Hey guys,

You've likely recieved a PM from angelikzusa titled "Just for Fun" I know this because I recieved it too, this is likely a malware attempt, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK!! Ive sent a PM to Alex, so it will hopefully soon blow over.

I read this on the internet: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...07204137AALllP7 So theyve attempted it with other sites.

Crap, I clicked it before you posted this up. Though I also asked Minque to kill it so we should be able to sort it sooner or later.

What happens if you do click it though? All I got was sent to a site that advertised viagra.

Which was worrying, to say the least.

In all honesty it didn't occur to me to click it.

Depending on your computer a virus scan might be prudent (especially if you use an out of date browser, or internet explorer (the difference is small )), though you're most likely (but not certainly) ok. In fact just run a virus scan anyway, its a good habit. Perhaps a spyware one too if you're so inclined.

I clicked it twice!

Well I'm up a particular hydrological feature of the landscape whilst lacking a particular nautical instrument.

Well, the account has been dealt with at least.

Don't be clicking on them weird links from strangers, never know where they've been.


Edit: the word filter now picks up that particular link and puts it through the shredder.

Right, thanks for deleting it Rane, and thanks everyone who gave a heads up either here or through pm. We appreciate it

Ahh, the good ol' days when I was young, curious, had Windows 98 SE and craving to click on strange links.

I just flat out deleted the PM. I'm rather distrustful of anything from anybody I don't know.

And there was me thinking someone actually wished to speak to me via PM.

Yeah, I'm not the kind of person who clicks on random links from people he doesn't know.

Ah, the joys of xenophobia.

Thanks for the warning, folks. Although, I probably wouldn't have clicked the link anyway. If there had been a decent post above the link, then maybe. But as it was, obvious spam.

Besides, why would I need viagra? I'm completely against physical contact of all natures.

Thanks for the warning, doubt I would have been inclined to click it but thanks all the same.

Thanks for the warning Black Hand. I could probably be like the rest of you sane guys and say I wouldn't have clicked it anyways but if I'm being completely honest I would've . It said just for fun it must be harmless...

I'll confess I clicked it, but the link was already blown up. I guys I won't assume something like that is just some good clean fun next time.....

Well I probably would've had I not had experience with being sent places I didn't want to go before...

I never received a pm from this angelik....something, either my Norton killed it or "she" jjust sends pm to men....but thanks for the warning

I have that Norton security thingy, so I guess it's not that.

Their scans are really annoying, especially during a game.

I turn mine off while I'm playing games.

yep Norton's scans are annoying, I agree and I turn it off when I play also....but nevertheless I did not receive any pm from this..spammer...

Well I got one too so not just guys. Maybe they didn't send it to the admins...?

Just got a PM from a "nuzgirba" or something like that, with only a link. I'd say DON'T CLICK for this one too.

Also got a PM from some "nuzgirba." Obviously, it's the same person. What i dont like is, i can't see where the link is going. All i get is "Http:\\Filtered," but im assuming the link in question was "filtered"?

I just got that one too. Didn't even open the message though, just went ahead and deleted it. I'm a bit like bbq when it comes to messages from people I don't know.

Seriously! Ahh! These morons/evilbots are annoying the heck out of me now!!

{I edited this several times for 'clean' family presentation]

I notified Alex, so the new spambot should be dealt with.

Burn the spammer!

Just a suggestion, but maybe an admin could make it so you need a few posts to sent a PM?

he's gone.

When I get home tonight I'm going to see if I can come up with a good way to end this latest streak of spammers et all.

I'm at work right now though, so little time to do something

We could just disable registrations altogether.


No?


Aww.

Thanks for deleting the link so fast. I hope those morons will not insist

I have thought of a rather unusual way to stop the spambots.

Counterspamming.

Now hear me out on this for sec.

The email addresses used by the spambots to certify their accounts are available for all to see, right? So what if we spam the inbox of the spambot so that we fill the inbox up so full that it no longer has space for any more registration emails. While it won't stop any more from logging, we can at least stop it from polluting any more forums or blogs.

And I have a plan b, but unfortunately it ignores several laws of nature and at large chunk of quantum physics. But you can't win them all.

It will be an unused inbox. The only way to do anything would be for an Admin to chase up the IP they used, though it won't be their actual one so even that's pointless. Essentially all you can do is try to thwart them before they send the things.

Yes, but what I'm saying is that by filling it up we can limit what it can do to annoy users on other forums.

Then again it was a daft plan in retrospect.

Also, the email adress might be owned by an innocent person. I remember getting spam a year or two back...that was sent by MY OWN email somehow. (Ya know, the rich uncle from nigeria who has to flee the country and wants to dump a few million bucks on your account. That one.) It seems to have stopped fortunately, but I was quite amazed at finding out that other people's email adresses could be used to send out spam without them knowing.

I suppose the colonel's idea might have worked if it wasn't for this slight ethical problem. It's a bit of a shame that we can't rewrite the laws of physics at will and make plan b work.

Although, given humanity's track record, having that ability would mean we would have written ourselves out of existence before lunchtime.

Another malicious message from a banned user, this time; nuzgirba. What is going on? I didn't publish my email address so it seems that someone has hacked the server. Admin needs to look at improving security here I think.

Just use some common sense when clicking links from people you don't recognize. Best advice anyone can give you.

I've merged your thread with this one as it's essentially about the same thing.



As an update to all, Rane had a good idea to prevent this from happening in the future. We'll take some time to look at it to see if it's done what we want it to do.

Should anyone receive another such spam pm after today, please let us know and we'll get back to the drawing board.

What exactly did you guys do? If I might ask.

I received 2 messages, one on apr 20 and one yesterday.
But isn't disabling registration a bit extreme for 2 spammers (probably one spammer under 2 names) in more than a year ?

Who really clicked on the link sent by a total stranger without finding this message suspicious ?
message title "important" body "click the link".
The average user receive about 750 similar emails each day. Not speaking of the spam we receive on our cellphones. We all know this problem.

Don't you think just ignore them, never answer and delete the message as soon as reported is more efficient than any drastic and annoying measure ?

I think that disabling registration was a joke mate.

hehe, no worries, we hope to have solved this without either having to manually accept every new member, or disallowing new member influx altogether.

That was indeed a joke from Rane a bit earlier

I figured this might be a good place to bring it up. We've got a new member called Brickerza. I've got no problem with new people joining up, but all of his posts that I've come across so far are nothing but a string of a's. Like aaaaaaaaa or something like that.

This makes me suspect he's actually a spambot of some sort. Perhaps an attempt to get around the rule that prohibits people from making new threads if they don't have a certain number of posts?

I was just coming to mention this...

Here's hoping for a quick delete.

It's gone.

Thank you for the warning.