Shopsmith Forums

JPG wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 2:13 pm At least that one had a pix!

Yeah, I am guessing that the AI behind these spam bots hasn't gotten sophisticated enough yet to copy over the pics on these spam postings...calm before the storm perhaps?

At least It it does have a wood handle ?? lol

What I do not understand about such spam posts is, what is the economic motivation? is someone making money from doing this? How? Are they advertising or plugging something? Or maybe the intention is to deliver a keylogger or malware, but how?

SteveMaryland wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:45 am What I do not understand about such spam posts is, what is the economic motivation? is someone making money from doing this? How? Are they advertising or plugging something? Or maybe the intention is to deliver a keylogger or malware, but how?

Steve,

Yeah, that has been debated before on this forum. I don't think any of us really know how these spammers operate or their true motives. This particular spammer that I pointed out has links to websites having nothing to do with woodworking on two of their other posts on this forum. Often times these spammers come back a few days or week later and edit their post to add these nefarious links (so as not to attract suspicion when they first post). Most of the time these links are to legitimate businesses, i.e. it isn't a malware site, etc. So, the belief is that they get "click through" income every time someone clicks on the links they post on forums like this one. Some people call this affiliate income and you see this all the time from social media influencers, e.g. your favorite woodworker that posts links to a company's website or to their products on Amazon in hopes that their followers will purchase using their links. They get pennies or sub-pennies every time someone clicks through on a link, so this is the best guess for "why" these spammers and spam bots do this annoying behavior on forums like this.

RF, thank you for the informative reply. I wish moderator could block these spammers from signing up, but how? I guess we all should hit the (!) report button when we see spam. How long will it be before viruses etc can be conveyed even without clicking a link?

And as for buying the wife a meat cleaver, well that is certainly an avoidable hazard...

TODAY a new 'member's first post is vetted.

This has resulted is a great reduction of spam making it.

There used to be ten or more new spam postings nightly.

Recently additional moderators were recruited.

So tis a far better world today.









Oh and the 'banned' list is greatly expanded as well.

is this a dexter russell knife shown in the first picture? it looks quite amazing and sharp