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EVIL SPAMMERS - & how we deal with them

Once in while we get attacked with SPAM and I normally catch it within minutes then kill and delete the contributor's content and membership. I've put a note on the home page to reassure everyone about last night's little spam attack.

That's the Net I guess for you, you can't always be sure someone new joining is who they say they are until they then start a SPAM attack. But no harm can come of it, and they don't get anyone's details from here. That is all secure. I also log the event with Ning.com and they ban the IP address which helps.

The one night I'm not online and they got through is a bit galling, but be assured I am forever vigilant and hopefully any members who wondered what happened will be okay with it and the few who left the site will come back now too.

Kind regards

Jon

p.s. If anyone is concerned or wishes to know more about this please do feel free to contact me or talk about it on this discussion thread.

Tags: monty, python, spam, tv

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on January 28, 2010 at 3:27pm: Those who expect to see a comment on their profile page from the 'Lucy' spammer won't, I deleted all the spammers content. A search on Google looks like the same attack happened on lots of sites over the past 3 days. And there I was thinking we were special - lol :-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on February 3, 2010 at 10:27am: Dear Spammers, it's just not worth joining and then spamming this site as the vigilant members report you in minutes and you get banned and all your content deleted in seconds, so best you look elsewhere.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Barbara Southby on March 4, 2010 at 7:21am: Hi Jon,

This is a great site that I have used a lot (I'm a lurker by nature but have "come out" on a few discussions!), there's loads of great info.

I'm getting a bit concerned about the number of obviously fake users though. There seem to be an awful lot of pharmaceutical adverts appearing in the blog posts. Is it something you're planning to try and stop?

Thanks for an otherwise brilliant site.

Barbara; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on March 4, 2010 at 9:05am: Hi there, yes it seems Ning in general is being targeted by automated spammers and as they appear I'm deleting them both from PC and on my mobile. They are a nuisance and Ning, the platform this site is built on, is working on a way to target their IP addresses and deal with it.

As the process seems to be automated it poses only a nuisance and no ones details are at risk.

I could turn the site into a more private one, whereby users will only be able to view the home page or all new members have to be vetted first. I'm loathed to do that as it could deter real people from joining and enjoying the growing amount of useful info and engagement the site has.

I'm monitoring it daily and hourly so will keep everyone up to date via this discussion.

Thanks for the kind words about the site.

Cheers

Jon; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on March 4, 2010 at 4:27pm: Hi everyone, in the interim and after more spam mongers today trying and failing to join our lovely site, I've changed the joining rules, so that anyone new has to be approved first before they can post. I hope it doesn't put anyone new and real off, in fact one could look at it as a bonus to all, everyone here is genuine, so spread the word and ask your friends and family to join, and I shall be around most of the time approving bonafide people once I get pinged by email or mobile text.

Have a great spam free day!

Jon; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Barbara Southby on March 4, 2010 at 4:41pm: Hi,

Personally I think that most geniune people wouldn't be put off by having to be approved. I know I wouldn't if I knew that I was entering a site that spammers and bots couldn't get to.

Thanks for your comments and for looking into it, which I know you were doing before I stuck my nose in!

Barbara

Jon Clarke said:
Hi everyone, in the interim and after more spam mongers today trying and failing to join our lovely site, I've changed the joining rules, so that anyone new has to be approved first before they can post. I hope it doesn't put anyone new and real off, in fact one could look at it as a bonus to all, everyone here is genuine, so spread the word and ask your friends and family to join, and I shall be around most of the time approving bonafide people once I get pinged by email or mobile text.

Have a great spam free day!

Jon; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by alypen on March 6, 2010 at 2:03am: I must say, if anything were to put people off, I'd say it'd be trying to read that *huge* page of Ts&Cs. I'm not sure I understood more than 80% of it.

Jon Clarke said:
Hi everyone, in the interim and after more spam mongers today trying and failing to join our lovely site, I've changed the joining rules, so that anyone new has to be approved first before they can post. I hope it doesn't put anyone new and real off, in fact one could look at it as a bonus to all, everyone here is genuine, so spread the word and ask your friends and family to join, and I shall be around most of the time approving bonafide people once I get pinged by email or mobile text.

Have a great spam free day!

Jon; ▶ Reply to This