Spammer question

No clue, but why should that stop me. I assume they do it because people, somewhere, sometime, click on the link and possibly take advantage of what ever the link is offering. Or, if it is phishing, when you click on it they get your email and possible a gateway to really annoy the heck out of you.

Its like the "Nigerian" money scam. It has been around for years now in many different permutations yet those emails keep returning. I assume they must meet with some success. AS P.T. Barnum says...........

Joan, yes, some of them are paid for spamming.

Of course they get paid, there is no other reason to post spam like this. Just like there are people who earn money by "liking" your website or facebook page. They get paid per click.

They are in a sense "testing" vulnerable websites - like this one - and they'll keep doing it until the security wall is no longer compromised. Rick's team should concentrate on making this a more secure site (add CAPCHA for example); simply deleting computer generated spam will not make the spam go away and it's putting a band-aid instead of fixing the overarching vulnerability. Once the program knows it can penetrate the site, the spam will actually get worse over time as it's proven to be a good host to attack. It's likely not a person sitting at their desk writing e-mails - it's likely all computer generated and sent by batch. The program can generate new user names faster than we can blink.

I don't believe that adding a CAPTCHA is the best solution for this situation, as it would make posting very awkward. One possibility would be to block any new posters until they've been vetted by the hard working web team. It wouldn't matter how many posts the Bots make, they wouldn't be posted on the site until they've been verified. I'm certainly not a web expert, but that would seem like a logical solution.

If this site is hacked, the Koreans will know what we keep in our money belt, and just how vulnerable we are without comfortable yet stylish shoes.

Posting spam here isn't about testing the site's security. This site is just a delivery vehicle. Spam is all about money. It could be an attempt to deliver a virus or other malware for some future purpose, phish for personal details or simply get money out of individuals directly. It deliberately uses poor grammar as a subtle filter. The people that reply or click the links are more likely to achieve the end goal than people who are turned off by the language. There is an art to effective spam.

I want to throw in one comment regarding using Captchas or similar system. I have been reading and posting at Saabnet.com for 15 years, as it is a great source of info for caring for my car. They have used different versions of Captchas during this time. I have seen almost no SPAM there over those 15 years, and certainly no attacks as we have here (the clearly same-repeat REDDIT and Youtube posters, the new Koreans, the advertisers, etc). No one there has ever posted up that verifying they are real before making ANY post is an issue.

The important thing is NOT to click on any of the internet links provided in Spam posts.

Internet spam, public graffiti, littering, hacking, vehicles taking up more than a single parking space, having 35 items in the express lane . . . some inconsiderate people are a drag on society at best, and evil at worst. I suspect the folks at Hormel wish some other term had been coined to describe useless nuisance messages, but then it's said there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Most spam is not intentionally directed at the site/e-mail. Those are just platforms to advertise. Clever ads now almost always rely on Google Ads or similar platforms that have tons of demographics and other cohort info on you.

Spam exists because, out of the millions of messages they send/post/disseminate, some people click on the links, answer to email or otherwise react in a way that makes it profitable for all sort of (semi)-shoddy businesses. That could be either actually purchasing something, directing traffic at a website that is part of some affiliate program (earning fractions of cents per click), or compromising the computer/ID/account/personal info (phishing).

As for the suggestions, CAPTCHA doesn't always work, and is very annoying for those that post often. It also doesn't prevent the more cleaver forms of spamming.

"Vetting" all new members is an unworkable proposition on any user-based collaborative platform. It would deter most people from participating. At most, they can moderate content of new posters, but, then, they would have a problem if dissuading newcomers with legitimate questions from groing through all the aggravation.

So heuristics is still the best way to caught spam and allow ham (genuine post/message activity).

Lol @Karen.

Big spam the last couple of nights, starts late, good reason not to be on the site but in bed instead.

Karen's post did make me chuckle a bit.
They post spam I suppose because they get paid to do so. And, on some level, spam must work.