What's up with the bots?

Anything that doesn't fit into other topics goes here!
Don't get the wrong idea, I'm not complaining or anything. Infact I get the feeling that moderators & Co are doing everything in their power to combat this problem. So my compliments to them! Who knows what kind of flood us normies (as in normal users) never even get to see, because hard working people backstage keep the doors well shut.

It's just something I started thinking about during what would technically count as a lunch break a couple of days ago. On the one hand I'm really curious, on the other I wonder if I might perhaps amuse someone besides myself with these thoughts. It's all a relatively new experience for me (though not of the exciting kind ;) ), as I've been around some forums, but never seen anything like this. Though I will admit I've once seen an ad spammer for ... certain ... chemicals ... on the FamiTracker Forums. Yeah, let's not go into specifics. And that thread might just still be up by the way.

And now one of my threads has been affected, which is a bit embarassing: I've been around here for about a month now, but some bot user(s) decided my thread "New to the Forums - Curious about them" was still worth a reply. You might still see it listed directly underneath this one because of this.

So: they are around, we report them, moderators make them go away. That's all great. But just what is it, these weird accounts are after? I'm sure we can all get behind the simple ad: You post an ad with some links and hope some people are foolish enough to click on it. Maybe it has something to do with a virus, fishing, whatever, maybe some people genuinely think members of a community of musicians, of a forum entirely about music, would be interested in other services. If it's bots, it doesn't even really matter - there is almost zero human effort; there is nothing to loose, not even time and effort. But at the same time, this kind of ad doesn't really seem all that effective. It's pretty damn obvious what's going on: Everyone will be able to spot an off-topic ad from a mile away and probably report it immediately. And poof, your ad is gone. Doesn't really seem all that effective, does it?

I think I'm not the only one realizing this. And perhaps I'm not the only one who noticed their weird, imhuman replies all over the place: "This is the information I was looking for.", "Interesting.", this kind of stuff. I mean, what are they? Aliens trying to blend in to human society? Well yes, exactly! Okay, fine, it's a bit more complex than that. It might seem weird for bots to post replies (and only replies, I've rarely seen threads from these types), without links, ads or anything. But it's a great way of appearing more human and remaining on the platform for a while. You can't really ban or report someone on the grounds of unusual replies, can you? (Unless they broke rules of course, but unless they are spam, such messages hardly achieve that.) If your particularly lazy, you might even get your bot to just take snippets of other peoples posts and copy them wholesale.

The results of which are absolutely absurd by the way. Sentences get started and cut off somewhere in the middle. I don't know who thought this would be convincing. I mean, I can write a Python-script that can figure out where periods in a load of text are in about 5 minutes, which takes less than five seconds to execute. Results would still be extremely sus, but at least they wouldn't look like someone fell asleep on Ctrl+C and V.

Just like aliens hiding in human society Mars-Attack-style (anyone recall that flick?) though, it will eventually become time to unleash your plan for world domination! Well, in this case posting links and ads, but that doesn't sound half as exciting. It's just as easy, simply add a spoon of whichever garbled text was used before and shake it all up with some totally inconspicious link and you'll likely rather burn down the kitchen, than eat whatever the end result in your frying pan looks like - but there you go! It's probably at this point you'll get spotted though. Again, poof, your dreams of throwing your ads all over the place like some stereotypical monkey would throw certain bodily substances (I'm joking of course) are smashed! But as always, when all hope is lost, it's time for a magical-girl-tranformation AKA doing a little dressup. Just pretend like your writing an actual reply - and then sneak the link in somehow! Yeah ... I'm sure Mr. Smithers has got nothing on this baby! I would imagine this requires some human work though, so it's perhaps not the most economical approach.

Still, if the only goal here was that someone would click on the link results would probably be pretty poor. Why even try to hide it then? Actually I could imagine a second (and way more likely) reason for bots (or whatever they are) to post links, which has to do with the marketing term of "SEO"; "Search Engine Optimization". It's not about the links themselves - it's about them being everywhere for search engines to find. Imagine someone googling something. The more references to your product/service/whatever related to those search terms are available on the web, the more will show up in the search results. Easy. Also big search engines don't measure the relevancy of sites just by their click count. It would be really easy to get to the top that way. Instead they're looking for interconnections: The more places lead to your site, the more relevant it appears. So if you post links to something everywhere it might give the linked site a decent boost in relevance. Doesn't sound believable? Well, there is (or used to be) a games review website known as "Brash Games", which not only came into controversy for questionable work conditions but also, among other things, surreptitious advertising: Links to casino websites, halfheartedly masqueraded into articles. None of these are my discoveries by the way. It was a whole thing and video-game critic Jim Sterling was quite involved in unraveling these stories (so if you're curious, you know what to look for).

These are just my theories and I'm far from an expert on any of these topics (after all, this is a music forum :D ). Either way, it's probably quite a blessing that bots/ads/spammers still rely on such crude methods, as a result they are easily spotted and reported. Two things I still don't get though, which are: (1) that they use such old threads. They might think they can hide in there, but very obviously any reply will push said thread right to the top for everyone to see. And (2) that they seem to assemble in certain threads. Are they related? Do they attract each other? Are they looking for mating partners? Who knows.

Either way, I think we can all agree that there is nothing more unpleasent than to get a notification about a reply in one of your threads, only to then find out it's just some bot again. :yuck:
Bots answer to everything. Heck, I've seen things from years ago unearthed by bots.
It's pretty annoying. They clog up threads with useless 10-word posts. They also replace posts with spam links. I believe the aim is to get people to click those links. And waste money, or something. Or get their Casino/Whatsapp app. Or learn how to use PayTM from their webpage that's full of trackers, or whatever.
Hmm. Wondering if there's some place I can sign up to be a mod. musikbear is around only during nighttime here.
Monospace wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 4:09 am
I believe the aim is to get people to click those links. And waste money, or something. Or get their Casino/Whatsapp app. Or learn how to use PayTM from their webpage that's full of trackers, or whatever.
Yeah, probably. While I can hardly imagine their posts fooling anyone, they must be doing something to still exist. Though there's that saying about half of marketing being completely useless, but you never know which half that is. Maybe it's that kind of case with these guys.
Monospace wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 4:09 am
Hmm. Wondering if there's some place I can sign up to be a mod. musikbear is around only during nighttime here.
I'd be up for that as well, if it would help, but it would be a first time for me in addition to being quite new here, so I'm not sure if anyone would be willing to place that kind of trust in me.
Mampfwurm wrote:
Mon May 02, 2022 7:50 pm
Don't get the wrong idea, ....
Naa its not so critical atm. We have seen far worse attacks with 100'dts of post from just one 'post-bot-account', those are not around any more.
On average i remove 2-4 posts and posters daily, that is not even an issue.
Yes its annoying to open a thread and expecting some kind of reply or reaction to a song, only to find it being someone that will enlarge parts of you over a wha¤ts-app, in a specific ca¤sino, paid for with bi¤t-coins of cause....
Very annoying, but not a big deal, just never answer any!
Yes some threads does attract more span than others. I believe that certain keywords are searched by the bots, and targeted (reason for my ¤ : )
The nonsense posts are 'sleepers', I believe that as they are made, an inject-link is created by the bot, that will inject the malicious or commercial stuff as an edit at a set time. That does not send the post to the top, and there are no conspicuous change that stands out, so they are difficult to find. They will generate traffic and raise the subject in the analytics, used by search-engines 🤬
musikbear wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 5:48 pm
Naa its not so critical atm. We have seen far worse attacks with 100'dts of post from just one 'post-bot-account', those are not around any more.
On average i remove 2-4 posts and posters daily, that is not even an issue.
Yeah, that sounds far worse.
musikbear wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 5:48 pm
Yes some threads does attract more span than others. I believe that certain keywords are searched by the bots, and targeted (reason for my ¤ : )
Actually that makes perfect sense. And it explains how they can answer in context - they simply have vague answers prepared that will be posted to threads containing certain keywords. I should have thought of that.
musikbear wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 5:48 pm
The nonsense posts are 'sleepers', I believe that as they are made, an inject-link is created by the bot, that will inject the malicious or commercial stuff as an edit at a set time. That does not send the post to the top, and there are no conspicuous change that stands out, so they are difficult to find.
Another devious tactic I didn't think about.
musikbear wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 5:48 pm
They will generate traffic and raise the subject in the analytics, used by search-engines 🤬
My assumption as well.
Bots unfortunately post on the Unity game engine forum too. Even the mods over there find them annoying.