XRumer and the person spamming ContractorUK for the last few months!

[MarillionFan]

Right. (Sorry Admin couple of drinks too many!).

Latest poster is StqfBz

I am intrigued. We have discussed this for months via PM(behind the scenes) but come on, own up if you're a poster/previously banned user/spammer show your hand.

What is the point in creating over 3000 new accounts in the last few months on CUK? Own up? Is there any point? 80 - 100 automated accounts created each day!

Is Nomadd a stooge in all of this? Is the 2500+ views to his profile as part of the script a ruse or is Nomadd the spammer? Why has Nomadd hidden his profile?

Is RC the spammer(hence the hostility)?

Come on you muppet, whoever you are bring it on, show your hand!!!

[amcdonald]

It's probably a bot, they don't care what forums they spam.

[AtW]

Oh ****, MF is actually a Xrumer bot, not the smart one, but anyway ... BAN IT!!!

[suityou01]

Oh ****, MF is actually a Xrumer bot, not the smart one, but anyway ... BAN IT!!!

Thou doth protest too much AtW.

[Clippy]

A week or so ago, I had a bout of insomnia for several nights so jumped on the board to kill a bit of time.

Noticed something strange - one regular board user was always logged on and when you viewed their profile to see what they were doing, they were always viewing the list of who's online.

The other strange thing was that nearly every time they were online, so was one of the boards established sockpuppets.

Dunno if it's related.

[OwlHoot]

A week or so ago, I had a bout of insomnia for several nights so jumped on the board to kill a bit of time.

Noticed something strange - one regular board user was always logged on and when you viewed their profile to see what they were doing, they were always viewing the list of who's online.

The other strange thing was that nearly every time they were online, so was one of the boards established sockpuppets.

Dunno if it's related.

Come on, name and Shame ..

(wild guess - Doggy Styles and Gricer? )

[Clippy]

Come on, name and Shame ..

(wild guess - Doggy Styles and Gricer? )

Nah, can't do that as, on reflection, am off the mark.

But the sockie on line at the dead of night was Gricer.

[MarillionFan]

Nah, can't do that as, on reflection, am off the mark.

But the sockie on line at the dead of night was Gricer.

You mean RichardCranium.

I've noticed that, it's a bit stalkerish but Im not sure it's related. Wouldn't surprise me if he's got a web query running against the 'Who's online' profile and storing it. (Sort of geeky thing I might do if I was interested in trending logins for example)

The other thing was Nomadd. Nomadds profile had been visited by all of the 3000 sockies. I came across it by chance a month ago and watched. He's either a stooge or the all powerful sockie master.

If the bot was to use the 3000 odd accounts for spamming the mod process of checking the 1st post would stop it. If it was removed in theory someone could flood the board.

Admin is fully aware but seems relaxed about it, and I believe will change the registration process soon.

Personally I just don't trust it.

[administrator]

As discussed on PM - you are right, I am totally relaxed about this. Xrumer has been around for a long time, spam has been around on this forum for a long time. Yes, there has been a big upswing in the amount of spam accounts being registered on the forum in the last few weeks (we have discussed this since the 20th Jan, so not quite a month yet ) but this could simply be put down to either the amount of people using Xrumer, CUK appearing on a list of "forums where registrations with Xrumer works" or something else equally boring rather than the paranoid take that the CUK forum is being singled out in some way.

As I said in the last PM, nomadd could simply have hidden his profile as I PMd him about the fact that all the spam accounts seemed to visit his account following registration.

I really am not bothered about this due to new accounts having to make a few posts before they can post without moderation. Even after this the forum regulars are really good about reporting spam and dodgy posts that if this picks up and me and the mods are inundated with spam then I would do something about it. It is not doing us any great harm at present so due to the new site going live it has not been a great priority for me. Still tweaking the new site but expect to put the extra registration field in shortly to see if this cans the random sign ups that we are seeing at present.

[MarillionFan]

As discussed on PM - you are right, I am totally relaxed about this. Xrumer has been around for a long time, spam has been around on this forum for a long time. Yes, there has been a big upswing in the amount of spam accounts being registered on the forum in the last few weeks (we have discussed this since the 20th Jan, so not quite a month yet ) but this could simply be put down to either the amount of people using Xrumer, CUK appearing on a list of "forums where registrations with Xrumer works" or something else equally boring rather than the paranoid take that the CUK forum is being singled out in some way.

As I said in the last PM, nomadd could simply have hidden his profile as I PMd him about the fact that all the spam accounts seemed to visit his account following registration.

I really am not bothered about this due to new accounts having to make a few posts before they can post without moderation. Even after this the forum regulars are really good about reporting spam and dodgy posts that if this picks up and me and the mods are inundated with spam then I would do something about it. It is not doing us any great harm at present so due to the new site going live it has not been a great priority for me. Still tweaking the new site but expect to put the extra registration field in shortly to see if this cans the random sign ups that we are seeing at present.

Sorry. Forgot to mention I trended it back. It started near the end of December. It's about 3000 accounts at present(or 80 per day - rough estimate).

As an aside. From a business perspective, it is normal to calculate the number of actual users/customers as opposed to dormant accounts. For CUK, accounts used in the last 24/12 is probably a good count. From that you calculate churn. You could also do a 'mail out' to old users. Not sure how much you 'market' to the addresses on CUK.

Any you can email the user list so I can email out my closing deals at the shop?