And you all thought I was a psychotic bad-tempered paranoid.

I prefer the more politically correct "third of the population on a spaceship going there ahead of us..." but I hear you Asok, I hear you.

DeV.

Sarky wrote:

People actually do this? Wow, I know nothing about cynicism.

So what, precisely, can we do to stop it?

We can man the barricades.

Firstly we dont get a lot of this because I've made damned sure that the downside to getting caught is as bad as I can make it. Esat lost a Director I believe over their incident.

When someone like this is found we ban the company from ever being referred to again, denying them any future possibility of the "oxygen of publicity" to use Ms Thatchers words.

We make it very public, very angry and as malicious as feasible. Make sure everyone knows they used these underhand tactics where possible. Kill the customers of these sorts of scum companies and they will die as a result. Unfortunately we're still a small boat on a big pond. All the same, we can make it extremely risky for a company to use these types of tactics (why do you think they hire an intermediary, they don't want to be connected directly to such tactics themselves). The best thing we can do IS to connect them, publically with what they have had done on their behalf.

Hit them where it hurts, if they are trying to promote a product, we boycott it. We out them, publically. We humiliate them and/or in the worst cases instigate online activists tactics. Mail bomb the CEO, put a No-X image in your sig highlighting the events, make someone somewhere squirm and make sure everyone knows it.

I once used Usenet until Canter and Siegel (look them up) initiated the first spam. At the time complacancy reigned as we looked with awe upon what was being built and presumed nothing could stop it. That was 15 years ago and Usenet by and large is a wasteground of viagra spam with pockets of users but so few in number that it became cost-uneffective to spam them. Their own growth was what attracted these parasites just as the growth of online communities is attracting them now.

Back then spam was spam, you could tell it a mile off.
Now the tools we have (like my personal favourite, Reason[tm] )make it easy to spot and scrub spammers. Bots are foiled by pattern recognition images, scripts make cleaning it all up less then 12 clicks.
But just as we have improved our arsenal of weapons so Darwinnian theory has kicked in and they have evolved more and more cunning ways to counter us. Its a classic arms race.

If you think I'm being melodramatic about this, couching it in the language of war you are wrong. We're already at war. They are clearly organised, unrepentant, determined and aware that we are resistent and unwilling targets. Read their site and realise they are prepared to fight for your "eyeballs".

DeV.

boardy wrote:

This is extreme overkill.
And who decides what topic to ban? I certainly hope that it’s not you. Just because a topic may have an adverse effect on your sensibilities, it may get censored. That is wrong.

Anybody ever use craigslist? It is a fantastic web site that is unfortunately now being weighed down with spam, and I’m afraid that it will go the way of usenet.

I have done a lot of work on spam and totally agree with Dev that a war needs to be waged against its proliferation. But the way to go about it is to use technology, not censorship.

Here here.

I could stop them by simply shutting down boards entirely! I know Afterhours seems a bit of a play pen. Thats because it is. My english teacher used to say that dirt is matter in the wrong place. Every post has a right place, its my job to ensure there are places for posts.

I hear what you are saying about bumping their post counts. I know its a chink in our armour but its one I want to tolerate even if that means a few spammers get through because its fun for a lot of people. We will always have that balancing act to do.

DeV.