ConwayLife.com

There has recently been a surge in the number of spammers all using the same technique, I dub this technique "copycat spamming". These spammers copy old topics and post the exact same contents but with a very small modification, such as the addition of a question mark to the title. They also sometimes remove formatted text, such as those in quotes or codes.
Here is an example, with a broken code tag highlighted in a red box. The spam is on top while the original is on the bottom. How to tell if a post is a copyspam:
1. Be suspicious of users whose first post is a topic. This is the unfortunate reality made by these spammers.
2. Select some words from the message.
3. Put them in the search box at the top right of the page.
4. If any identical text pops up, the post is a copyspam.
5. Report the post!
6. Do not reply!

Thanks for noticing.

Good summary, thanks. Someday a copycat scammer will inevitably duplicate your post, and it will somehow be particularly satisfactory to delete that one and ban the spammer with extra extreme prejudice. I usually use just "Permanent" for the ban period, but for that one I'll move up to the "Infinity times a bajillion gazillion" setting.

dvgrn wrote: April 28th, 2020, 7:14 amI'll move up to the "Infinity times a bajillion gazillion" setting.

Please don't tell me that's a real setting.
(or you can try aleph^1)

Also, be cautious of very obviously bad grammar or formatting attempts, like the "barely have any experience" at the start of the example copyspam

bubblegum wrote: April 28th, 2020, 4:34 pm Also, be cautious of very obviously bad grammar or formatting attempts, like the "barely have any experience" at the start of the example copyspam

That's just copied directly from the "source" post, the spambot doesn't alter anything (again, besides a question mark in the title sometimes). Look below the bold text in the original post. (Again, they seem to ignore formatted text)

Saka wrote: April 28th, 2020, 4:55 pm

bubblegum wrote: April 28th, 2020, 4:34 pm Also, be cautious of very obviously bad grammar or formatting attempts, like the "barely have any experience" at the start of the example copyspam

That's just copied directly from the "source" post, the spambot doesn't alter anything (again, besides a question mark in the title sometimes). Look below the bold text in the original post. (Again, they seem to ignore formatted text)

No, the fact that it's missing a subject pronoun

also, there seems to be at least a bit of effort put in (the script was removed, while the error message was kept)
I'm not saying it was taken out of the code-box, it's still clearly there

and the message doesn't make any sense either (where's the script?)

dvgrn wrote: April 28th, 2020, 7:14 am Good summary, thanks. Someday a copycat scammer will inevitably duplicate your post, and it will somehow be particularly satisfactory to delete that one and ban the spammer with extra extreme prejudice. I usually use just "Permanent" for the ban period, but for that one I'll move up to the "Infinity times a bajillion gazillion" setting.

That will indeed be very satisfying.

Suspected copycat spam that is not a new topic: https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic ... 057#p96057
Original: https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic ... 844#p53844