Help WARNING: THEY'RE BACK

[CodySP]

Memes, what makes you say the spam is traced back to this user?

I too, and curious about this!

And that Report button is a life saver. As I mentioned to Phantom earlier that I know it can be frustrating when you don't know what goes on behind the scenes and you feel that you can do more to help than just press a button. But trust me when I say that report button is invaluable and gives us immediate information on everything we need to do on any given case. It's much more efficient than sending a PM. 

As anti-climatic as it may seem, the best way to help us do our job, is to use that report button!

[SmokedMemes]

Memes, what makes you say the spam is traced back to this user?

If you check the guruji spam-bot's account, it has a referal section, you know... The "Referred by:" section, and if you click on that, you can see that it states that they're referred by @Aseris2003. While that may be slightly shallow of evidence, I highly believe that simply being alluded to by one of these spam bots is enough. However, it would help to know what the "Referred By:" Section is really for, because i have seldom seen it on users. A good example would be @Iron being referred by @CodySP. But even this link suggests that this section links two users very closely, and even though i'm not sure what the section means, I will go off on that bandwagon.

Truth be told, i was a bit shocked no one had looked as this section, as it suggests something important. For one: Each spam robot that has ever appeared on this forum always had a referral. Without fail. This alone is something I find suspicious, another point is that another spam bot with the name @babaji01234 also had the exact same referral on their self. Which indicates that this "strain" seems to orginate from them.

 In any case, if this is considered evidence enough, or once more evidence has been procured. It would be wise to put said users on trial.

[Iron]

No, there were plenty of spambots with no referrals. I was checking that, because I wondered if it might be what made some of them purgeproof.

And why would a spambot puppetmaster refer his bots on purpose, thus leaving a trail of evidence?

When you sign up you can say who referred you, so I would guess the spambots simply picked a user more or less at random. Maybe to make the forum consider them more of a legitimate member.

[SmokedMemes]

No, there were plenty of spambots with no referrals. I was checking that, because I wondered if it might be what made some of them purgeproof.

And why would a spambot puppetmaster refer his bots on purpose, thus leaving a trail of evidence?

When you sign up you can say who referred you, so I would guess the spambots simply picked a user more or less at random. Maybe to make the forum consider them more of a legitimate member.

That could be possible, but don't you need someone to send you a link and refer you to the forum in order to be considered "Referred" by them? Or do you just type any random user's name and it just works?

In addition to that, i need to note that some bots also referred other bots(Key example being the guruji bot refering to astr024... i think), the purpose of this is still ambiguous to me. Why would a spam bot refer to another spam bot, wouldn't that also be a major security flaw on the bot's end due to it helping us find them easier? I feel like they would want to conceal it... Unless it isn't in their hands? As if it's some automated system they're designed to execute in order to legitimize themselves. Either way, we have nothing else to do but collect more information...

[Iron]

You can type anyone's name during account creation.

[SmokedMemes]

You can type anyone's name during account creation.

Wait then how does the account referral work? Does someone link you to the forum and it auto registers?

[Polaris]

I've been checking each spambot's account, only about one in five or six had a referral and several of them were to other accounts that sounded like they'd been created by the spammer, like "babajim." We don't really need to worry about spambot concealment, they're either not posting anything (in which case there's no problem) or posting things (in which case we can see them clearly). The system doesn't care about referrals when validating accounts, it's just a way to encourage community growth. As Iron said, you can specify that someone referred you when you create your account on this forum.

[SmokedMemes]

So... do we have no way of tracking them down?

[Lord Windos]

Nope, not at all. As long as whoever made these bots stay anonomous and keep their head down, the individual will likely never be caught. All that can be done is just be watchful, and strike down any more bots that happen to lurk around!

[Iron]

Well we have their IP address, which is what Cody used to up security.