I told you it was a bot!! https://www.speedrun.com/Amelia_Belli/allposts
I'm going to keep an eye on @sarfatz and @Tannnn123, because I'm confident they are both bots. (Tannnn123 made a forum post with a suspicious link and then deleted it, and sarfatz is so obviously a bot, but they haven't done anything YET)
https://www.speedrun.com/smithjason/allposts
His only post has more mentions of drugs than an average episode of Dr. House
@sarfatz added a yt channel to their profile, and it links to an advertisement for a "word unscramble" game.
https://www.speedrun.com/rogerkayn/allposts
Reposting messages previously posted in threads.
https://www.speedrun.com/the_site/thread/wrefn
[quote=Daravae]Not necessary. The site is looking into using true Markdown. Thanks for making this through.[/quote]
[quote=rogerkayn]The site is looking into using true Markdown. Thanks for making this through.[/quote]
@rogerkayn is copying one of @Daravae 's posts on the same thread.
EDIT: Nevermind, @Timmiluvs beat me to the punch :P
https://www.speedrun.com/soapwifflove/allposts No link yet, but seems inevitable given the post
https://www.speedrun.com/user/EmmaSweet messaging me "Hi! Free sex dating site [insert link} Live erotic shows"
https://www.speedrun.com/jonnypot321/allposts
I don't know why there are so many bots recently. There needs to be some sort of system to prevent them.
There are certain filters in place to limit accounts and sometimes auto-ban accounts if they post certain things like URLs within a certain timeframe after creating an account (I dont know the actual details of the filters, just a general idea), and sometimes they even ban actual users making their first posts.
Stopping bots is hard because most bots are getting smarter and know how to avoid those rules - edit in links later, delay posting after account creation, etc. Without forcing users to do robust verification of some kind on account creation, it can be hard to fully eliminate all bots before they're created, and sometimes we just got batches of them that appear from time to time. The curse of forums.
"There are certain filters in place to limit accounts and sometimes auto-ban accounts if they post certain things like URLs within a certain timeframe after creating an account (I dont know the actual details of the filters, just a general idea), and sometimes they even ban actual users making their first posts."
I know this, but as you mentioned, the bots are able to avoid this. I think that the site needs to make a new system now that the bots have evolved. Some bots don't make forum posts and instead just have website links (for example, the 15 accounts named "ronaldinko), some of them make forum posts with links and then delete them when they get reported (@Tannnn123), some of them edit in links after the fact.
One measure that could be used is to sniff out users who make a forum post every time they go online and then immediately go offline again repeatedly, or other "bot-like" behaviors.
As someone who's majoring in cyber security, I have to say. This is literally just another one of the arms races we deal with. We do something to prevent the hackers from doing their things. They find a way around it. We prevent that. Et cetera, et cetera. Only in this case we've stopped escalating our prevention methods. Now whether or not it's worth it to start the escalation again and keep this up is debatable.
@Bob-chicken while that post is written in a very weird way and it's still a necro, it's still on topic (and actually seems to address the OP directly), so it doesn't personally strike me as a bot.
But even if not a bot, certainly a very curious individual.
https://www.speedrun.com/mokktewy/allposts https://www.speedrun.com/Prince12r/allposts (copying text in thread)