lexlazootin wrote:Na, I mean like how does asking what printer he should get scam anyone?
Some spammers post normal content on forums to fly under the radar. Then, perhaps a month later or so, they edit those posts to insert links to other sites. This goes unnoticed because moderators only see new posts. Old posts that have been edited are not showing up as new posts.
This is usually done by people offering "search engine rank optimization" services, where you pay them to boost your site's ranking. They have automated spam bots (or even real people) who register on random sites for this purpose. It's somewhat similar to a botnet, basically.
In other cases, these bots aren't there to spam, but instead are used for exploiting vulnerabilities in forum software once a new "zero-day" appears. If you already have "undercover" accounts on various sites on the net, you can automatically start using them to exploit the vulnerability.