A more subtle kind of spammer

[altenbach]

There are suspected (by me) spammers that try to blend in and post seemingly related contributions. Trying to fly under the radar. However the posts lack any originality or substance. All they want is park their spamvertized URL. (which has nothing to do with NI WSN in this particular case :D).

Thses outfits typically hire students to find related discussions all over the web using keywords to plaster certain URLs to increase traffic and search rankings.

Let's look at spammer laurenrodriguez, but there are probably others.

Here is a sampling of the posts:

Strange remarks here and here.

This post is lifted directly from section 2.0 of this website.

This post  simply repeats the the thread subject as a question.

This post is basically a verbatim quote from wiki.answers

This post simply says "I agree to titou." (sic.).

This post seems offtopic, again just peddling one site.

This post is very incoherent, again simply peddling the signature URL.

This is another "i agree" post.

The only common things is the URL in the signature. 

Let's look at her blog posts in the NI community:

Again nothing NI related at all. Every blog post is marketing material lifted from their own web site. Basically using the NI community to get some appearance of legitimacy. Then used elsewhere to link to it.

Well, she's been busy. Here are some other sites where the same stuff is plastered all over:

postscapes (Seems to their own spam mill. and no, that's note her picture, just some stock photo)

WSN-group (same modus) And this picture is actually Lauren Slete, according to a google picture search)

She got "permanently banned" from the devshed forum. (that post is a simple cut&paste from an IEEE abstract)

Is this a legitimate user? I don't think so! Do you?

[crossrulz]

I noticed somebody else last week who did something similar.  I almost reported it as spam, but what I concidered spam was actually in their signature.  If I run into it again, I'll be sure to report.

[JordanG]

You're right, Altenbach. Looks pretty suspicious. I'll reach out to the user.

Thanks,

Jordan

[Mark_Ramsdale]

Not sure why this caught my attention.  But I checked with the company this user is advertising for.  Here is their answer

***

Dear Mark,
Thanks for your email. I am afraid we do not have LabVIEW drivers.
Regards

--
José J. de las Heras
ADVANTIC Sistemas y Servicios S.L.

***

I would think if they are going to run advertisements they would at least support LabVIEW or CVI or something 🙂

[altenbach]

Most likely the company is clueless. The probably hired an outside outfit that promised them to optimize search engine rankings. (Maybe they found them by replying to a spam email).

In any case, they are taking advantage of NI's high reputation, hoping that many links from here makes them more legitimate. I would not miss it if all blogs and other posts would simply disappear.

Jordan, did you ever get a reply?

[JordanG]

Hey Altenbach,

There was no reply. The "spam" posts were deleted and the user was asked to remove the link in their signature if they engage in the future. If you run by anymore suspicious looking posts from this user or any other users, please let me know.

Jordan

[altenbach]

There is still the entire collection of fake blog posts over in the community. 😉

[JordanG]

I let Hassan know! They're looking into it 🙂

[Hassan_Atassi]

Hi all,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.  I have deleted the offending blog posts and reached out to the user letting her know that this is not acceptable.  All future content posted by the user is now being monitored on the community.

Thanks,

[bernibaerchen]

I got a mail: [...] Community Announcement: E-mail Validation Required 2/19/2013 created by in Community - On 2/19/2013, all users attempting to log in to the NI Community will first be required to verify their E-mail address. Click for details Announcement expires on February 26, 2013 [...]