getting rid of the competition. I thought that was a very dickish thing to do. BlackhatSEO might not be illegal, but is ethically and morally wrong, plain and simple. And it makes the internet a crappier place. That's a good enough excuse to go on a BlackHat SEO crusade.
TomGullen 15y ago
No, it's also that program that leaves comments on your blog posts and creates forum threads and replies. Profile creation is only a small facet of it. Honest webmasters like myself have to spend time each day cleaning the junk these programs leave, as well as much of the time of our forum moderators.

nostromo 15y ago

Legal solutions don't work online, technical ones do. CAN-SPAM didn't stop spam. Bayesian spam filtering did. Every little annoyance in life shouldn't be subject to federal regulation.

DanBC 15y ago
> Bayesian spam filtering did. Really? Not taking out some big botnets? Not a move away from email and onto social networks? This article suggests that email spam, at a three year low, is still at 70% of all email. (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says_spam_levels_fall_to_lowest_in_three_years http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says...)
- chc 15y ago
  It's not that spammers have stopped sending it; it's that, for most people, spam is not 70% of what makes it to their inbox.
- nostromo 15y ago
  My broader point is that CAN-SPAM did nothing to reduce spam. http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/alexdec2009.htm http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/alexdec2009.htm I believe anti-SEO legislation would be just as ineffective.
  - GigabyteCoin 15y ago
    Most laws have little effect on the outcome of any "lucrative business practice".
TomGullen 15y ago
CAN-SPAM has been very successful in shutting down big bot nets and sending some of the biggest spammers to jail. Also this isn't a little annoyance, it's wasting time and resources for everyone just like email spam is. Daily me and some volunteers on my site spent time cleaning up the junk that these blackhats use.