Right now user PriusChat Forums - View Profile: Gertrude73 (Gertrude73), assuming he/she hasn't been deleted has a whole bunch of posts (http://priuschat.com/forums/search/search-id/4099878/) when you search has an embedded "jpg" pointing to Code: http://www.infoocean.info/avatar2.jpg . If you Google for Code: http://www.infoocean.info/avatar2.jpg , you'll also see whole bunch of this crap on other message boards. Are these spammers or random people trying to harvest IP addresses for some reason? Does this "jpg" have something embedded intended to exploit some browser/image decoder's security hole? Anyone else have any insight/ideas? I've been noticing stuff like this going on recently on Priuschat, but am unsure if it's always been the above URL.
We see crap like this every other day over at the vB forum I'm admin at. New users' 1st posts are scrutinized and that "Edit" button on the bottom right of each post (for mods and admin usage) comes in real handy when looking for hidden tracking codes and invisible tracking images they embed. Mostly, though, the new spammer game is all about SEO placements and not too dangerous for regular users. All the same, I don't want to click on those "images," just in case.
As a moderator, I really scrutinize n00bs, and the vast majority of the time if it's a human spammer they must have no idea how easy it is to nail them on IP, email, clueless profile, trail of spamming other sites that week... You can tell me getting one sale out of a million makes it worthwhile, but I still think most spammers are stupid when it comes to business sense.
The spammer's back, this time as PriusChat Forums - View Profile: Leona74. The funny part is that some of their responses make sense, or at least sorta.
I banned it along with all the other infoocean ones I see/get reported. Since we, the mods, can't catch everything it's crucial people report things like this when they see it. Thanks all.
