The botnet admins have completely defeated gmail
 

Most every auto registration stopped at my site lately was trying to use a gmail email address.

It looks like the latest version of XRumer has completely defeated gmail's human verification measures.

Anyone else noticing this? There's even a email address, "google@gmail.com" spamming. I never noticed this flood of autospam bots using gmail before, not to this degree.

Are these valid gmail addresses or are they just spoofed?

Spoofed. There's also gmail@gmail.com and test@gmail.com.

I've seen those too. How do you know they are spoofed? Easy to assume so, given their designations I guess.

Thank you Max for bringing this up. There is a lot of useful information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer

I am not an expert on spamming, as my field is related more towards scammers. however I have heard (as I previously posted) that the spammers were working on ways to defeat the anti-spam methods that people were working on.

After reading the Wikipedia article, I feel that we all need to be more aware and to help wherever we can those programmers who are working to stop spammers, hackers and scammers.

The amount of money obtained by these unethical acts can be very large indeed and can turn the heads of some administrators and programmers who actually support and encourage these hackers, spammers and scammers on their own websites and ridicule any who oppose them.

It is clear that the motivating force for the spammers to invest so heavily in automated programs is greed and "easy" money. It is scary how much these actions can rake in. And so there is a lot of money that can be used to increase the effectiveness of the unethical automated programs.

I think we all need to do what we can to stop the unethical and immoral guys in any way we can.

Google's IP addresses begin with 66.

The IP addresses of the spoofed e-mails do not.

Interesting theory that we as forum owners are all pawns to distribute the spam. hmmmmmm.

Just like they wouldn't if I was using my own gmail account to sign up on a message board.

I know it's not google itself spamming us, and the botnet admins haven't gotten into google's servers to make zombies, I'm saying that either they are spoofing gmail email addresses, or they have defeated gmail's human verification and these are actual, legitimate gmail accounts.

I guess the only way to tell if they are spoofed is to try to send a email to the addresses, and see if it bounces.

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I personally know one or two who actually are. One of them owns something like, 40 message boards, and sells user info directly to spammers.

I have proof.
However the mods and admins here have absolute control ....... <removed>


Yes they do, and you have been warned before about you personal vendettas.

Hmm... Seems my answer does lie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer#...count_creation

Max if you feel comfortable with sending me the information, I will pass it along to those who deal with these things.

As I posted earlier, I think we should ALL try to to stop the spammers/scammers and those who support them.

I am on many anti-fraud websites and I am interested in helping the victims and exposing the scum who prey on them, no matter where they hide.

In theory, its a good idea. In practice, it will never work.

When I started my forum, I never thought I'd become an expert in covert spammer and scammer detection and defense. Even now, six and a half years later, I've accepted that both are absolutely impossible to stop and/or punish. So while we do a pretty awesome job most of the time, every now and again we get hit pretty hard but are able to combat against it using simple filters.

Things you may want to consider, although annoying to the common user, but pretty effective from a general stand point, is to adjust how new users can or can't operate, whether it be by limiting their ability to create a new thread/post, post img's or not, use sig links or not, post a link of any kind or not. Things that aren't set in stone, but flexible and can be adapted to the nature of the user.

I think the worst, and by far, the toughest to route out are the groups that create real accounts, let them mature for half a year or so, and then spam the crap out of the forum. We monitor other forums for users there attempting to buy accounts from our forum for their spamming and/or scamming interests.

Overall, its an uphill battle. It will never go away completely (let's not sugar coat it or be naive). I mean, don't get me wrong, I sure hope it does someday. Many of the IP blacklisting and ID monitoring services do help, a lot, but nothing I've ever seen or done has ever been able to completely stomp it out 100%, aside for turning te forum off or shutting it down... that is... except for maybe high priced paid to join forums (even there, I've seen/heard of rogue users being normal for years and just overnight becoming scamming bastards).

The way I see it, if someone wants to spam and scam in a very clever way, they will do it. Nothing we can do will stop them. But if you're serious about your forum, you'll do what you need to do to combat it and manage the risk. Its an unfortunate, incredibly time consuming and resource intensive part of owning and operating a forum, small and large alike... and god forbid your forum is considered an authority site by Google, like ours. After that, battling these things becomes part of your everyday routine in managing the forum as a whole.

It is what it is. So everyone reading this, you're not alone. But there's really only so much we can all do as a group too.

I agree.. with this term..
Landed up again on vb.org for some vague term.. but this site came first.. though all cookies n stuff where cleared..
Sounded like an interesting topic and read complete..

Sorry for bumping age old thread.. did not checked rules for a long time..