ChatGPT?

[CopenhagenCouple]

Think we've got a brand spanking new one, right here: viewtopic.php?p=433142#p433142

[CopenhagenCouple]

....and another one, although this one seems like it's got a few lines of code crossed, not the best bot of the lot: viewtopic.php?p=433143#p433143

[Lemming]

"DennVafla" is a good spot. They've revealed themselves with a spam link but I hadn't caught that one. I'll delete it shortly.

At least the crappy product they're advertising is relevant. Not like the endless adverts for kitchens and stuff we used to get.

Certain topics, such as CBD, are spam magnets at the moment.

I'm intrigued by the suspicious posts that never get edited. I wonder whether they get forgotten or abandoned or whether they're sleepers of some kind. Maybe they'll come back and edit them years later.

Someone told me a while back that getting a link into an old topic is valued more highly in SEO circles. Don't know why.

[CopenhagenCouple]

I'm intrigued by the suspicious posts that never get edited. I wonder whether they get forgotten or abandoned or whether they're sleepers of some kind. Maybe they'll come back and edit them years later.

Interesting indeed, some of them may just be lost / forgotten posts by some spammer bot that either got abandoned or upgraded and forgot about earlier posts, but maybe others are "sleepers" of some sort. Maybe that's how they're planning to take over; billions and billions of sleeper cells in niche internet php based forums

[CopenhagenCouple]

On a side note, I really enjoy telling my chatgpt to answer me in the manner of Ford Prefect or some other favorite character for as long as it can remember, makes for some very entertaining conversations

[Lemming]

I wonder what my hero (and yours?) Douglas Adams would make of chat bots?

I remember a rant he did once about an early video phone. In those days lack of bandwidth made everyday video chat difficult so someone invented a device that showed a picture of the person you were talking to and made its lips move. Adams pointed out that when talking on a phone you pick up subtle language. Video adds an extra level but fake video actually takes a layer away by distracting part of your attention to something meaningless.

[Not_the_monk]

"Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

Those two examples are a bit harder @Not_the_monk, but I think you are right on those as well. Odd that it would misspell names from previous post though, it's not like it has clumsy fingers...

Yeah I thought the couple of errors were interesting, didn't notice any in the first post which also had the spam link kinda hidden in it, and that one was almost more obvious for the repetition whereas the Franco one almost ran with the topic.

Kinda feel like we're being experimented on

I'm intrigued by the suspicious posts that never get edited. I wonder whether they get forgotten or abandoned or whether they're sleepers of some kind. Maybe they'll come back and edit them years later.

Someone told me a while back that getting a link into an old topic is valued more highly in SEO circles. Don't know why.

Yeah, I suspect there are all sorts of purposes aside from just spam. Some could be things like establishing what looks like a genuine social media & internet presence for a fake profile / personna, so a cursory google search of a username or an email addy hits what could look like genuine posts. Some are probably things loose in the wild too, experiments and tests that kinda took on a life of their own and nobody is really in control of.

[CopenhagenCouple]

Think we've got another one here search.php?author_id=120575&sr=posts
A bit less obvious, mainly due to short posts, but seems a bit fishy...

[CopenhagenCouple]

Ding ding here's another very likely candidate : viewtopic.php?p=433613#p433613

[Lemming]

Thanks CC. That does indeed look similar to earlier examples.

I just looked back at some older ones. So far they still haven't been edited. I remain intrigued by what they're trying to achieve, although the suggestions made above might be the answers.

[Not_the_monk]

This has to be one too

viewtopic.php?p=433655#p433655

Seems like the naming convention has changed with these most recent ones, now rather than 2 together (ie. nancysarah) its a name then random numbers.

[CopenhagenCouple]

Think we've got another one viewtopic.php?p=433693#p433693

[Lemming]

Think we've got another one viewtopic.php?p=433693#p433693

Thanks CC. That one was was blatant spam that I deleted a while ago.

On a different subject, any chance of a report on your Barcelona trip? Must be some fun stories to recount.

[Not_the_monk]

Ding ding here's another very likely candidate : viewtopic.php?p=433613#p433613

And she... sorry it, is back with another entry

viewtopic.php?p=433749#p433749

[CopenhagenCouple]

And I think we have another one viewtopic.php?p=433878#p433878