matt21811 - 12:25 am on Apr 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

If this is true then sites with forums will get a boost as users tend to spend a bit of time perusing them. For blackhats, I suppose it would be posible to fake or perhaps steal a large amount of content from other forums to fill one up.
It would be entirely posible for spyware to sneak onto a machine unoticed and for it to send out traffic that appears to be surfing the web when in fact the machine looks and behaves totally normally to the user. For spyware makers there is an advantage in that it does not have to interupt the user to do its job. In fact, the more unoticable it is, the better it is.
I see a future with Botnets for lease. Have your site surfed from up to 100,000 real users machines, at random times and your site nicely intermixed with the users natural surfing patterns.