It's been pretty well hidden that PipesMagazine.com gets targeted by spammers on a daily basis. We catch 98% of them before their posts go public.
The usual form of spam is in posting in the forums and commenting on the articles. They usually try to post something that sounds like they are making a real comment, and then link to something. The links normally go to sites that are trying to sell stuff like e-cigs, or something completely irrelevant to the pipe smoker community. Sometimes they go to malicious sites that will install Trojans or viruses to try to steal your personal information to spam you, or make phishing attempts.
This is just part of life online. Don't worry. The 2% that doesn't get caught by the automated filtering system is usually caught by myself or one of the mods. We immediately delete the post, the user account, and ban the ip address.
Now, for the new disturbing trend that popped up in the last 24-hours ... (these have all been caught before publishing) ...
Comments are being made on articles where they attempt to disguise them as some type of relevant discussion. The discussions have all involved Peterson Pipes or a general discussion on tobacco. They are even operating in pairs, where one will post a question about a pipe filter, (asking if one type is better than the other), and a different person (from a different ip address) will answer the question and provide a link.
What's really bothersome (and intriguing) is that they are specifically targeting pipe smokers by narrowing the discussion to minutia that only we would be interested in talking about.
They are apparently using automated systems though as the fake discussions are on article topics that have nothing to do with what they are talking about in their spam comments.
For example, we might have an article about a tobacco, and they will talk about a pipe filter.
They are dumb and lazy, and therefore easy to catch, so it is not really a concern.
I just wanted to share as it is quite intriguing how the spammers are trying to be smarter, but their immense laziness and stupidity still hold them back.
The usual form of spam is in posting in the forums and commenting on the articles. They usually try to post something that sounds like they are making a real comment, and then link to something. The links normally go to sites that are trying to sell stuff like e-cigs, or something completely irrelevant to the pipe smoker community. Sometimes they go to malicious sites that will install Trojans or viruses to try to steal your personal information to spam you, or make phishing attempts.
This is just part of life online. Don't worry. The 2% that doesn't get caught by the automated filtering system is usually caught by myself or one of the mods. We immediately delete the post, the user account, and ban the ip address.
Now, for the new disturbing trend that popped up in the last 24-hours ... (these have all been caught before publishing) ...
Comments are being made on articles where they attempt to disguise them as some type of relevant discussion. The discussions have all involved Peterson Pipes or a general discussion on tobacco. They are even operating in pairs, where one will post a question about a pipe filter, (asking if one type is better than the other), and a different person (from a different ip address) will answer the question and provide a link.
What's really bothersome (and intriguing) is that they are specifically targeting pipe smokers by narrowing the discussion to minutia that only we would be interested in talking about.
They are apparently using automated systems though as the fake discussions are on article topics that have nothing to do with what they are talking about in their spam comments.
For example, we might have an article about a tobacco, and they will talk about a pipe filter.
They are dumb and lazy, and therefore easy to catch, so it is not really a concern.
I just wanted to share as it is quite intriguing how the spammers are trying to be smarter, but their immense laziness and stupidity still hold them back.
