Spammer attacks have certainly increased recently. I don't know why, but have a couple of vague guesses. A few months ago Google changed its ranking methods to get rid of a lot of 'link farm' pages, so perhaps the SEO racket has needed to look for new methods to promote their websites. Botnets being used for e-mail spam have been (relatively) quiet recently (
via Symantec) under the pressure of greater enforcement. So perhaps some of those resources are looking for new customers as well. Another possibility, one that's just complete speculation, is that perhaps someone's found a new vulnerability in the forum software or the different anti-spam extensions, making it easier to register new accounts.
The scary thing is that we never actually see most of the spam accounts. There are a few that will post messages here, and they're promptly deleted, but those are just the tall poppies. Most new accounts that are registered put a spam link in their personal information, and then sit dormant. Search engines still find and count those links, but they never attract our attention.
Thankfully, Julian has added something to the board that automatically deletes accounts that have never posted a message. That keeps our user list relatively clean, and means that the spammers are wasting their time and effort for very little in return. But just for fun, go have a look at the user list: sort by "registered" and "descending". (
this link may get you there directly.) Before I started writing this, there were 86 accounts registered so far today, and in the time it has taken me to write this much, two more have signed up.
I take spam personally â I'm not sure why, but it bugs me in the same way as do people who cut into lines or cyclists who run stop signs. As a result, when I see messages from a new user, I'll check the IP address that they post from (does it match their stated location, is it a known spam address), the user name (does it appear on too many other forums, is there a logical connection between them, is it on a blacklist), email address (same as user name, plus does it look like a throw-away account), and check the message text itself (does it match the subject, is it an old thread, has it been copied from somewhere else). If these leave me with a bad vibe, it's time for my best Queen of Hearts impersonation â although if I'm not 100% convinced, then I won't ban the account before deleting it, so that the IP and e-mail addresses aren't prohibited forever.
Hunting spammers is actually a hobby that I enjoy in its own right.
...[only joking all])