Apparent Covert Tracking Of Users Of Conservative Oriented Message Boards

[Ryan Ruck]

Thought I'd make folks here aware of something that's been uncovered on ARFCOM.

Recently there has been a spate of users registering on ARFCOM and posting what seems to be a canned message ("Great post. Sub'd", etc.) with an invisible tracking pixel. Some posts with the tracking pixel, however, have actually had topic relevant replies but they're still usually short.

The information that some users have dug up in the Team area have come up with the same entity doing it on ARFCOM also doing it on other firearms related sites, outdoors related sites, prepping related sites, and even religion (read Christian) related sites. It's been dug up that they also have an affinity for firearms for sale ads.

I'm not going to publicly post all of the details that have been uncovered. If you've got an ARFCOM Team membership, you can read the details here though. It involves shell companies with overseas hosts and all manner of skullduggery being used to conceal who is behind it, not something a marketing company would go to such lengths to do. All of it adds up to a good likelihood of some left leaning group being behind it, with unknown motivations.

So any other sites you participate on that may fall into the above categories, keep an eye on new posters making what seem like canned, generic replies. Check their posts for tracking pixels (usually best done by quoting the post with most software) and report them to the site staff.

[Malsua]

Thanks, I'll look into it at my other haunts.