"Email This Story" Feature Removed

[Jason Dunn]

A quick update for everyone: some of you readers from outside North American may have noticed that for the past four nights our server has been conking out in the very early hours (North American time). We couldn't figure out why until today: it turns out we had a security hole in our "Email This Story" script, and someone has been using it to send spam using our server, mostly to AOL users it seems. I couldn't figure out why, for the past several days, I'd been receiving email automated messages from the AOL Postmaster program warning me about Thoughts Media sending out spam. I thought it was some AOL users who were getting the weekly newsletter, forgetting that they opted-in for it, not realizing they could turn it off in their account settings...then flagging it as spam. Looks like that wasn't the case, so I'm sorry for thinking the worst of you AOL users. ;-) At any rate, we've removed this feature for now and will replace it at some point in the future. I'm curious though, how often did you use this feature? Vote in the survey below or give me a comment back.

[Jason Dunn]

A quick update for everyone: some of you readers from outside North American may have noticed that for the past four nights our server has been conking out in the very early hours (North American time). We couldn't figure out why until today: it turns out we had a security hole in our "Email This Story" script, and someone has been using it to send spam using our server, mostly to AOL users it seems. I couldn't figure out why, for the past several days, I'd been receiving email automated messages from the AOL Postmaster program warning me about Thoughts Media sending out spam. I thought it was some AOL users who were getting the weekly newsletter, forgetting that they opted-in for it, not realizing they could turn it off in their account settings...then flagging it as spam. Looks like that wasn't the case, so I'm sorry for thinking the worst of you AOL users. ;-) At any rate, we've removed this feature for now and will replace it at some point in the future. I'm curious though, how often did you use this feature? Vote in the survey below or give me a comment back.

[Jerry Raia]

I never even noticed it. ops:

[iant54]

Jason,

I think you need to correct the story - I'm sure you didn't mean to say

someone has been using it to send our spam using our server

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by iant54

I think you need to correct the story - I'm sure you didn't mean to say...

Hahaha...whoops! Fixed, thanks. ;-)

[Jerry Raia]

We can't even send our own spam? We needed someone else to do it for us? :lol:

[aroma]

Based on the current poll results, I'd say it would be a waste of time and resources to worry about replacing the feature.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by aroma

Based on the current poll results, I'd say it would be a waste of time and resources to worry about replacing the feature.

Indeed. That's why I did the poll, because I suspected it wasn't being used much...

[felixdd]

I didn't even know this feature existed. When I send someone a story, I send them the link.

[dh]

Same here, I'd never noticed the feature.

[Gen-M]

It is one of those features that I use rarely - but find useful when I do want to share an article.