OT: Spam in the Cafe

Last night we got hit pretty hard by a spammer who tagged his message onto a number of posts on this forum. Our mods did a great job of deleting those spams but not before the message was sent to whomever was in the thread.

I've always said that I will keep the forums public until the spam gets out of hand. Well it looks like it is getting out of hand and the only way to beat these moronic idiots is to require all posters to be logged in before one posts. That means forcing registration to post on lafcpug.

Most of you are already registered so this does not affect you, but for others who visit once in a blue moon, this does.

I'm going to give this a few more days to see if the attacks continue and if they do, then I have no choice but to force all to register before posting on lafcpug.

I can't tell you how sad this makes me to even consider this.

Mike

why is registering such a bad thing?

ya know, its funny. i dont know a single person who has ever made a purchase based on a random, unsolicited email (spam) - im really wondering what kind of morons are doing so...???

is there really such a huge demand for fake rolex's, cialis, xanax, money from your home and a longer schlong????

Someone is responding otherwise spammers wouldn't do it. Well, they would still do it but give up after awhile.

This current attack is pretty relentless. Tough to keep up on.

are we all getting the "nice site!" emails?

That's the one.

I think I'm going to turn on the force log in switch. Still getting them as we speak.

Sorry all

I just killed 2 over in the STP forum


DAVE



David at Movies Rock in Toronto
[www.tofcpug.com]

Please don't stop those nice site emails! I've been getting great deals on everything from prescription drugs to baseball tickets. I'm actually buying a condo in Florida from them tonight.




{j/k, just in case it isn't obvious}



- Justin Barham -

What was that about the longer schlong? And my old fake rolex is on the fritz....We need a can of spam repellent.....no problem...good idea about the logging in. Andy

This is nothing compared to macosxhints. They have two different databases and you have two different logins and passwords depending on where you are in the system. What a cluster experience.

But to work. I am a registered user and I want to change my password. How? There isn't a "My Account" clicky or anything like it anywere I can find.

Koz

it's simple, but not obvious:

click on your name (in blue) at the top of a post.

once there, click on "Edit Profile"


cheers,
nick

You can also edit your profile in MY PROFILE at top of forum. Click that and then click EDIT PROFILE

The forums at www.naprovig.org are and have always been Register first, but since SpamBots can grab ahold of the registration without Visual Confirmation, they can register a web site of porn and other undesirable stuff.

This is getting way out out hand and we are going to move our web site to a host that has phpBB that can only be registered by Visual Confirmation.

Be sure that just requiring registration is not enough. Make sure the forum software has the step where the registering party has to read and re type in the visual numbers/letters that the Visual Confirmation requires.

The other step, which I do not understand, is to gather email addresses and reuse them. We have tried blocking certain IP addresses, but the work gets tiresome and the spammers seems to be keeping ahead.

If there were only some way to track back to the source and mail bomb the living hell out of the offending server so it would not even have time to send out spam.

Hows about we contact someone who understands the spamming process and learn how to protect our forums and our emails.

I have been getting at least 10-15 "Nice Site" emails a day for the last 3-4 days through the Soundtrack forum from mike2344@gmail.com.

We have no visual process for registration but at least I can track the offending spammer and delete him. As far as I know there is no way to track spammers, at least the sophisticated ones.


And banning IP address often ends up banning innocent users as well as the offending person

I'm for mailbombs. Lets send him a thankyou note from everyone of us for every single one of his links.

Actually, I'm joking. But I am for punching him in the face.

Onya blogspot.com. You fetid pile of dingo's kidneys.

Actually, most of the SPAM is coming from an unprotected Windows XP install running on a new MacBook proudly owned by 72 year-old Mrs. Bronco Nagurski of Schenectady, New York. She left it running on her new DSL while she went to the Price Chopper to get strawberries for breakfast and a little cream for Blitzen, her cat.

Go ahead. Send her thousands of nasty messages. Her machine will crash and she will have no idea why.

Wreck her Fuzzy-Warm® experience.

Koz

Can I still punch her in the face?

Schenectady is just the coolest place name. All we've got is Wagga Wagga.

<<All we've got is Wagga Wagga.>>

Here in Washington we have Walla Walla. Kinfolk?

Scott

It's about time, Mike. I've been pushing for this for a long time. Modding in the Motion forum became a JOB deleting spam...no fun at all.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

OK, I registered and now must change my user name to my real name...hope it works!



"I'm just a Simple Cave Man Lawyer. Your world frightens and confuses me." - Phil Hartman

You can't change your user name, only your password. I ask that you use your real name when you register but I cant enforce it.

I don't mind registering. And I wouldn't mind if LAFCPUG took John's suggestion and added a visual reference code as part of the login process. Probably a good number of us leave the cookies alone anyway, so we're automatically logged in on our main internet station after the first time. If it helps reduce spam, I say go for it.

Mike,

Sorry you have had to do this, but kudos for it. The minor inconvenience to us is nothing compared to the lack of new spam and more importantly the great community this site provides. Was happy to sign in (I rarely am, but in this case VERY happy to make an exception), grateful for having this site and the LAFCPUG in general as a resource!

-Tony Donaldson

Hi.

Mike.
What people give and learn from this forum is priceless.
Registration is free. The Knowledge will still be open to all.
Spam is like a kind of terrorism on the net, we never know when i will strike again, it can happen again tonight.
While you are sleeping it's day time here in Europe and and we have to wait for some Forum Moderator to awake and clear the mess made by someone stupid.



Rui Barros
Editor Colorist Trainer
Lisbon, Portugal
RTP Post-Production
Apple Certified Trainer FCP 7
Apple Certified Pro FCP 7

Hi Scott where in Washington are you? If you don't mind me asking. I'm in Federal Way.


Sean

Strange thing about the nice site spammail. I recieved it 5 times yesterday on an email address I haven't used here on the phorum for well over a year. How's that work?

He was just tagging a message onto the end of random threads, all the way back to several years ago. So he was really mostly just hitting the same 30 or so people over and over again. Took him hours to do it, too.

ok, raise hands if anyone opened more than the first one?

<<Took him hours to do it, too.>>

No, it took his computer hours to do it. He was leading a regular life while his computer worked. That's why spam persists - even though the return is minuscule (though more than "nothing", there is no cost involved in perpetrating it; no work, no expense.

Scott