What is up with spam about white or black screens?

[whodat]

Hello. I'm a member of 4 forums. This is one of them. Awhile back I had read a troubleshooting request on one forum that had vaguely alluded to a "white screen" being "helpful" detecting "screen issues" and other equally meaningless drivel with a few I'm-one-of-the-guys phrases ("my old Lenovo laptop" - on a Linux forum...) thrown in for bona fides I guess. Then a request for help resolving the "issues".

It was so artificial it stuck in my mind, so I immediately recognized it 5 days later in another forum when I saw the "white screen" was now being "helpful" detecting the "watermark logo" of the forum specific app - which any fool can clearly see without special methods of detection, by the way, since it is a watermark. There were different one-of-us credentials: this time they had finished a "psuedo-game" which they "uploaded to itch io". Then a request for information on how to remove the watermark.

I went back to the other forum I had first seen that pattern on and even the user name was the same. I ran a quick web search and saw this same user name had posted the same pattern on several forums in the same week. I thought it was weird so I flagged the posts on both my forums and thought no more about it.

Now I see a similar pattern with a new user name, this time concerning black screens. So I decided I better come here to ask what is going on before flagging the posts and looking stupid, as it is probably some common yet harmless internet thing that everyone knows but me. I did try a web search of the subject, but possibly I don't know the correct terms because I was getting no hits. But as I already feel stupid when I'm reading y'alls posts anyway, I feel safer looking stupid here. So what is the deal, it's obviously spam but what is it hoping to gain?

 

[SirDice]

Moderation evasion, spammers post seemingly "on-topic" replies and/or threads. Then come back weeks, even months, later to edit their posts and insert spammy links. Some of those "on-topic" posts are obvious fakes (they have no idea what they're talking about), some are more "refined" (used AI to come up with a "good" reply). We usually catch them but some might slip through the cracks. If you see something that's not quite right and suspect spam, just report it.

 

[lgrant]

Wow…I did a web search on “white screen” to see an example of the posts you were talking about, and I found a bunch of “www.whitescreen” domains with pretty much every TLD known to man. Must be a big operation.

 

[whodat]

Wow…I did a web search on “white screen” to see an example of the posts you were talking about, and I found a bunch of “www.whitescreen” domains with pretty much every TLD known to man. Must be a big operation.

Ohh ok I get it, SirDice is exactly correct. I did a web search for the white screen forum posts to provide an example here - though I have since thought better of that idea as I don't want to bring spam to the FreeBSD forum via my own post. Anyway I went to the first post listed on the many results and noticed it had been edited by that user name the next day after it was written. It looked like the edit was for the purpose of adding a tiny little url in white fonts to the end of the post, for an address to a white screen domain.

Last night while scrolling my forum for something else was when I first noticed the black screen post. It had been written 19 days ago but I had not seen it before. The title jumped out at me as the same sort of pattern as the white titles, and the post had the same artificial quality of non-describing a vague "screen issue" and dosing the topic heavily with "key phrases". A quick web search confirmed this new user name (besides having black screen posts on both of my previously mentioned forums) has been hitting multiple forums with the same pattern of post.

I hadn't thought of it before but the "key phrases" must be for SEO.

 

[SirDice]

I found a bunch of “*" domains with pretty much every TLD known to man.

All automatically generated, redirected, shuffled and whatnot at the push of a button. Bought and payed for with stolen creditcards and/or bitcoin.

It looked like the edit was for the purpose of adding a tiny little url in white fonts to the end of the post

Sneaky aren't they. <- Did you notice the URL I embedded here?

I hadn't thought of it before but the "key phrases" must be for SEO.

Definitely. Then rake in some money through dodgy ads, or worse, malware and all the data they pilfered from your browser and PC. That kind of information is sold wholesale on the dark web.

 

[Crivens]

I have since thought better of that idea as I don't want to bring spam to the FreeBSD forum via my own post.

Great. Thank you for pointing out another idea they might come up with to sneak past a tired mod at oh-dark-whatsthattime just out of bed... Nah, all good. Just I hadn't seen that one yet and hadn't considered it. Any you see things here.

That kind of information is sold wholesale on the dark web.

And the countermeasures I want to advocate for are those mostly forbidden by law.

PSA: check your passwords for theft, guys and gals. And leave a little book at a trusted person with your accounts/passwords inked in for "in the case of...". When you stop posting for some time, your account gets locked. If you then start editing posts all of a sudden, we might loose valuable contributions from you. Better to get a PM in your name explaining things.

 

[whodat]

Did you notice the URL I embedded here?

No I had not noticed, and would probably have continued to do so if you had not pointed it out.

Any you see things here.

My original post, with its frequent mentions of snow-colored image renderers, has taken on a sinister aspect to my now jaded eye. I suspect I'll be regarding all forum posts with extreme suspicion from now on.