Is it suitable? For a Computer Science course? [Fake post from spammer]

[inetmktvn16]

My son will be attending a Computer science course at uni in Sepetmber...would this be a useful thing to get in order to get him started in Computer science?

[Mod closed thread - the OP, now banned, is posting apparently innocuous stuff as a sort of Trojan horse to get approved, then start spamming once he's in. I should point out that the mods are dealing with a tsunami of posts like these at the moment - we're sorry one got through, but please spare a thought for them; they're batting them away at a very high rate at the moment. We're looking into a more permanent, server-side solution here; they all appear to be coming out of South Korea, but we don't want to block genuine posters, so some finesse is required.]

[Heater]

No. Nothing can help your son. He is doomed to failure.

You are a SPAMMER cutting and posting the same post that recently appeared here:viewtopic.php?f=63&t=218555

[wildfire]

I think you mean here Heater viewtopic.php?f=63&t=218555 you linked to this thread.

[Heater]

Ah, well, spotted. I was trying so hard not to mess that up. Then did anyway.

[Paul Hutch]

I just noticed the username of the OP in the linked thread, seochris. I'm amazed that I and everybody else missed the obvious spammer name. A general rule for me, if any user name or web site name has SEO in it they are a spammer or scammer.

[gkaiseril]

The school catalog, course guide, or course requirements should specify the equipment that the student should have to take the courses. In theory any computer should work but if it is not compatible with the other students and the instructors could lead to the inability to complete the course work and exams, which may result in some grading issues. The choice is yours.

Since the word "uni" is used, maybe this is a fishy post, posted by an urchin.

[Heater]

That is an interesting observation. So what is the the spammer clue in the name of our OP here "inetmktvn16" ?

Looking back I realize I should have twigged on to this earlier. Spammer clues for me are:

1) First post by a new user.

2) User name that means nothing and has obviously not had much thought put into it.

3) Really stupid question, often not much related to the forum or forum section. In this case the supposed son is starting a CS degree course very soon but as yet does not have any start in computing/programming/CS.

4) More than once such a spammer post rings a bell and a quick google revels it is a cut'n'paste from elsewhere.

5) No response to any of the comments posted.

[Heater]

gkaiseril,

You missed the comments here. Our opening poster is a spammer. There is no son going to any university.

But what is wrong with the term "uni". That is often what we call university.

[W. H. Heydt]

That is an interesting observation. So what is the the spammer clue in the name of our OP here "inetmktvn16" ?

I would read it as: "inet" = Internet, "mkt" = market.

And anything with "seo" would be "search engine optimization", a commen term for companies that try to out fox Google's algorithms to make their "clients" posts more prominent.

[W. H. Heydt]

But what is wrong with the term "uni". That is often what we call university.

I'm seen that particular usage from Britons and Australians. It would be a very rare usage in the US, if one saw it at all.

[Paul Hutch]

That is an interesting observation. So what is the the spammer clue in the name of our OP here "inetmktvn16" ?

Unfortunately no obvious clue to me, If you hadn't noticed the cut and paste, well spotted, I might have taken the bait and wasted time trying to reply to the OP here.

[Heater]

I think W. H. Heydt nailed the name "inetmktvn16" with:

"inet" = Internet, "mkt" = market.

So far we have something to do with internet and marketing.

I would further speculate that "vn" = version.

And there we have it, a spam bot program: "Internet Marketing Version 16"

It would not be the first time I have found myself replying to a bot.

[DougieLawson]

The first post moderators should be spotting this junk.

[liz]

I've banned the OP. (See note in first post.) The mods are dealing with a huge number of these apparently innocent posts at the moment; very occasionally one might get through (whoever approved this probably didn't see the other one), but we're doing our very best to filter them. Please have some patience; this isn't a fun job for us!

[W. H. Heydt]

The first post moderators should be spotting this junk.

I'm not sure how many mods are looking at the forums on the weekend. Plus, in order to spot this sort of thing, they have to remember that they've seen it before. In the end, I'm reasonably sure the mods are dependent on *us* to spot copy and paste posts. Most of the time, anyway.

[DougieLawson]

After the subject line has been automagically scanned by my big, ugly, NSFW regex then the username is the next thing I look at on the forum I moderate.

[Heater]

Dougie,

Do to tell us this super intelligent regex that can tell such spam posts from genuine posters.

I'm sure the AI world would be glad to know of it.

They have been working on such things, without much success, since Turing.

[DougieLawson]

It's a crude regex with lots of Russian words, lots of words that I can't publish (NSFW) lots of names of fake medicines and lots of words that are entirely unrelated to rowing on an ergo.

http://rowing.servebeer.com/zygone.user.js

Simple regex match in JavaScript that runs in Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey.

[W. H. Heydt]

I've banned the OP. (See note in first post.) The mods are dealing with a huge number of these apparently innocent posts at the moment; very occasionally one might get through (whoever approved this probably didn't see the other one), but we're doing our very best to filter them. Please have some patience; this isn't a fun job for us!

All hail the truly awesome Liz.

Thanks for not only dealing with this, but taking the time to explain the full extent of the problem. My sympathies for the--undoubtedly--overworked mods.

[droleary]

The first post moderators should be spotting this junk.

There's only so much that can be done. As I noted in this thread (and took grief from many):

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=218045

the educational mission of the RPF makes it difficult to simply eliminate these sorts of stupid-sounding posters. Neither does the forum software seem to offer many options when a suspicious post gets through. I can (and do) foe them, for what little good that does, and I can flag them, but it's a fine line between an ignorant newbie and a malicious troll. If it were possible to restrict new users to posting to Beginners, that might be a good first step.

[DougieLawson]

It is possible to restrict where a new poster can post, but it's not easy to manage (as with most things with dear old PHPBB3).

[W. H. Heydt]

The first post moderators should be spotting this junk.

There's only so much that can be done. As I noted in this thread (and took grief from many):

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=218045

the educational mission of the RPF makes it difficult to simply eliminate these sorts of stupid-sounding posters. Neither does the forum software seem to offer many options when a suspicious post gets through. I can (and do) foe them, for what little good that does, and I can flag them, but it's a fine line between an ignorant newbie and a malicious troll. If it were possible to restrict new users to posting to Beginners, that might be a good first step.

In addition, from what has been said, this latest crop of spammers start with doing a copy/paste of an existing post, so it *looks* like a legitimate post. As a result, we can help by spotting any duplicate posts by a different poster.