hi i just got the following Forum PM:
Hello, friend. There are viruses' activities from your computer in last few days. Strongly recommend you to check your computer. You can find a report about your computer's security and solve every problem with it here: Link removed
Thank you. Forum member.
Ofc if i follow the link i get to a site i dont trust telling me the site is unsafe and i should continue to his 'homepage' :g:. I havent done this cos i dont trust anything that redirects me without telling me exacly why.
im running ESET NOD32 Antvirus 4 and scanning my pc as im typing this message..i dont suspect ill find anything but you can never be to safe with these things.
If anyone can shed some light on this id appriciate it:D
It's spam and the account is now banned, and delete the pm.
Yes,
Bellanie and also received one.
I've alerted our very own Gandypedia who is knowledgeable in such virtual things and will report back.
I'm guessing not to visit the link although, dammit, it's tempting. Perhaps I'll whack up a virtual pc to have a look...
Got the same PM, and if you look closely the guy that send it has been banned, so i quess someone else agreed it was rubish.
Looks like a ruse to get people to visit that site and then it's a spoof av program that detects viruses that don't really exists. The software will promise to get rid of them if you pay for the subscription to the fake av program. The Russian Mafia then have your cc details and you are screwed!
http://www.scambusters.org/fakeantivirus.html
Thanks Gandy :)
Despite our defences they will find ways to spam us. Sending a PM means it's not picked up as quickly as say a forum post which is either quickly reported or spotted by a mod.
If you get spam PMs report them asap and the banhammer will be applied.:D
One other thing, please post in the general area of the forum so all members know what's happening :thumb:
Quote from: Gandalf;303427Looks like a ruse to get people to visit that site and then it's a spoof av program that detects viruses that don't really exists. The software will promise to get rid of them if you pay for the subscription to the fake av program. The Russian Mafia then have your cc details and you are screwed!
http://www.scambusters.org/fakeantivirus.html
Besides, there are free programs like avast that are proven to be better then most paid for programs.
And lol, triple post.
oke thx for the info :D
P.S. deleted the PM ofc
Thanks for the info, i was contacted by an actually banned account via pm, advertising the fake antivirus you are talking about. Keep spreading the news, and thanks again for the tempestive warning.
I got one too, I bubbled over with excitement at the prospect of a PM....bah
I got it also, already deleted
got the same mail, deleted it.
was a funky linky :ranting2:
and a mail from a forummember with no threads writen or replyed in I don't trust :ninja:
I said this ingame too, I always go by the following principle:
No one on the interwebz gives enough of a rat's tail-end about my PC's security to approach me personally about improving it (through silly PMs like this). Anyone or anything that does (pretend to) is a fake and bad for my PC in one way or another, or Windows' annoying security centre warning (or sometimes both).
Thread transferred to open section from the DMR section.
Unfortunately this type of spam is on the increase and is quite difficult to stop as it is an individual account registration by a person for each one.
Apologies for any that do beat us, but the Admins are trying to keep up with the banning of spam accounts as soon as they are identified. Identification is however largely a manual process and takes an individual decision by an Admin as to whether or not the account is valid. So far we're not doing too badly at it and have only banned a 'real member' once (to the best of our knowledge).
Out of interest, this is the volume we're having to manually review and make a decision on at the moment. You can see from the below that spam is a growing problem, so in addition to the anti-spam technology already employed we're investigating what additional measures can be implemented. We already have some lined up for vB4 when we make the switch (over and above the built-in anti-spam measures) but you'll not see the benefit fo those until we transfer to vB4.
279 = total number of banned users on this forum since 2004.
of which:
221 were banned in the last 12 months
197 were banned in the last 6 months
143 were banned in the last 3 months
41 were banned in the last month
Every ban is the result of research by an Admin and a conclusion reached based on evidence, followed by a manual ban. It's quite a few minutes of time per ban.
Clearly these are only the bans, the Admins actually end up investigating a lot more than that, in practice we're having to try to manually check every single new member registration. In total across all the new registrations it's quite a time sink for us :sad:
It's not easy but you seem to be doing an ok job so far. I'm sure now this is getting to be a bigger problem (in general) that there will be tools to counteract this in time.
Until then is there a way of setting newly joined member to a probationary period with no private messages. Eg they have to make 10 posts on the forum and wait 24 hours before they have access to it (Or even just be approved by an admin).
That way if they aren't genuine you know that the post are going to be spam so easy to pick up and remove before PMs are abused. It would make them easier to spot.
In the same way that supporting members get a larger inbox is there another setting which we could call approved members (non-supporting members who aren't spammers) and the rest have no access. Seems like it is something the software could support.
It's a good point T-Bag. is that possible?
Quote from: T-Bag;303527It's not easy but you seem to be doing an ok job so far. I'm sure now this is getting to be a bigger problem (in general) that there will be tools to counteract this in time.
Until then is there a way of setting newly joined member to a probationary period with no private messages. Eg they have to make 10 posts on the forum and wait 24 hours before they have access to it (Or even just be approved by an admin).
That way if they aren't genuine you know that the post are going to be spam so easy to pick up and remove before PMs are abused. It would make them easier to spot.
In the same way that supporting members get a larger inbox is there another setting which we could call approved members (non-supporting members who aren't spammers) and the rest have no access. Seems like it is something the software could support.
That is a great idea often applied on other forums.
I believe there is a mod we can set up that could do this. I'll speak to the Gandymeister about it.
Hmm had another one
this time saying its from the Forum admin, lmao
Important message from the forum administration!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear, Blunt;Bellanie;albert;;Fly1n9F15h!
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://*******************/Blunt;B...rt;;Fly1n9F15h
----------------------------------------------------
Forum Administration //www.dead***********men.co.uk.
this is getting bad now
Yeah but which user was it from as opposed to the plain text name which anyone could write in to the PM?
Ghandi
i forwarded the message on to gandy mate.
Nipped over to Dead Men Limping - just to check I had the correct link - and lo and behold 'LadyXAdmin' has joined Jan 20th. :roflmao:
Quote from: Lameduck;303824Nipped over to Dead Men Limping - just to check I had the correct link - and lo and behold 'LadyXAdmin' has joined Jan 20th. :roflmao:
Sounds like one of Benny's alter egos :)
Just banned another one
GafarozzMan (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=GafarozzMan&meta=&btnG=Google+Search&aq=&oq=)
I've messed about under the bonnet and now new members cannot send PM's to anyone until they have made ten posts and been registered for ten days. They also cannot post attachments or images. I'm working on stopping them posting html links as well. That should make life easier for us and at least give us some time to ban them before they do any harm.
Quote from: smilodon;303896I've messed about under the bonnet and now new members cannot send PM's to anyone until they have made ten posts and been registered for ten days. They also cannot post attachments or images. I'm working on stopping them posting html links as well. That should make life easier for us and at least give us some time to ban them before they do any harm.
Many thanks Smilo :thumb:
Nice work there Smil, thanks for all your efforts and thanks to everyone else who helps out with these individuals of dubious birth rights.
Quote from: smilodon;303896I've messed about under the bonnet and now new members cannot send PM's to anyone until they have made ten posts and been registered for ten days. They also cannot post attachments or images. I'm working on stopping them posting html links as well. That should make life easier for us and at least give us some time to ban them before they do any harm.
Excellent work. That should make things easier for you guys.
Quote from: smilodon;303896I've messed about under the bonnet and now new members cannot send PM's to anyone until they have made ten posts and been registered for ten days. They also cannot post attachments or images. I'm working on stopping them posting html links as well. That should make life easier for us and at least give us some time to ban them before they do any harm.
That's great Smilo.:D
I just noticed Kurtymann (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=Kurtymann&meta=&btnG=Google+Search&aq=&oq=) has joined; I can now ban him at my leisure:D
also áurtymann (http://www.google.co.uk/custom?q=%D0%A1urtymann&client=pub-4099951843714863&forid=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cof=GALT%3A%23999999%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23FFFFFF%3BVLC%3A333333%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BALC%3A0033CC%3BLC%3A0033CC%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3AFFFFFF%3BGIMP%3AFFFFFF%3BLH%3A100%3BLW%3A100%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hyperwords.net%2Fhy-for-google.gif%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hyperwords.net%2F%3BLP%3A1%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en) with the same email addy
Got a new one today from JoannyDavis, have removed links:-
You have received a new private message at Dead Men Talking from JoannyDavis, entitled "Attention!".
To read the original version, respond to, or delete this message, you must log in here:
This is the message that was sent:
***************
Your computer was noticed in email spam. It is quite possible that it is a part of botnet . Strongly recommend you to scan your computer for malware. You can do it online, for example, at:
Please, follow this. Otherwise I have to send abuse mail to your ISP with all the ensuing consequences.
Thank you, Joan Davis.
That PM has also been reported here, and I've explained what happened. Fixed now though. :)
http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=30398