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Unwanted Messages

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Hi

 

Does anyone know why we are suddenly being inundated with messages of an unsavoury nature.

 

It is driving me silly. So much so that I am very close to disabling the facility to receive all new topics direct to myself.

 

Regards

 

Half

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YES, they are driving me nuts. I contacted TMG but they said it was not them nor were they allowed to set up a new topic. My only alternative is to unsubscibe and then to block all messages from Wholly Genes to stop them. Some are pretty bad .. porn :angry:

 

 

 

Hi

 

Does anyone know why we are suddenly being inundated with messages of an unsavoury nature.

 

It is driving me silly. So much so that I am very close to disabling the facility to receive all new topics direct to myself.

 

Regards

 

Half

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This is a very serious problem affecting not only these WG forums but forums all over the Internet. I know that Wholly Genes, the site moderators, and the Senior Members are all very actively researching ways to block and/or minimize these messages.

 

These messages are occurring because spam programs are managing to automatically register with some random user name, then post their spam messages. The site moderators are doing the best they can to remove these messages and unregister these spurious accounts as quickly as they possibly can. They are also trying to discover ways to modify the computer programs controlling the forum to help prevent this from happening. However, I feel sure that Wholly Genes does want to continue to make it easy for new users to subscribe to the forum. It is a difficult problem and balancing act.

 

There is no need to unsubscribe. I don't know how quickly some changes to forum registration can be put in place. In the meantime, you could temporarily disable your forum personal preferences for having the forum automatically send you e-mail when a new posting occurs. Instead you could simply remember to login to the forum periodically and "View New Posts". At least that will prevent you receiving these messages via e-mail, and you can probably tell by the subject line on the list of new posts what messages you do not want to view.

 

Just to reassure you that you are not alone in being disturbed by these messages.

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Hi

 

Thank you for replying to my email.

 

I think I will just change my personal profile to not receive notifications for a while, and just check-in on a regular basis. Knowing how customer conscious Bob and his team are, I knew they would be doing everything they can.

 

I am not very computer literate etc so can someone please explain to me what these people gain from these.

 

Regards

 

Half

 

This is a very serious problem affecting not only these WG forums but forums all over the Internet. I know that Wholly Genes, the site moderators, and the Senior Members are all very actively researching ways to block and/or minimize these messages.

 

These messages are occurring because spam programs are managing to automatically register with some random user name, then post their spam messages. The site moderators are doing the best they can to remove these messages and unregister these spurious accounts as quickly as they possibly can. They are also trying to discover ways to modify the computer programs controlling the forum to help prevent this from happening. However, I feel sure that Wholly Genes does want to continue to make it easy for new users to subscribe to the forum. It is a difficult problem and balancing act.

 

There is no need to unsubscribe. I don't know how quickly some changes to forum registration can be put in place. In the meantime, you could temporarily disable your forum personal preferences for having the forum automatically send you e-mail when a new posting occurs. Instead you could simply remember to login to the forum periodically and "View New Posts". At least that will prevent you receiving these messages via e-mail, and you can probably tell by the subject line on the list of new posts what messages you do not want to view.

 

Just to reassure you that you are not alone in being disturbed by these messages.

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I am not very computer literate etc so can someone please explain to me what these people gain from these.

 

It is all about money, and P.T. Barnum's old phrase that there is a sucker born every minute. If they can send out thousands and thousands of these spam messages with a web link enclosed, "enough" people will click on that link, if only out of curiosity. One or both of the following will happen.

 

1) the site will automatically attempt to infect your computer. If successful it will monitor your keystrokes and capture your pin numbers and credit card numbers as you use your computer, and use those numbers to access those same accounts and steal your money or charge things to your credit card.

 

2) the site will attempt to entice you to buy something and have you submit your credit card number to do so. Not only will you not get what you supposedly ordered, but they will make lots of charges against your credit card.

 

If they send out a million of these spam messages and only one-half of one-percent of the recipients get caught, that is still 5000 people. If they can charge $1000 against each person, they have stolen $5 million. Not bad for just sending out some spam messages. This is not just a nuisance. People have lost their entire bank accounts and had massive problems clearing their name and cleaning up the debt incurred. It is a huge problem that law enforcement agencies all over the world are trying to deal with. Just last week China caught one of these perpetrators and executed them, so police are trying, but the profit for these people is enormous.

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Many of the forums, blogs or newsletters I subscribe to use an activatation of a new account. It sends you an email and you must go to a link to acknowledge that you are the person applying for the account. In addition, to combat bots, every time one submits comments, replies, messages, etc. one has to enter some random numbers/letters to prove on is human. If you go to this type of approach I favor all small letters ond a background that allows one to see the letters to type.

 

Eileen

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The same methods are used on this message board except for using a 'captcha' each time that a topic or reply is posted. Every time that such security features are updated, it's just a matter of time before the bots are updated to get around them. This is a war that never ends.

 

The way that the board has now been updated, the bots will eventually be able to post spam again; however, only the moderators will see such topics or replies and the board users will never see them.

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