ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Many, or all, forum members may have received a PM (Private Message) from "Victoria" with the following contentHelloMy name is miss Victoria i saw yourprofile today on(forums.windowsforum.org)and became interestedin you,i will also like to know more about you,and i want you to send a mail tomy email address so that i can give you my picture for you to know whom l am. ibelieve we can move from here.I am waiting for your mail to my email addressabove.Remember the distance or colour does not matter but love matters allot inlife. Please reply me with my email address here ([email protected])THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERNYOURS VICTORIADo not contact this e-mail address - it is a scam!This is the second time in a week that this mass PM scam has been distributed. So far I don't know how this can be prevented.What I have done so far:contacted Yahoo UK to report the contact address for the scam.Most likely Yahoo will not take any action, although I have explained to them that forum spam does not carry any Internet headers.disabled userid 'victoria'.noted the sign-up and post IP address 196.207.192.198, which is Dakar, Senegal.noted the sign-up email address [email protected] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 My second one arrived this morning. Can't you simply block the sender from posting, or is this not possible? :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 I tried to do this on the original onslaught but, she has managed to overcome my efforts.Note that this is not the only forum being plagued with these messages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 second one deleted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted June 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 These spammers/scammers are well organized; we don't know yet how they managed to set off so many PM messages in a short time. I believe it's an automated process.The current "victoria" is blocked from logging in or posting, but they may as well register under different names. Even if we manage to block new sign-up via the above mentioned IP and email address, they will probably manage to sign-up from other IP addresses with new email contacts.This morning many of the regulars at the Adobe support forum received identical PMs from one "vivian".I believe that forum software update(s) may be required to prevent mass PM spamming.Just out of curiosity: what time were your spam PM received? (Mine was at 08:49+9 [JST].) This may give us a clue if they were all sent simultaneously, or sequentially. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 These spammers/scammers are well organized; we don't know yet how they managed to set off so many PM messages in a short time. I believe it's an automated process.The current "victoria" is blocked from logging in or posting, but they may as well register under different names. Even if we manage to block new sign-up via the above mentioned IP and email address, they will probably manage to sign-up from other IP addresses with new email contacts.This morning many of the regulars at the Adobe support forum received identical PMs from one "vivian".I believe that forum software update(s) may be required to prevent mass PM spamming.Just out of curiosity: what time were your spam PM received? (Mine was at 08:49+9 [JST].) This may give us a clue if they were all sent simultaneously, or sequentially.I don't know. Mine was waiting for me when I logged on. I just deleted it. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Time of receipt: 00.34BST. I don't know how that translates to Japanese time, Pat :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Many, or all, forum members may have received a PM (Private Message) from "Victoria" with the following contentIts been almost a year since ive been here last time, and i already recieved about 3 messages from this victoria...instead of disabling the account, cant you remove it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 I have hopefully blocked the sender in my profile. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 instead of disabling the account, cant you remove it?I've done that and (s)he somehow over-rides the block or changes the name slightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 can you trace the ip it is done from?maybe you can block that ip [however i guess that will only help temporarily...] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 The ip is mentioned in the first post of this thread (196.207.192.198). As you point out, not much use blocking it as they will soon find another address if they are determined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Time of receipt: 00.34BST. I don't know how that translates to Japanese time, Pat :)That equals to 09:34 JST - we are 9 hours ahead of your time.That equals to 08:34 JST - we are 8 hours ahead of your time, since you are now on DST.This means that they are sending these PMs one-by-one, not all at the same time.The flood-control patch mentioned by Boris will not completely prevent that kind of spam, but certainly slow it down even more. I hope that today's outage was to implement that patch!P.S. Yahoo has not removed that new account either - dithering nincompoops! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted June 26, 2009 Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 I had bad experiences with Yahoo, and won't let it anywhere near to my computer again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted June 26, 2009 Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 i recieved my most recent spam message around: Yesterday, 00:39 GMT [not sure if its GMT, but since my computer says its 10:11 [GMT+1] and the forum says 09:11, i think its GMT :D] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Thanks for the info.Since you are in the Netherlands, your time zone is CET (Central European Time), which is GMT+1, meaning you are one hour ahead of GMT, which is the time of the United Kingdom. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timezones if you want to know more about the world time zones.... my computer says its 10:11 [GMT+1] and the forum says 09:11 ...You can adjust the forum's time zone to show your own time. Go to My Controls, then under Options, click on Board Settings. Here you can adjust the time zone to GMT+1. You can also set it to have DST (daylight saving time) automatically adjusted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hb_Kai Posted June 26, 2009 Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 How strange... Victoria must not take a liking to penguins. I haven't had a single one of these spam messages but I'll be sure to let you know the time I recieve one, if I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted June 26, 2009 Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 instead of disabling the account, cant you remove it?I've done that and (s)he somehow over-rides the block or changes the name slightly.Crikey, I didn't know that spammers can do that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted July 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Today's PM spam is from "miss judith", received at 05:33-JST (=21:33-GMT).Anyone else received this message, please post the time received.Craig has applied a patch and change last weekend to prevent mass PM spamming (5 minutes enforced delay between each PM), so I'd like to see if it had any effect... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 21-31 and 21-34.I don't know why the hell they do it, surely no one answers. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 It's not fair - I have been left out of the fun and have not received any of these spam messages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted July 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Meaning that the 5 minutes fix does not work :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJolly Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 HelloMy name is miss judith.i saw your profile today and became intrested in you,i will also like to know more about you,and i want you to send a mail to my email address so that i can give you my picture for you to know whom l am.Here is my email address ([email protected]) .i believe we can move from here.I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life) please send me mail to my e mail address.Please rpely me with my email address here([email protected])She/he is back again.I believe you are using IPB 2.3.6If you have updated the most recent patch for 2.3.6 with regard to mass spamming then this is a person and not a bot. Try using the *wildcard feature in the ban filters of the acp. They will soon get fed up and go elsewhere.Alternatively upgrade to IPB 3.0.0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hb_Kai Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Now that I think about it...I've been having random addresses adding me on MSN and doing that bot thing that invites the user to visit a webpage to view 18 + material and this bot tries flirting to make you think it's a woman.Judith, as above, was one of them. I think It's a person trying to make money from getting your address, making you go to some website and pay them money to see webcam crap.The best thing you can do is for the users to hide their email addresses on their control panel/account profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 jup, got the judith1 message too :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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