07-25-2002, 02:48 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Spammers should be drawn and quartered
It seems that about an hour ago, an enterprising spammer decided to sign up for an account with this site, then manually harvested email addresses from the membership list and sent out spam about a web hosting company. I immediately suspended him, sent him an email telling him to burn on the 7th layer of hell, and contacted the hosting company to suspend his affiliate status. What an idiot! 
Apparently we weren't quite "spam proof" enough from people who wanted to harvest manually. Our immediate action was to switch the membership list from listing an email address to having a form for email. This means that the person would have to fill out the form each time to contact you. Tomorrow we're going to modify the membership template to completely remove the email listing - the only way to contact each other will be via the private messaging feature. So technically someone could sign up and spam you via private messages, but they would have to wait a certain number of seconds between each message, and I could suspend them very quickly.
I value the privacy of all Thoughts readers, and I deeply apologize for allowing this to happen. Comments welcome. You can flame the idiot yourself or contact the company he was spamming for. It may be that they didn't know about his actions, but they're ultimately responsible for educating their own affiliates about not spamming.
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07-25-2002, 02:55 AM
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Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
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It happened on pPCp today as well. Only they did as you mentioned Jason. They used the private message system.
Someone altogether different BTW.
Dave
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07-25-2002, 03:00 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 718
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I really wish advertising through email would be made illegal. It wouldn't stop offshore spamming, but it would help. Why companies are allowed to flood email boxes with spam is beyond me. I have an email account just to give for signing up for things, downloading etc. I get over 50 junk emails a day - mostly porno even though I don't visit porn sites - which is incredible. Something has to be done.
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07-25-2002, 03:08 AM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 6
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I just want to publicly thank Jason for his efforts in maintaing and keeping this site very informative and user-friendly!!! 
BTW I was the one who reported the SPAM guy...
TTFN
Douglas K. McLemore
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07-25-2002, 03:12 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Paragon
They used the private message system. Someone altogether different BTW.
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I'm hesitant to completely disable the inter-board communications systems because of one incident, but if it comes down to it, I will (with a vote from the people on the site of course).
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07-25-2002, 03:13 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by mclemore
BTW I was the one who reported the SPAM guy...
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You and about 12 others. ;-) Spencer Goad was the first to report it at 6:45 PM...
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07-25-2002, 03:28 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
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Thanks, Jason, for your quick attention to this. It's an inconvenience to those who get the spam, but a major headache for you to track these people down and modify the site. Your commitment to the community is always appreciated.
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07-25-2002, 03:31 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 381
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You know what you could do... Do it the way brighthand does it...
You send them an email as if you were posting a message; but you don't know the email address. So you type your message right on the boards, and brighthand will send it out without the sender knowing where it goes. You could aslo disable HTML there and limit it to 1 email every 2 minutes or so; and I doubt there will be a spammer that will send a TEXT advertisement every 2 minutes... I mean, it's not like we need to email each other more than 2 minutes...
I think 2 min is better than 30 seconds to be even safer...
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07-25-2002, 03:48 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by heov
You send them an email as if you were posting a message; but you don't know the email address. So you type your message right on the boards, and brighthand will send it out without the sender knowing where it goes....I think 2 min is better than 30 seconds to be even safer...
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That's the way we have it set right now (as of 30 minutes ago), but regarding the time limit, it applies to everyone, even me, and I need to respond to more than one message every two minutes. :wink:
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07-25-2002, 03:51 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 47
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Unbelievable. Spammers SUCK! :x
__________________
Ashley Dunn
Copy Editor, Pocket PC Thoughts
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