Electric bike blog spam?

[halfer]

I run a small blog, where I've posted reviews of the bikes I've had, amongst other things. Today I log on to find I have received what appears to be automated blog comment spam promoting electric bikes - that must be a first! Now, this is a pet peeve of mine: automated spam of any kind costs billions (of any currency you care to name) to deal with worldwide. It is a real scourge on the internet.

However, I am intrigued to find that the company being promoted is The Electric Transport Shop (electricbikesales.co.uk) which appears to be a legitimate business. The indications that it is spam are pretty strong:

• Only tangentially related to the post in question, and does not respond to the topic
• Posted twice on the same comment stream
• Sent from a mail server in, er, Bangladesh, likely a safe-haven for spammers
• The sender IP address appears to have a prior record of sending forum spam
• Contains titles not entirely relevant to the comment

It is possible that this company is the victim of a Joe Job, or that they are using a disreputable marketer without being aware of it. Has anyone heard of this company, and/or can vouch for them? Indeed, perhaps they have posted here in the past?

 

[Wicky]

I work with Joomla websites and use this to stump spambots...

http://joomla-extensions.kubik-rubik.de/ecc-easycalccheck-plus#description

as they struggle with simple math. Depending on what blog system you run you might want to install something like it.

 

[halfer]

Thanks Wicky. I use Wordpress with Akismet, and it is pretty accurate. I just looked at my stats meter: in February it defended my blog from around 396,000 items of junk. More recent months have been a bit quieter, thankfully - around the 60K mark.

Yes, a CAPTCHA device can help - I've used those in the past to good effect.

 

[Wicky]

I also use Joomlawatch / extrawatch to keep tabs on who's visiting & maintain security. Very handy for blocking unwelcome visitors by a variety of means.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/extrawatch/

 

[Jonah]

The Electric Transport Shop are a decent company in my experience. They have a number of shops but I have only dealt with them in Bristol.

 

[amigafan2003]

ETS wont be doing spamming intentionally of even themselves. What they've probably done is paid a Search Engine Optimisation company to improve their web foot print (quite a legitimate endevour for any business), and it's that company who have released their bots to do the work. Trace the IP's and see where the trail leads.

Whilst spam bots may be shady, there's nothing illegal about it - so it's up to you to ensure your site isn't negatively affected by them.

In fact, I quite like spam bots - I charge thousands to spam proof clients websites

 

[halfer]

Whilst spam bots may be shady, there's nothing illegal about it

Might not be true, IMO. It depends where you live of course, but I imagine in the UK it might technically cause legal difficulties with the Computer Misuse Act. Of course, with the international nature of spam attacks, prosecutions are unlikely...

 

[amigafan2003]

The Computer Misuse Act has never been used to deal with spam directly - the act is more concerned with unauthorised access to computers or using those computers to conduct an illegal activity - of which blog spam is neither.

Now spam email is another matter, as that's covered under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 and indirectly the Data Protection Act 1998.

 

[Wicky]

If I get commercial spam email that can be traced I haven't subscribed to then I send them this link and it quickly stops… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/4562726.stm

 

[Martin@e-bikeshop]

Hi Halfer,

I have exactly the same problem with this shop trying to jump on my blog posts too with un related spam and back links. It started a few weeks back.

Its a real shame, I do however have a filter on which holds them comments for approval.

That said it is frustrating to log in to have to sift through all these comments and delete them.

It would appear someone is desperatly trying to rank well. They should be overwhelmed with sales this time of year, not posting rubbish on other peoples hard written fresh content.

Regards
Martin

 

[halfer]

The Computer Misuse Act has never been used to deal with spam directly - the act is more concerned with unauthorised access to computers or using those computers to conduct an illegal activity - of which blog spam is neither.

The CMA could see automated comment spammers as effecting a denial of service, depending on how significantly they consume other people's server resources. I'm not sure if it has been used in this way - the bar is justifiably set high on DoS attacks, in particular relating to intent. But for persistent offenders who don't mind offloading their costs onto other people, I think it would be an appropriate use of the legislation.

 

[Wicky]

Problem is 180.211.187.175 is in Bogra, Rajshahi in Bangladesh and probably a compromised PC / Internet cafe PC / or hacked website server all operated remotely as a bot net or sumfink - a tad difficult to prosecute...

 

[halfer]

Yes Wicky, I agree - it was just speculation

 

[halfer]

I have exactly the same problem with this shop trying to jump on my blog posts too with un related spam and back links. It started a few weeks back.

Thanks Martin. Since Jonah says they are a reputable firm, I'll ping them an email and invite them to comment. I'm guessing they'll have bought a "marketing package" over the web, and they've no idea of the hacking/viruses/clean-up costs that come with (accidentally) supporting such an outfit.

 

[Wicky]

Another useful site to use as reference for bad IPs is Project Honeypot

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_180.211.187.175

 

[TETS]

Hi Halfer, Thank you for notifying me. We've had an increasing number of seo offers as our website has aged (now 8 years old). We've always ignored such offers until recently when the latest google update ignored our websites relevance and started to omit it from searches based on the age of it's platform. While we create a new website I have agreed to a small seo boost from a local company. In all honesty we have always been more face to face and community focused rather than online so maybe we are a bit naive about the tactics. I have requested the seo 'magic' to end. Please accept apologies for any spam and continue to enjoy your ebikes....and hopefully much more good weather. EK

 

[halfer]

While we create a new website I have agreed to a small seo boost from a local company.

I have requested the seo 'magic' to end. Please accept apologies for any spam

Thanks TETS.

Would you be so kind as to let us know the name of the firm that you engaged here? Not blaming you for it - I'm sure you were unaware how dodgy this firm turned out to be - but it's worth knowing why this is a thoroughly disreputable technique.

The forum spam was sent from a computer in Bangladesh, a developing country far out of legal international reach. There are a number of possible ways in which this can be brought about. Firstly, your marketing company might engage with an overseas marketing company who in turn has a "pink contract" with a disreputable ISP. This is a (pricy) hosting agreement where the hosting company agrees to take the flak (usually in the form of abuse reports from disgruntled technicians cleaning up the aftermath of the blog/email spam).

Alternatively, a hacked home computer may have been employed by spamming firms to operate as a spam relay. Spammers don't hack them one-by-one: they write viruses, worms, and malware and then trick computer users into installing it (or rely on people having outdated operating systems or browsers on their computer, and install it on a drive-by basis by getting them to visit an infected website). Thus, the money paid to a marketing firm in this country, after being passed through a sufficient number of hands, goes into the pockets of virus writers. Those virus writers probably live outside of a jurisdiction that has sufficiently up-to-date computer misuse laws, but their actions would constitute criminal activity in the UK.

The cost of all types of unsolicited junk messages is enormous, this article has details. I hope therefore I've demonstrated that, whilst it is a minor annoyance to me and Martin, the social cost is much more serious. Thus, if you would be so kind as to provide details of the firm in question, I'll be in touch with them. It is possible they are ignorant of the damage they are funding, but either way they need to be informed.

(Once they have been contacted, I will invite said firm to get an account here, so they can publicly apologise for the mess they've made!)