DU Spam attack. Do not click or call. Fake help sites & numbers for printers & airlines

[Bernardo de La Paz]

MIRT is on the job (Thank you!) There seem to have been an unusually heavy onslaught of registrations last night and lots of spam sucker posts. Large lists of supposedly official links that go to dodgy web sites (I did not click any of them). The 800 / 877 phone numbers search to bogus places or lots of reverse lookup. That means not proper help line numbers.

Alert on spam posts. There is a Commercial Spam category. Click the Alert button lower left of a post.

DU members are smart and this is redundant but: Do not click links or call numbers.

[malaise]

1. Thanks

Rec

[Orrex]

2. I wish you'd posted before I gave them my SSN and birthdate

Ah well, what’s the worst that could happen?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. In your case they will send an army of spiders to eat your toes. No worse than that.

Others will not be so lucky.

[Orrex]

6. Whew!

[Scrivener7]

4. Damn! And I gave them your SSN and birthdate too!

Sorry.

But, seriously, thanks for the heads up, Bernardo.

[usonian]

5. Related?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45424074

Got hit by 1k Trump bots within an hour after launching a platform


3 points by vinserello 36 minutes ago

As soon as we launched our app on an online directory, we were overwhelmed by thousands of bots spamming “TRUMP2028,” followed by a DDoS attack.

Our app is a stupid fast 1v1 debate platform judged by AI called Debatable. We built it thinking of dialectic debating, but we were not expecting this. Thanks to AppCheck and Vercel AntiBot Firewall, the platform survived, but hundreds of users and debates had already been created.

It’s a wild first stress test. But how can US survive to this level of debate-contamination?

[Rhiannon12866]

7. And now EarlG is taking care of the rest of them - who didn't post Spam - yet!

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Duplicate post. n/t

[Emile]

9. You wouldn't believe how many spammers. Earl has come to the rescue,

and blowing them up.

[AllaN01Bear]

10. ive been s sucker for a number of scams stay safe.

[Alice Kramden]

11. Big thanks to MIRT and EarlG

For your vigilance and protection of this site

[ananda]

12. Thank you!

I had no idea.

It probably depended on the time.

[EarlG]

13. We saw a surge in automated spambot registrations in the early hours this morning

However, thanks to the combined efforts of MIRT and DU members serving on Juries, every single spambot account and spam post so far has been quickly eliminated.

Thank you to all DUers who volunteer to serve on MIRT and on Juries. Most other discussion forums (or sites with comment sections) struggle to contain this kind of automated spam activity, but the system we use at DU is extremely efficient at getting rid of it.

We are continuing to monitor things this morning. Hopefully the spammers will move on once they realize that there is little point attempting to spam DU.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Blanking user profiles might help

When posting privileges are revoked, the commercial blurbs remain in the user profiles and the spammers have a link to point to showing their work is on the web and thus the spam worker gets paid.

Blanking them out would eliminate that proof of posting and reduce the incentives for spam workers and spam companies.

[EarlG]

16. Indeed

That is something we can resolve.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Buh buh buh... HP printer support!!!1!!!!!1

[LiberalArkie]

18. You mean HP has actual printer support? I thought the support quit back in the 90's

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Shhhh... (the spammer says).. don't tell anyone!

[chouchou]

17. We're sorry ! Your Gold bars were delivered to the wrong address. Enter your Platinum Visa number and....

[Emile]

20. If I were a spammer, I would go to Free Republic.

Lots of suckers there.

Those idiots shoot themselves in the foot, and vote republican just to entertain the wealthy.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. Thanks