So You Want to Spam My Forum, Do You?

// October 18th, 2008 // Tech

I administer a Harry Potter discussion forum that’s been mainly inactive since the seventh HP book came out. I subscribe to the forum feed, so I know if any new posts arrive. Follow?

Today, a new post was added by a previously unregistered user. It read:

Hello boys and girls ;-)
Somebody can give me url to the XRumer’s homepage?
Or maybe some info…

Thank you very much!!!

It sounded innocuous, if a little odd at first, but when I Googled “XRumer,” wondering what it was, I cam up with this Wikipedia page.

XRumer is a Windows program that posts forum spam with the aim of boosting search engine rankings. It has been claimed that the program is able to bypass techniques commonly used by many websites to deter automated spam, such as account registration, CAPTCHAs, and e-mail activation before posting. The program makes heavy use of a database of known open proxies in an attempt to make it more difficult for administrators to block posts.

Nice. So you’re asking me, a legitimate forum operator, to point you in the right direction to find a tool to spam forums, such as mine? I don’t think so. *Delete*