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Spamb0ts
Spamb0ts are automated programs designed to register on forums, disseminate spam, and leave. They usually supply a fake name, freebase email address, and sometimes mask their true IP address. Spammers can set the message that the spambot will post. Most spambots target one specific forum software or hosting company. Spambots are easy to identify by the nature of the message they leave, or the links in the signature. A typical post contains no topical content, but is accompanied by either spam links in the post itself, or in the user's signature. Some spambots will never post, and rely on the links in their signature to increase their search engine visibility. Looking up the spambot's user name with a search engine will often reveal thousands of registrations in unrelated forums.
An example of a spambot which has gained some notoriety since November of 2006 is XRumer. XRumer attempts to bypass anti-spamming mechanisms put in place by forum administrators, with some success. It uses a database of known HTTP proxies to mask the IP address of the poster, making it difficult for administrators to use a naive IP-banning mechanism.
Types of spam
Most spambot forum spam consists of links, with the dual goals of increasing search engine visibility in highly competitive areas such as weightloss, pharmaceuticals, gambling, pornography, real estate or loans, and generating more traffic for these commercial websites. Some of these links contain code to track the spambot's identity if a sale goes through, when the spammer behind the spambot works on commission.
Spam posts may contain anything from a single link, to dozens of links. Text content is minimal, usually innocuous and unrelated to the forum's topic.
Another type that is recently hitting forums is full banner ads and blatant posting of an ad that is unrelated to the thread's topic. This takes away from the thread creator's topic of discussion, is rude and interrupts any fluid discussion started. This also eats up bandwidth, the time for someone to delete the SPAM and space wasted on the server. Especially when the person is going from thread to thread posting the same thing over and over with no regards to the topic or rules of those forums posted to.
Alternately, the spam links are posted in the user's signature, in which case the spambot will never post. The link sits quietly in the signature field, where it is most likely to be harvested by search engine spiders than discovered by forum administrators and moderators.
Effects of spam
Spam prevention and deletions measurably increase the workload of forum administrators and moderators. The amount of time and resources spent keeping a forum spam free contributes significantly to labour cost, and the skill required in the running of a public forum. Marginally profitable or smaller forums may be permanently closed by administrators. Forums that do not require registration are becoming rare.
What's so funny about that?
They're bloodsucking leeches that need to be exterminated.
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