Titan Network

Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Xev on January 08, 2021, 05:05:49 PM

Title: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 08, 2021, 05:05:49 PM
I'm really curious what the benefit is of taking the time to make an account here and then post one time with a fairly innocent post that doesn't even have a link in it and then disappear.
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Vee on January 08, 2021, 08:11:35 PM
I've been wondering the same as there have been quite a few the past few days. Seems to either have been a bevvy of new Paragon Chat players lately or some cutting and pasting from old threads with the aim of adding spam links later.
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 08, 2021, 11:58:53 PM
new Paragon Chat players

Well, they're getting their posts removed..

the aim of adding spam links later.

Ahhhhhh. Yeah, that could be it. Sneak an innocent looking post in and then go back later (to a dead and uninteresting thread..) and add a malicious link (in the hopes that I dunno who is gonna click it).

So lame..
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: eabrace on January 09, 2021, 12:12:51 AM
Spambots.  Almost all of the single posts are copy/pastes of posts that are about 3 or 4 years old.  The rest are copy/pastes from Reddit threads.
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 09, 2021, 04:49:45 PM
But what is the point...?
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: eabrace on January 09, 2021, 06:00:47 PM
Basically was Vee said.  Most of the time we see spam here, either the spambot comes back later to add a signature with a spam link (which makes the link appear in every post the bot has made), or edit previous posts to insert URLs into the text.

They're giving the banhammer a real workout this week.
(https://archive.paragonwiki.com/w/images//4/41/V_badge_ScrapyarderBadge.png)
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 09, 2021, 07:36:11 PM
So if I did click on one of these links by accident what could happen?

Are they planting something on my PC or just mining me for personal data? Isn't everyone on or even thinking to get on the Internet too paranoid to give out any personal info by now?
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: eabrace on January 09, 2021, 10:47:50 PM
Depends on the destination, same as any bad actor's website.  Anything from data mining cookies to malicious scripts, trojans, keyloggers...
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 11, 2021, 02:11:12 AM
I'll show my out of date ignorance on the subject because I'm curious. I don't even have to download or run anything? Just click a fake link?
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: eabrace on January 12, 2021, 12:49:45 PM
If you visit a bad website, the page can fire off a script to do the dirty work as soon as the page loads.  No need for you to download or run anything.
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: Xev on January 12, 2021, 07:06:13 PM
So I don't have to download and run anything because just by going to the site I am downloading and running something...

You know, I'm always careful what links I follow when I Google and get mail but that is a powerful tool. I mean, there you are, just trying to get some info online, and the next thing you know you click on a link leading to a fake site and get infected if your anti-idiot software doesn't protect you.

I used to work in a place with thousands of people working on their PC's and techs were nonstop scraping crap off of them. One time, we had a 'specialist' come in and was going from machine to machine with a special boot disk to check if PC's were Y2K compliant. I asked him "let me see that thing", pointing at his disk, when he told me what he was doing, and noticed it wasn't write protected and then instantly popped it into my machine for a scan - the scanner lit up like a pinball machine (including being due to several boot sector viruses that he had gathered/propagated along the way...) and I pulled the thing out of the drive and dropped it right into the trash and told him "you ain't using that thing here" and he didn't get it back. I can only imagine how much extra work that caused for us, I mean, he was doing what hackers could only dream would happen..

I never understood the people that did stuff like this just to do harm and that's the only thing they got out of it. No bank account info gathering or corporate sabotage or anything else profitable - they just wanted to cause damage and on any shmo's computer and the more the better. I guess it's like trying to figure out why someone *likes* to do physical damage to another person, too. They just do.
Title: Re: Titan Network One Hit Wonders
Post by: eabrace on January 13, 2021, 10:51:35 PM
That story about the boot disk gives me the willies.  :gonk: