Warning: Spammers are Gettings Smarter
 

Like a lot of other board admins, I've taken a lot of steps to slow down spammers but I got a new one yesterday. I hand approve all new registrations and first posts - stops most spammers right there. One almost got by me yesterday. This spammer had taken the time to craft what looked like a relevant first post that I was about to approve but then I noticed at the bottom of his post he asked people email him with suggestions. He put in the email address but the actual link directed back to a Nike shoes site (luckily we can see all code in the admin panel, otherwise I wouldn't have caught it.)

His post was topical, relevant to my forum and seemed for all the world to be a regular user -- until that email address.

So, word of warning to those using the "approve first post" technique..the spammers are onto the game and we can expect them to take the time to fake a first post that seems topical to get full access to our boards.