Thanks for reporting the spam.

Sean

Just got bulk-mail pfishing private message from someone "Banned"

Yesterday, 07:48 PM
AdminGirLX
Banned

Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: US
Posts: 0

Important message from the forum administration!
Dear,

A virus alert was noticed on your computer.
We highly recommend you to check your computer and perform online virus check at our site immediately: http://antivirus.effectmeds.com/turo...stephaniebeaty
----------------------------------------------------
Sincerely, Forum Administration www.hybridphoto.com.

AdminGirLX,
has been banned... It is a bit like playing whack a mole.

Make sure you get--

trueLadyAdmin

who doesn't show up as "banned."

Is there a way to clean up the RSS feeds after a spam thread is removed? I was faced with a giant screen of hardcore porn in my Google Reader window this evening after checking the Hybridphoto new posts RSS feed.

Yes there is Jordan. I may not have deleted the post entirely, next time I will. If you get the feed before I can delete it it will still show. I delete and ban the users and threads as soon as I get notice of them so there shouldn't be too much lag time between the post and my deletion.

trueLadyAdmin has been banned

Thanx guys and try to bare with me on this as we find a way to keep these guys out.

I'm assuming the 6 private messages I have in my inbox, the latest one claiming to be an "important message from the forum administrators" are all from spammers. How can I get rid of them?

Katharine,
When you view your inbox all messages will have an unchecked box in the upper right-hand corner. Select the messages you want to delete and then scroll down the the the drop down box and choose delete and press 'go'.

Sorry to be so dense, but what drop down box, where? I'm not seeing anything obvious and have clicked on just about everything on the screen to no avail.

The drop down is at the bottom of the page and has the words "Selected Messages:" next to a form field with the words "Move to Folder..." followed by a button that is labeled "Go"

Is there any way you can block these idiots at the IP level?

Other forum software that I have used has the ability to disallow certain IP addresses from accessing the board. It can also disallow visitors with certain e-mail addresses from registering at all.

If your server is running on Apache, it is possible to set up your ".htaccess" file(s) to block certain visitors from even seeing the board in the first place.

It might be worthwhile to have your technical admin take a look at some of these things.

They are being blocked at the ip level, they are as often as not, spoofing IP's, using hotmail, gmail and yahoo accts. The current batch of bozo's are doing this manually with human beings which makes it much harder to stop than those who use scripts. I suspect that they just aren't very sophisticated or smart. This site simply doesn't warrant the attention.

On the flip side we are planing major upgrades which will hopefully make things far more difficult for the spammers and far better in general for the users -- more on that as it comes.

Just got this in the private messages from JamesWilliams:


Default Take measures immediately!
Dear, photocon;George G;Thomas Bertilsson;John Brady;Rebus!

Spam sending from your computer was detected.
We highly recommend you to check your computer and perform online virus check at our site immediately: http://remove-malware.servebbs.org/o...hotocon;George G;Thomas Bertilsson;John Brady;Rebus
If you do not pass this test* we will have to delete your account and forward a complaint to your ISP with attached log file (your IP address, etc.).

----------------------------------------------------
Forum Administration www.hybridphoto.com

Thomas Bertilsson's post is perhaps hitting a little close to home, since it's entirely possible that I am the "George G", and I also had a "RobertWilliams message - probably the same one Thomas had.

It prompts a couple of questions:

1. How is this poster, site, whatever getting into our system to get names- which I assume is the case with the George G.

2. Is there any possibility that this might a legit situation? Seems far-fetched but you never know

1. How is this poster, site, whatever getting into our system to get names- which I assume is the case with the George G.

Now that's an easy one. Just go through the forum and copy the usernames of people who post there, a semidecent script can accomplish this nearly effortless. Same thing is with the PMs, this was most likely scripted. That's also a decent way for the spammer to find the active users here, no point in spamming those who haven't been here in a long time. What surprizes me more is why a spammer would target a forum where users need to be at least marginally computer literate. Sounds like email spam filters getting more effective now...


2. Is there any possibility that this might a legit situation? Seems far-fetched but you never know
No. And I certainly wouldn't expect a fresh member with no posts to inform me about such an issue.

Think of it like this: If the forum admins really thought that you spammed people or the forum, your account would be locked right away, there would certainly not be any friendly PM beforehand. Even if it was an evil virus on your computer doing the spamming, you'd have to sort this issue out via email before your account gets reenabled.

And finally to all those who were upset about a few spam PMs: you haven't used email lately, have you? Spam messages are like cockroaches, they were here before most of us entered the internet and they will be there long after we're gone :(

Rudeofus,
Thanks for taking a chunk of your time to respond. I guess that it didn't even occur to me that this individual was a member, and so could have got the names fairly readily. I was worried enough about the content of the message to run a virus scan on my machine - just on the off chance it might have been legit.