Elena, it’s a constant, never ending global trend. We've seen it before and it's just a matter of wading through it until a better scheme is devised to baffle their efforts.
By now I would hope most of our users are smart enough to avoid viruses by not clicking on/following spam links.
Jendobyns, though I would like to take credit for keeping spam at bay – really, I’m not that fast. Both Mission, Dutchman and the Moderators do their share of keeping things tidy – with Mission doing most of it.
Michael, some days I’m on the verge of blocking users registering with .ru email addresses. But as Mission points out, there's plenty of spammers using aol, gmail and msn/hotmail email accounts, so blocking .ru in it’s self is the answer.
But I do block specific email domain names that churn out streams of spam/bot users and are just an obvious front for an online marketing scheme.
As Mission pointed out, the Pub is part of a service that collects spammer information, names, ip and email addresses and shares it with the rest of the message board community. So when a known spammer has been flagged on another message board and then tries to register onto the Pub - the Pub will automatically bans/freezes their account.
Everytime I login - I easily delete between 20 and 70 flagged spammers from the Pub’s database. No one knows about them because they never get through the front door or get the chance to post their spam.
The very few that do slip by and annoy us - is such a small percentage compared to that number trying to get in and exploit us.
As for motives or goals – plunder or mayhem, I would assume it’s a combination of both depending on who’s sending it.