jducoeur: (Default)
jducoeur ([personal profile] jducoeur) wrote2018-11-16 08:25 am
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So what's with the Dreamwidth 'bot accounts?

Over the past month or two, I have gotten several subscribes from the most preposterous bots. I mean, the bio of the one I just got says:

Practiced in the art of working with real estate staging Companies Orange County. Spent 2002-2010 exporting glucose in Deltona, FL. Spent 2001-2004 promoting salsa in Hanford, CA. Spent 2001-2008 buying and selling deodorant in Bethesda, MD. Earned praised for my work deploying squirt guns in Orlando, FL. Prior to my current job I was merchandising dust in Bethesda, MD.

They're all like that, with clearly computer-generated resumes in the profile.

I can't for the life of me figure out the scam. I'm used to this nonsense on FB, but those tend to make at least an nod to sleaze appeal -- the feeds usually are full of bikini-clad models, trying to lure you into friending them -- but here, there are no actual posts, just deeply weird obviously-fake profiles.

Anyone have any guesses what they are up to? I don't generally think of DW as having FB's common ethos of automatically accepting all friend requests, although I suppose some people might do so...

watersword: Keira Knightley, in Pride and Prejudice (2007), turning her head away from the viewer, the word "elizabeth" written near (Default)

[personal profile] watersword 2018-11-16 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
IDK, but you can report to the antispam team and they'll vanish pretty fast.
watersword: A large question mark and the words "he said" from Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett (Stock: ?)

[personal profile] watersword 2018-11-16 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
You just do it like a regular support request at https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/submit and use "Antispam" as the category. Include the username/DW URL and a human staffer will look at the account.