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Spam PMs – June 18

Home Forums Windstone Editions Announcements Spam PMs – June 18

Viewing 15 posts - 91 through 105 (of 147 total)
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  • #1609624
    frozendragon
    Participant

      I was like who the.. is this.. lol

      #1609645
      Pegasi1978
      Participant

        I was like who the.. is this.. lol

        Frozendragon! Long time no see on the forum.

        #1609663
        DarkLadyPhoenix
        Participant

          Got another one from Kayla this morning

          #1609665
          Ela_Hara
          Participant

            Kayla is back again!
            I’ve emailed Clay….

            IN SEARCH OF MY NEXT GRAILS:
            Black Peacock & Butternut Adult Poads
            Kickstarter 'Rainbow Tiger' Bantam Dragon

            *~*~*~* Ela_Hara: The DragonKeeper *~*~*~*
            *** Come visit me on deviantArt at http://ela-hara.deviantart.com

            #1609668
            Clay
            Keymaster

              Latest account blocked. I have a couple ideas for stopping this, or at least minimizing it, which I will work on today or tomorrow.

              #1609672
              Thrippa
              Participant

                I got one from Kayla too, but it was apparently yesterday, even though I got the notification email today. Where is Austra, anyway? (Aside from the all caps HELLO, nonexistent country sort of confirms it’s a spam mail.)

                #1609678
                Clay
                Keymaster

                  Kayla is already back again (with user name “Nelly”). I blocked this account too, but some of you may get PMs.

                  #1609757
                  Tim
                  Participant

                    What makes me scratch my head is why someone would be so intent on spamming this forum? With all due respect to all the good folks here, this is kind of a backwaters, specialty forum.

                    I got a message from Kayla, too. Looks like the admins have (again) squashed thier account.

                    A lion (or liger) is a man's best friend!

                    #1609787
                    Punkii
                    Participant

                      Also received a “Hello Dear” spam message from user name ‘Nelly’ on May 5… Deleted… So glad ‘she’ found my profile interesting LOL

                      #1609789
                      Angelika_Zen
                      Participant

                        Forgive my stupid question, but I am curious…what happens if you reply to the spammer by email?

                        Wanted: "Dragon Fruit" Male Dragon ~ "Fire Berry", "Paradise", "Dragon Fruit", "Tie Dye" ~ The brighter, the better!

                        #1609795
                        Angelika_Zen
                        Participant

                          It is a situation where they can access the data in your computer? or is more someone with some BS sob story and try to get money from you??

                          Wanted: "Dragon Fruit" Male Dragon ~ "Fire Berry", "Paradise", "Dragon Fruit", "Tie Dye" ~ The brighter, the better!

                          #1609796
                          StormDancer
                          Participant

                            What happens when you respond to spam emails depends entirely on the kind of spam email. According online security experts, simply replying to spam emails mostly just confirms that your email is active, making you a target for future campaigns or scams.

                            In some cases, the spam links to a very convincing-looking copycat website. If you follow the link, anything you fill in on that website—usernames and passwords, personal information, credit card details, and transaction numbers—go right back to the scammer.

                            Another possibility is that the link or an attachment in a spam email will download a virus or spyware onto your computer. This download can actively record all your typing and send your information to the hacker. If you do download the software, the scammers could also find your contacts and send emails to even more victims, in addition to stealing your personal info.

                            If you want to avoid these scams altogether, watch out for things like fake invoices and fake UPS or FedEx delivery notifications. Beware of emails prompting you to download or install anything, log in and change your credentials, and emails saying you’ve won something like a family inheritance. Scammers tend to use phrases that add urgency to trick people. So they might say you already have a virus on your computer, that you need to update your browser ASAP, or that your account is about to close right now. If you’re still unsure after looking at the body of the email, you should analyze link spelling since even one or two “off” letters might mean the email isn’t legit.

                            Looking for:
                            "COSMIC SHIFT DRAGONS and KI-RINS" and the "OCTOPUS TANUKI TEST PAINT #1"

                            #1609805
                            Susie
                            Keymaster

                              We’ve blocked the accounts (and IP addresses) of spammers “Kayla” and “Nelly” however the private messages that those spam accounts sent out are still in mail boxes – we cannot remove those. Please just delete them. These same spammers may appear again, from different IP addresses.

                              As a rule, its probably a spammer if they begin with “hello dear” and its someone you never heard of before. Never follow a link in a message from a stranger. If you reply to the message I don’t think anything bad will happen (except that the spammer will know they’ve got “a live one” – like when you answer the phone to a telemarketer) but its best not to experiment.

                              If you get a spam message and wonder if Windstone knows about it – check the list of New Forum Members at the bottom of the first page of the forum – if they are listed there, it means we haven’t removed them yet and may not know about them – in this case you can email service@windstoneeditions.com to let us know. If they are not in that list, that means that most likely we’ve removed them and you can just delete the message without notifying us. We generally post on this thread when we’ve had a spammer too. We apologize for this inconvenience.

                              #1609809
                              Clay
                              Keymaster

                                I have adjusted the “threshold” that the site uses to identify spambots. It blocks certain attempts based on a variety of factors that it uses to determine if a user is suspicious. It is now set to be quite sensitive, which will hopefully filter out these spambots. The potential downside is that legitimate users may occasionally be flagged as bots and prevented from logging in. This is a matter of trial and error to find the sweet spot where only the spambots get blocked.

                                SO…if anyone has difficulty logging in, please email me at clay@clay-johnson.com to let me know, and I will get you logged in. Thanks for your patience as we try to get this resolved.

                                #1609812
                                Clay
                                Keymaster

                                  OK, I have just installed a messaging limiter plugin that limits the number of PMs a user can send within a specified time. This way, when a spammer gets get through, they will not be able to flood the site with PMs. Currently the limit is set to 3 messages within 5 minutes, but this can be changed. If anyone finds this constraining, I can adjust it.

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