SPAM PMs
 

I've been informed that several fake accounts were created in the last few days which are sending SPAM via PM to members.

I will work ASAP on disabling the accounts that were identified to me and looking for possible other accounts sending SPAM. This will take a little while, so please be patient.

Also, although I've been concentrating on the Sex Listings software upgrade plus daily editing and maintenance of CFS, if time allows I'm going to try to change the "Human Verification" used for registering new accounts. We want to exclude SPAM-bots or other bots as much as possible.

~ Bob

Quick update, I found 24 different related user accounts which were connected with the SPAM, thousands of SPAM messages. I think I've disabled these accounts.

Will be taking a break, then later coming back to look at the registration form's "human verification" function.

One thing I have always wondered about -

Why don't the software makers add something that limits the number of messages user accounts can send in one day?

I don't think anyone real person needs to be able to send more that say 20 messages in a day - and for the SPAMers to have to set up accounts to only send 20 messages does not seem like it would be worth it to them...

That's a very sensible question! Even though the Message Board software is years out of date and versions behind, it makes great sense to have that sort of limit. I'll check if it's built in. It might have been an add-on for our version.

FYI, after the Sex Listings software upgrade (going slowly...) there is a new version of the software for the Message Board which should also be more mobile-friendly, etc.

Checking the Settings for PMs, what I found is there is no limit-per-day available. Instead, what it has is a delay time in between sending one message and being able to send another message.

That delay time had been sent to 20 seconds. I remember finding that frustrating if I was sending a long message explaining something, and had to break it into two messages. Doesn't happen often...

I increased the delay time to 60 seconds, will consider increasing it more if we need to.

Hope that works -

So frustrating the way SPAM fills the Internet (and don't get me started on Robo Calls!)

Whoever sent the SPAM registered new users and sent additional messages. I'll be working with this further.