Is there a way to report people who send spam PMs?

[Unka Josh 0]

Like muzrinkl?

[Joey 9]

...Yeah, second time I got pm'ed by one of these....things.

Though I think Marked said that it wouldn't be necessary since its rare, but I think that's gonna change soon...*sniff*

 

 

....Hold me, lol.

[Marked 197]

It's not just our forum. Have you guys had any emails yet saying you a PM from the other forums you're registered at?

 

Anyway, I'm working on how to stop these bots as I'm writing this. I'll tell you if I come up without anything. I've disabled mass-PMs for members and I'm going to disable emails from this forum until there is a fix to stop the PMs completely.

 

EDIT: I found a similarity in the two spambots so far which is their IP address. Four members including the two who were reported us have that IP address. With any luck, any other similar spambots will have the same IP address and wont be able to register. I'm not sure how likely that will be though.

[Darkness366 0]

Thank you for dealing with it and working hard to keep the site as free from the spambots as possible.

[Marked 197]

Thank you for dealing with it and working hard to keep the site as free from the spambots as possible

 

No problem, it is my duty. :rolleyes:

 

The good folks at IPB have released a PM flood control system, which will stop the mass PMing and will allow moderators and admins to get onto the offenders before they're able to PM hundreds of members. I am reluctant to install it however because it may cause some compatibility issues and effect our website integration.

 

If the bots come back then it's important to report it to me and I will install the PM flood control. I'll also be checking whether or not any mass PMs are sent.

[Joey 9]

...Following the pms, anyone noticed that the visiting members have all of the sudden increased greatly? Hope these guys don't turn out to be spammers, just looks suspicious or whatever though. >_>

[pidey 0]

...Following the pms, anyone noticed that the visiting members have all of the sudden increased greatly? Hope these guys don't turn out to be spammers, just looks suspicious or whatever though. >_>

 

The reason for that is rather simple, people got e-mail notices about a PM here, so they went here to check what their PM was.

[Joey 9]

Oh...forgot about that...I have my email notice stuff turned off. XD

[Marked 197]

The reason for that is rather simple, people got e-mail notices about a PM here, so they went here to check what their PM was.

Yeah that's right, and by default the setting for members receiving emails when they get PMs is turned on. It's unfortunate because people will more likely spam real emails they may get from us, and any email sent out will probably appear in the spam/bulk folder.

[bobzombie 0]

At least there usually fairly easy to identify.

All of the ones so far have been some short cryptic link to a different site. There highly suspicious.

 

P.S. Is the message about new forum rules a spam? It looked suspicious, but I wasn't sure.

[IceSage 0]

The user "jurdreda" sent me a PM with the subject "From Administrator" and then the link says "New Forum Rules" and links off-site... probably to some spam site or something, I didn't check. jurdreda has 0 posts and obviously is not an admin.

[Unka Josh 0]

It's a link to the exact same site as the last PM.

[Joey 9]

The user "jurdreda" sent me a PM with the subject "From Administrator" and then the link says "New Forum Rules" and links off-site... probably to some spam site or something, I didn't check. jurdreda has 0 posts and obviously is not an admin.

I just got that very same pm just a moment ago, I'm reporting everything I get to Marked too...trying to figure out a way to stop them.

[Marked 197]

Alright I have installed the PM flood control. I was worried this may not work or mess with the forums because of a compatibility issue, but everything seems fine. I tested sending a PM from a members account. The PM sent, and I could not sent another until 5 minutes later. So all is working so far.

 

If anyone finds any errors within the message system it is important they're reported to me.

 

The flood control is for every member and it is 5 minutes. So you can send 1 pm every 5 minutes. Staff dont have any flood control.

 

Reporting any spam PMs is important also.

[Noob Saibot 38]

Sorry for post in old topic, but perhaps you should look into a PM Modification:

 

Messenger Captcha

 

Messenger Captcha is a hook that shows the captcha while composing a new personal message, for members with X amount of posts, or less. As long as the hook is enabled, it will show the captcha regardless of the global antispam setting.

 

 

 

 

You can get it from Invision Power Resources or just ask me and I'll hook you up with download.

[Marked 197]

You seem to be addressing me alot in forum posts... you can just PM me.

 

Well this was an old issue where bots were PMing everyone on the forums. Oh, this reminds me, i really should run a query to remove all of those PMs from the database.

 

I am aware of this modification, but we don't need it. We solved this issue by using that captcha system(which was new at the time) to stop the bots registering. Besides, there are ways around this without installing a mod. Personally I dont want every member having to type in a message to send a PM. At times of low activity, the last thing we need is to make it more difficult to communicate on the forum.

 

Topic Locked, otherwise send me a PM.