Spam being received in PM form.

[System]

Logic forms to follow that it was inevitable that we've received the first real complaints of spam sent via Private Message.  Accordingly, the "glad225" account (which was established today and instantly started sending spam PM's) was deleted and all the PM's they ever sent were removed from the system.

Personally speaking, I am rather frustrated over this new development, because unlike some other CMS systems, Xoops 2.x has yet to put in the anti-bot verifications to keep this type thing from happening.

We will be watching new registrations carefully, and will not hesitate to remove bogus accounts (and ban their IP) in the future.  Should this problem accelerate, we have very few options left to us other than to move to another, more secure content management system, or to hire a developer to add protections to the current system.  Neither of which are really feasible right now....

Suggestions, or nuclear weapons, would be appreciated.

Wayne

[alx]

Is there some site where you can post the IP so other webmasters can block it?  If not, you could always set up your own...

[minator]

Suggestions, or nuclear weapons, would be appreciated.

Will this do  :-D

[cecilia]

if everyone who gets anything like this reports it to you, and you know the IP, etc, reporting that to the FTC (federal trade commision) uce@ftc.gov may be the best way to go at the moment.

[Acill]

What the hell? That is just plain nutz!! Spammers are getting out of hand. I hope something in the future is done to get after them for things like that. Couldnt this be considered hacking?

[Matt_H]

I really don't like weapons, but spammers are the one case where I would welcome their availability and use.

[whabang]

Suggestions, or nuclear weapons, would be appreciated.

Report them!

[platon42]

Nuts? It's getting desperate. Last year, spammers started spamming guestbooks. I run one on my homepage, and gladfully have two questions that nicely protect me against these entries (age and toothbrush color). A few days ago, I had 20 attempts within 4 minutes to generate spam entries (each using a different IP address) -- all of them in vain (once in a while, some get through, but normally these are typed in by some poor people in india making a living on that kind of work -- have to remove these manually). Nevertheless, I do get a notification email about this. It *is* annoying.

[Framiga]

Hi

often it's not so easy to detect the real source of the spammer.

I don't know in this particular situation, if the return path is really by the user account or he is a victim himself!

The risk is to report an abuse, to a guy that has no fault.

Ciao

[Brian]

It's not that hard to see if a source is true or false but it can be hard to find the true sources IRL information.

When banning with Xoops2 have you the abillity to ban not only IP but also MAC adresses? Static IP isn't all that common so ban of IP isn't helping much these days (Doomy is a prime example).

[System]

Suggestion; use a CMS that DOES have anti-bot checks?

Neko

[Piru]

When banning with Xoops2 have you the abillity to ban not only IP but also MAC adresses?

MAC address is not visible outside of your collision domain. That is the MAC address is only visible within your LAN.

This means you can't ban anyone by the NICs MAC address.

Also: MAC addresses are not unique, and most NICs allow you to change the MAC address if needed. It wouldn't work anyway...

[Brian]

That's weird cause I was mod on a onlinegame a few years back and the bansystem worked on both IP and MAC. I also thought that the MAC was unique but if not and it can in deed be changed then never mind.

[Hyperspeed]

Y'know the Russians and Americans have in the past had 3,000
atmospheric tests each of those atom bombs. Where on earth did they
test them? They complained the French were testing a few underground
years ago but the 2x super continents are just crackpots!

With regards to this spam, a week ago I had my first spam EVER and I'm
pretty sure it was due to Amiga.org.

I had one e-mail asking me to go to Woolwich.co.uk and verify my
account details, the other was HSBC I think. Classic phishing really
but still quite an eerie feeling that someone is that cunning out
there and thinks you are that stupid.

I hope when Wayne goes hunting the spammers he forgives genuine users
who have deliberately altered their e-mail addresses to avoid the
Xoops spammers!

:-o

[System]

In an online game, the MMAC address can be passed as part of the packet itself, but normal Web browsers don't currently pass that information.  It can be changed on certain operating systems, but honestly I can only see illicit reasons for doing so, such as software piracy.