No stretch here, this is certainly correct. I'd give 100:1 odds there.

-dave-

And it magically morphs its filename to match every incoming search? Yeah, right.

Besides, when I encounter an ipod spam I delete it rather than share it. I assume any non-spammer does likewise.

I think it's a combination of both situations. Poop-heads are still serving the files on purpose and the unaware who've downloaded them are as well.

I just did a video search for "chrono crusade" and found a 106.7kb .wmv hosted by 2 users, not only with chat enabled, but also available to "browse host". Earlier tonight, the same search yielded 43 hosts without chat enabled.

I've been ignoring / host blocking this spam file for weeks now. In the instance that returned 2 hosts, it's obvious to me that 2 people downloaded it, not realizing it's just a P.O.S., and are unwittingly hosting it. My 43 host result was one of the spam ad crank-o-matics.

I think it's very possible that, depending on the popularity of the search terms, someone else might have downloaded a spam.wmv with the exact name as the one being returned in your search results and be unknowingly lumped in with their file on the search results. And have chat enabled.

As far as encountering and deleting, I'm sure that many people, myself included, click a couple dozen things to download and then go surfthe web or play pogo games for an hour or so before checking the resulting downloads. It's VERY possible to be serving up spam in that time period.

I've done several goofball searches tonight, stuff like "jbbvhtyud nswes", and have gotten numerous results varying from 25 - 50 hosts, with chat enabled.

You'd have to be an idiot to have it automatically sharing files you downloaded. It's not just because that could result in unwittingly sharing spam, but because it could result in unwittingly sharing illegal stuff. Nevermind bootleg mp3s; there are child porn pictures floating around out there, not all of them clearly labeled. It's a very bad idea not to vet all files before making them shared. Even so you might get in trouble for possession of questionable files you got by accident; the penalties for distribution, however, tend to be far worse than those for mere possession.

By default, Limewire has you sharing your download folder, if not more. So no, you wouldn't have to be an idiot, just a member of the larger segment of the P2P community. By the way, the term for those who are not sharing is "leech".

As far as the whole child porn red herring, sure, that's possible. The word unwitting means unknowing or unaware, like by accident. Nearly ANYTHING is possible by accident. For example, someone could unwittingly let the forums know that they are part of the IPod spammers by continually butting into a conversation regarding said spammers with a bunch of non sequitur comments intended to derail the discussion.

So anyway, the bottom line is it looks like the spammers have changed their tactics and are now enabling chat. I currently have an open search query with a 122.4 kb .wmv file and 29 hosts, chat enabled.

Any meaningful information, opinions, experiences, or tactics would be appreciated.

I don't know anything about computers, and can't offer a solution to this problem; Just add to it's mystery.
On a search for a specific movie, "God's army" with Christopher Walken,
for once the search turned up completely blank!
NOT ONE SINGLE HIT (without any filters turned on).
Even the second search produced the same result!
However, when i turned it around and searched for "army of god",
i got a lot of suspicious looking hits, all of which from T3 connections.
If the "fake i-pod" is auto generated, one would at least expect one or two hits in any search?

The "turned around" search came up looking like this.:

Sorry. Same post was sent twice??

I've seen the same thing. Sometimes you get them, sometimes not. This can be hours apart or even within a few minutes of each other.

I think it's either that...

...the spammers aren't always online.
...they can only do so many search terms at a time, or have certain words they key in on.
...Limewire doesn't always return all possible search results (maybe I don't have access to all possible nodes, etc).