I doubt it had anything to do with a spam bot, most run on scripts. I’ve played some online games and servers would always be DDOS’ed and it usually was because of some ticked kid who got banned have a hissy fit lol. It was probably a banned member.
Right, just like our resident spammer probably is. You can download spambot programs free and anyone can use them. They don't just automatically exist on the forum. They are programs that someone has to make, not a derivitive of the programs that exist that take on a life of their own. There are even websites with tutorials on how to make your own spambot.
My guess is that some of the spam isn't always from a spambot either because I would assume that there is a form field that is specific to identifying bots and other ways of preventing spam enabled on the forum. I imagine some of the spam we were getting was created by a user who could fill in the form fields to register. Either that or someone was changing spambot programs frequently to override spam prevention enabled on the forum. Either way would require a user behind the wheel targeting the forum.
Spam and DDOS are very similar functions that don't exist independent of a user who initiates a program that floods the system. Not that this proves they come from the same source. I was just kidding around, but a spambot isn't like the stray cat of the internet either. They have an owner too.