Catching a forum spy...

[Shawn Gossman]

What would you do if you suspected a member of your forum was a spy for the competition?

Let's say you have competition who is rather aggressive and doesn't like your forum existing.

Let's say you catch a regular member who appears to be a spy for the competitor. How do you respond? If you taken action like banning, how do your respond to members demanding to know why the user was banned?

Here's an even more tricky scenario...

Let's say the "spy" is a staff member. You can figured out they're a spy for the competition.

What's your next move?

 

[Heatman]

If you're very sure that the member is a spy, you can adjust his or preferences on your forum. In a forum where I'm among the admim, the feature is "Discourage Members". It will limit his access to the forum by taking too long to load. He might think the forum is having an issue cos it's going to take too long for him to login or do anything. The frustration will make him stop spying on the site.

 

[Cory]

I don't care too much about competition unless a board is directly trying to turn my members away somehow. With that being said, I wouldn't be too worried if it were a regular member since they can only access what all other members can access, but if a staff member was leaking information from our private forums then they have broken my trust, and no longer deserve to be a staff member.

 

[Kale]

I'd only not like it if the member became staff, then leaked info to the other forum. That'd totally sour any relationship I'd have with that person and would possibly remove them from the forum.

 

[BLACKBIRD]

What would you do if you suspected a member of your forum was a spy for the competition?

Let's say you have competition who is rather aggressive and doesn't like your forum existing.

Let's say you catch a regular member who appears to be a spy for the competitor. How do you respond? If you taken action like banning, how do your respond to members demanding to know why the user was banned?

Here's an even more tricky scenario...

Let's say the "spy" is a staff member. You can figured out they're a spy for the competition.

What's your next move?

My first move would be to pump as much disinformation into them as possible for as long as they would let me. I want my enemies/competitors making mistakes, and no better way to ensure they do that than having them act on bad information. Banning them or otherwise indicating I was anything but a clueless, hapless admin would be the last thing I would do.

I would then task the network I already had operating on their site with assessing the effectiveness of my disinformation campaign. It would form a feedback loop, allowing me to tailor the disinformation so the result is most favorable toward my interests.

All things considered, it would be better for all parties to simply act like adults and cooperate. We permit link sharing/self promotion on our community regardless of whether it would be considered competition or not.

With technologies like VPN and TOR, there is no real way to tie someone's identity to something arbitarily assigned (like an IP address). Unless you want to be suspicious of your members, which is absolutely toxic to a community, best to just accept spies and other undesirable elements will be there. Its a force of nature.

I'd only not like it if the member became staff, then leaked info to the other forum. That'd totally sour any relationship I'd have with that person and would possibly remove them from the forum.

If someone breached our staff forum, worst case scenario, they are walking away with cat pictures, advice for community building and feedback from our staff members. 😊

I would readily share all of that anyhow. Our community is an extension of a popular YouTube channel, and we intentionally do not retain toxic assets like sensitive user data. Even viewing a member's IP address requires audited access to a Sophos UTM network security appliance. The forum software only sees the firewall's IP, and our logs mask sensitive user information unless 2/3 authorized parties agree to unmask it (enforced cryptographically). Staff members talking crap about users behind their backs would also never be tolerated. So our staff area is little more than an efficient means to keep staff-on-staff spam out of the public (read: Google indexed) forums.

 

[Cedric]

My first move would be to pump as much disinformation into them as possible for as long as they would let me. I want my enemies/competitors making mistakes, and no better way to ensure they do that than having them act on bad information. Banning them or otherwise indicating I was anything but a clueless, hapless admin would be the last thing I would do.

I would then task the network I already had operating on their site with assessing the effectiveness of my disinformation campaign. It would form a feedback loop, allowing me to tailor the disinformation so the result is most favorable toward my interests.

All things considered, it would be better for all parties to simply act like adults and cooperate. We permit link sharing/self promotion on our community regardless of whether it would be considered competition or not.

I just wanted to reply that this is a very interesting point of view and would be hilarious to find out that the competitor do actual changes to their site on the disinformation they have gathered from their spy only to see you would take it in a different direction. I'd love to see something like that played out. Dark and deeply, but I love it.

 

[BLACKBIRD]

I just wanted to reply that this is a very interesting point of view and would be hilarious to find out that the competitor do actual changes to their site on the disinformation they have gathered from their spy only to see you would take it in a different direction. I'd love to see something like that played out. Dark and deeply, but I love it.

LOL. It can be extremely effective, I suppose it all depends on how well your "counter intelligence" team can perform. It is definitely as much an art form as it is a science.

I would always expect the decision makers who tasked the spy to verify as much information as possible to vet their agent's credibility. Good disinformation will have truths sprinkled in with the false information. To be really effective, some of the secrets you give away should even be fairly juicy. A 80% false, 20% truth ratio has been found to be highly effective. Don't worry about the real secrets you let slip, they will have no way to separate the two.

If you are concerned with leaks, there are other techniques you can use. One would be tell each person the same story (truth), but change minor details in that story. I may tell one person a red truck was involved, another a green truck, and a third a white car. Depending on which story eventually made its way back to me, I could use that to ID the leaker.

You can also plant knowingly false details in sensitive information specifically to discredit/debunk it at a later date. Once someone has been demonstrated to have presented false information, even if the other 99% is true, very few people will take them seriously.

*Information presented for idle curiosity only, I wouldn't actually use any of this unless someone is realllllly out to cause you harm. Mostly because a botched disinformation operation can have the opposite effect, the disinformer loses credibility and has let actual secrets slip without any return security-wise. Even if someone were a direct competitor, I am convinced we could find common ground and work together to achieve our mutual goals!

 

[Reverie]

I would honestly spread rumors of changes coming up... And then if those things were found at the other forum within a month then I would know there is a spy. I hate when people share ideas with other communities such as in the staff area, but at least it is pretty easy to figure out. This used to be really bad back in the day.

Now members - everyone is able to see all the same things. So the admin may like what a forum did, as long as they put their own spin on it, who cares? Now what would be nice is to give credit when it's due. "X forum created a contest, and it had me thinking why not something similar! Here is what we are doing.... "

 

[Aussie]

What would you do if you suspected a member of your forum was a spy for the competition?

Let's say you have competition who is rather aggressive and doesn't like your forum existing.

Let's say you catch a regular member who appears to be a spy for the competitor. How do you respond? If you taken action like banning, how do your respond to members demanding to know why the user was banned?

Here's an even more tricky scenario...

Let's say the "spy" is a staff member. You can figured out they're a spy for the competition.

What's your next move?

Take it as a compliment. Anyone can copy any site on the internet so personally I wouldn't worry about it. Would I make them a part of the staff though? um no. Otherwise who really cares. There are a million and one sites trying to do the same thing and trying to get the same audience. Don't waste time on it when you can be doing other things like promoting your website, adding content etc.

"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"