Tired of porn spam

[BobMielke]

Just got an e-mail from a pervert sending links to male porn sites. He came up with a membership list from the sport touring forum that just rebuilt itself from a hacker's attacks. This old world is so full of sick people it's a wonder God hasn't destroyed it yet. Fortunately, unlike Sodom, there are still some decent folks left. What makes these creeps tick?

[knary]

$$$

[DarrylRi]

It's the American Way (tm).

I run the Vintage Club's website (http://www.vintagebmw.org). We have a forum also, but it's based on an open source (read, free) BBS. There was an "exploit" that was published against this software, and someone decided to use it on the forum. Ok, so I took up the project and rebuilt the forum, making sure that the patch against the exploit was in place.

Then, I had lots of people signing up to drop spam into the forum. Ok, so I implemented all of the BBS' tools. This got rid of the casual spammers, but it turns out that someone has developed a script that can add users and spam posts.

I started out by banning IP addresses and, eventually, whole swaths of IP ranges. Although most of the zombie computers that were running this script were in Taiwan or Korea or China, not all of them were. I wanted to leave one category open so that VBMWMO members could contact me when they had problems logging into the forum, but that just attracted more spammers, so now everything is closed.

Then I got smart(er) and changed the names of some of the input fields in the registration area. That stopped the script cold. I still see "visitors" from the control panel that are in impossible states, which is a signal to me that the scripts are still being run against the forum, but failing.

I also run the /2 mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/slash2/) over on Yahoo!. It used to be open, but then I started having a number of people come by and dump spam. So then I changed the group settings to enroll new members under moderation. I would then unmoderate them after a day or so. This got rid of most of the spammers, but eventually I had several instances of spammers who were persistent enough to wait and check to see when I had unmoderated them before unloading. Now, nobody gets unmoderated until they make a posting that's relevant. Every week I see people join and then within minutes or a few hours, leave. I can only presume that I have in each instance frustrated another potential spammer. It's a damned inconvenience for me, and it means that new posters (who may be working on their bikes or have some other desperate question) have to wait until I can see their pending post and release it.

Why can't these folks get a real life?

Anyway, it's all a part of the routine for anyone trying to provide a safe place on the web to discuss some cherished topic. You should thank the MOA's web team for being so completely on the ball that we almost never see anything
disturbing here. It's a full time job, believe me.

[moa84843]

"This old world is so full of sick people it's a wonder God hasn't destroyed it yet."

Now that is believing in a forgiving God!

[snoone]

I get a firewall report from our business server every morning..It's unbelievable how many IP's are rejected . Sometimes there are hundreds of attacks of scripts or automatic hacking programs that try and infiltrate our system.. Once a hacker got in and was sending out thousands of emails from our IP.. Security is a big issue for anyone in business that has a server than can be seen from the outside over the internet. And yes its usually money driving these hackers.

[Belquar]

"This old world is so full of sick people it's a wonder God hasn't destroyed it yet."

Now that is believing in a forgiving God!

Oh my goodness. :lurk :lurk :lurk :lurk :drink :drink :drink :lurk :lurk :lurk
This could get interesting.

[username]

please keep it civil.

[Hodag]

This old world is so full of sick people it's a wonder God hasn't destroyed it yet.

What do you think of when you see a rainbow in the sky, remember the promise to Noah?

[Visian]

I get a firewall report from our business server every morning..It's unbelievable how many IP's are rejected . Sometimes there are hundreds of attacks of scripts or automatic hacking programs that try and infiltrate our system.. Once a hacker got in and was sending out thousands of emails from our IP.. Security is a big issue for anyone in business that has a server than can be seen from the outside over the internet. And yes its usually money driving these hackers.

I just finished producing a project promoting a new security technology that blocks attackers in the "cloud" before they even reach your firewall, because if these attacks get bad enough they can clog your access pipe and degrade your service to desireable traffic before your servers go down.

Millions of PCs have become compromised through adware/malware and can be used in coordinated Denial of Service and other forms of attacks against servers. These bot armies can be rented by the hour and are used for everything from sending spam to bringing down servers.

[Visian]

please keep it civil.

:uhoh

[Bob_M]

Just got an e-mail from a pervert sending links to male porn sites. He came up with a membership list from the sport touring forum that just rebuilt itself from a hacker's attacks. ...

Just tag it as spam (or junk) and hit the delete button. It is no matter if the spammer is an agent of cultural disintigration, or just some shlub trying to hook random targets into buying his wares, just delete it. Spend your time and energy on things you can change and disregard annoying emails for the trivia that they are.
Just my $0.02.

[GRANT63RT]

FWIW

I use a mac at home and have a .mac account. In almost 4 years I've never gotten any x rated spam. The only bulk e-mails I get are from companies I've done business with. When I go to work, I log on to my PC and spend 15 minutes deleting unwanted e-mails every day, most of it with some sexual content.

I'm not an IT person at all so I'm not sure what this means, but it seems odd to me. :dunno

[glwestcott]

Just tag it as spam (or junk) and hit the delete button. It is no matter if the spammer is an agent of cultural disintigration, or just some shlub trying to hook random targets into buying his wares, just delete it. Spend your time and energy on things you can change and disregard annoying emails for the trivia that they are.
Just my $0.02.

+1

[basketcase]

If obsession is a hallmark of psychosis, then a lot of people are psychotic about sex...

Their weird proclivities notwithstanding, the spammers are pitiful examples of humanity who need to find a real life (and leave the rest of us alone).

[jmerlino]

If obsession is a hallmark of psychosis, then a lot of people are psychotic about sex...

Their weird proclivities notwithstanding, the spammers are pitiful examples of humanity who need to find a real life (and leave the rest of us alone).

I don't think it's the spammers who have the proclivities. They're just in it for a buck.

My favorite kind of spam? Spam that offers to sell me spamming software!

[RebeccaV]

I use a mac at home and have a .mac account. In almost 4 years I've never gotten any x rated spam.
+1 But in my case I am a recent convert to Mac. If I go to my Gmail account online I can see all of the spam that has been filtered by the Mac Mail program. I love it.

[PAULBACH]

I really don't know the in and out of all this technical stuff. But now I appreciate those IT folks more than ever.

I only use YAHOO for email and let them do the heavy lifting. I just don't download anything into my computer anymore because of the many problems you have described.

THANKS AGAIN IT FOLKS

[riderR1150GSAdv]

Knary hit it right on the nose......... $$$$ . Nothing else seems to matter anymore in this day and age. :cry

[kbasa]

Mozilla Thunderbird is a wonderful email program that manages to catch and junk about 99.9% of the spam I get. It takes a few days to "train" it, but after that, it just runs itself.

I check in my junk mail folder periodically to make sure it's not marking non junk as junk, but that happens less and less often as it matures and learns more.

Free, too.

[john1691]

+1 I am a recent convert to Mac

I'm about to upgrade a computer and have been looking at the MAC's for this same reason. After speaking with several computer geeks (no offense intended) it sounds like the idiots writing viruses are starting to turn their attention on MAC's, since there are more and more out there, it is worth their time to mess with them. I priced comparable systems and the MAC was $800 more than a PC.......still not sure what to do, that $800 could go toward a GPS, bag liners, winter pants, nicer jacket, "Blue Tooth" ready helmet, a weekend trip with hotel and steak dinner, some really good cigars, heated gloves,........................................... ..

john1691
2000 K1200RS

[cjack]

I use a campus (University of IL) email service. The spam filter is very good and I just get an occasional penny stock tip, etc. The other 100 or so spams per day are all filtered out. Works well for me.
It is compatible with all windows systems, but Mac OS has to be 10 or higher for no web browser support issues.

[jld2872]

I'm about to upgrade a computer and have been looking at the MAC's for this same reason. After speaking with several computer geeks (no offense intended) it sounds like the idiots writing viruses are starting to turn their attention on MAC's, since there are more and more out there, it is worth their time to mess with them. I priced comparable systems and the MAC was $800 more than a PC.......still not sure what to do, that $800 could go toward a GPS, bag liners, winter pants, nicer jacket, "Blue Tooth" ready helmet, a weekend trip with hotel and steak dinner, some really good cigars, heated gloves,........................................... ..

john1691
2000 K1200RS

I did the same exercise when purchasing a new computer this summer for one of my kids who was heading off to college. I ended up buying the PC, but it was not the right decision. By the time that you purchase/subscribe to all of the software that you need to protect yourself from malicious spam, the price spread narrows to nearly a toss up. The MAC is still marginally more expensive, but the relative freedom from this incessant spam bovine excreta that bombards our computers is worth the extra dough IMO.

[GlobalRider]

What makes these creeps tick?

$$$, that is why their lives are so empty.

Worse yet...since supply is usually a function of demand, it tells you something about the very sorry state of society. There must be a lot of very lonely frustrated people out there, cause if porn didn't sell, you wouldn't receive spam.

[kbasa]

I did the same exercise when purchasing a new computer this summer for one of my kids who was heading off to college. I ended up buying the PC, but it was not the right decision. By the time that you purchase/subscribe to all of the software that you need to protect yourself from malicious spam, the price spread narrows to nearly a toss up. The MAC is still marginally more expensive, but the relative freedom from this incessant spam bovine excreta that bombards our computers is worth the extra dough IMO.

I got a Mac about a year ago.

What you described above was what made me consider a Mac in the first place, but what really sold me was the software.

I turned my Mac on, plugged my digital camera into it and it just started pulling pictures down into iPhoto. I made a video with digital data from my viddycam. I loaded my music into iTunes. There was already a nice mail package and web browser loaded. There's a simple word processor. It even has a built in webcam.

I really haven't had to buy any software for this machine to do what I need it to do. It manages all my digital media and handles the rest of my communications needs really well.

For what it's worth, my iPod a year earlier was my gateway drug. :ha

[bubbagazoo]

I am the IT guy (one of 3 to be totally truthful). Spam is one of those things that you only ever try to play catch up on. The bad buys have more time on their hands and more incentive ($$$) to figure ways around spam filtering tools than the legitimate e-mail sys admins do. If they charge their customers 10 cents for every response and they send out 1 million messages and get a 5% response level, they have made $500.00 with very little overhead on their part. Considering the numbers I have used here are quite small in the overall spam market, you can see that there is a lot of money to be made.

Most spam does not come from dedicated servers that are scripted to send the e-mail. Rather, it comes from bot-nets. Networks of home and business computers that have been infected with any one of a number of Windows hacks, viri and Trojans. These infections, once activated, log into an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) room and retrieve instructions. These instructions can be anything from what and to whom to send spam to just sit and wait. If the infection cannot connect with its first choice of IRC server, it checks another and so on until it can receive instructions. These bot-nets can be 10 or 20 infected PCs or they can be several hundred. And, there are hundreds of these bot-nets operating at any one time. The ones that have been tracked down to their original source tend to be Russian, Korean and Taiwanese.

We have been using a Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall for the past month. As I write this note, 264,000 e-mail connections have been directed at the appliance (28 days). Of that total, 225,500 attempted messages have been blocked. Another 1400 have been blocked because they contained viri. Only 31,200 messages have been accepted for delivery. That is approximately 12%. And, I am still tweaking on the settings to improve the effectiveness of the appliance. I am convinced I can get that number down below 10%.

Oh, Macs are my preferred platform although I would probably say I am multi-lingual.

[BubbaZanetti]

+1 for the Mac

i got my MacBook last week.

it's small, sleek, well designed, ergonomically perfect, powerful and much more "solid" feeling (both software and build wise) than most pcs i've encountered......oh yeah, and i just restart it, hold the "option" key and it'll give me the choice to boot windows xp.


i use gmail, i don't get much spam. spam seems to be attracted to those who are less than careful when making their way though daily business on the internet

[BradfordBenn]

I am going through the spammers at yearroundriders.com. The new twist, people are being paid to register at the sites and drop spam. Really is not a good way to filter those out, even including registration e-mails.

As a webmaster of a few domains the amount of spam I get is counted in the daily 1,000's. Thunderbird does a pretty good job of keeping them out.

But the internet is just like every place else, don't talk to strangers! And there are all sorts of neighborhoods and not everyone likes every neighborhood.

[knary]

I'm about to upgrade a computer and have been looking at the MAC's for this same reason. After speaking with several computer geeks (no offense intended) it sounds like the idiots writing viruses are starting to turn their attention on MAC's, since there are more and more out there, it is worth their time to mess with them. I priced comparable systems and the MAC was $800 more than a PC.......still not sure what to do, that $800 could go toward a GPS, bag liners, winter pants, nicer jacket, "Blue Tooth" ready helmet, a weekend trip with hotel and steak dinner, some really good cigars, heated gloves,........................................... ..

john1691
2000 K1200RS

The price difference I've seen is about 10 to 20%, last I checked. If all you need is an e-mail/web browsing box, a PC is the economical choice. As for viruses, there's little more than rumors of possibilities of viruses on macs - as of right now. FWIW, I am one of those annoying Mac users.

[snoone]

+1 here for the Macs.. After macmail preferences are set or trained virtually no spam gets in. This mornings mail saw 0 spam in my box and no junk mail

[linkadink77]

I get those too. They spell the profanity wrong so my pc doesn't pick it up as spam. I hate it too Bob. :bluduh

[jmerlino]

i got my MacBook last week.
Hey, I got a MacBook too! I even partitioned the disc and put Windows XP on the other partition. This computer will now run pretty much any application I've ever wanted.

[username]

I get those too. They spell the profanity wrong so my pc doesn't pick it up as spam. I hate it too Bob. :bluduh

is it still profanity if it is spelled incorrectly? http://www.advrider.com/forums/images/smilies/headscratch.gif


:ha

[Fritzc]

is it still profanity if it is spelled incorrectly?

Gosh Darned if I know!

:)

[OUTBACKUFO]

It is anoying to get the spam of any kind on you email.... though it is better than hardcopy spam (junk mail) that is just a waste on the enviroment than electronic spam... espeically if you go to Vegas....

[BubbaZanetti]

Hey, I got a MacBook too! I even partitioned the disc and put Windows XP on the other partition. This computer will now run pretty much any application I've ever wanted.


bootcamp or parallels????


i'm cheap, i got the bootcamp for free.

[Junkle]

"i use gmail"

Better you than I. The data mining that Google (especially Gmail) does I find bothersome at best, frightening at worst (do they really need cookies that collect data for 30 years?). If you poke around you'd be surprised at what Google has become/is becoming. An intersting link:

http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Of course I'm one of those nutcases who hates the fact that the grocery store tracks my purchases too . . . black helicopters?! Run!!!

j.

edited to add link

[James.A]

My tech guy re-formatted my hard drive and I quit looking for free porn on the internet. Problem solved. Your results may vary.

[jmerlino]

bootcamp or parallels????


i'm cheap, i got the bootcamp for free.

Bootcamp. Works just fine.

[dancogan]

Hey, I got a MacBook too! I even partitioned the disc and put Windows XP on the other partition. This computer will now run pretty much any application I've ever wanted.

Joe, is it very difficult to partition the disc? How does your Garmin software work? Any problem recognizing the GPS? I'm looking for a laptop and am considering an Apple. (My wife is a teacher who uses one, and if I use one I can help her on the rare occasions that she needs it.)

[jmerlino]

Joe, is it very difficult to partition the disc? How does your Garmin software work? Any problem recognizing the GPS? I'm looking for a laptop and am considering an Apple. (My wife is a teacher who uses one, and if I use one I can help her on the rare occasions that she needs it.)
So far, no problems. Partitioning the disc is very easy, especially if you accept the default options. Mapsource installed without any problems. Haven't had a chance to try hooking up the GPS yet, but I'll update this when I do. I didn't see any issues with the USB connectivity in the documentation, so I don't think it'll be a problem.

[dancogan]

So far, no problems. Partitioning the disc is very easy, especially if you accept the default options. Mapsource installed without any problems. Haven't had a chance to try hooking up the GPS yet, but I'll update this when I do. I didn't see any issues with the USB connectivity in the documentation, so I don't think it'll be a problem.
Thanks. (hijack off, with apologies) :uhoh

[Dick]

"i use gmail"

Better you than I. The data mining that Google (especially Gmail) does I find bothersome at best, frightening at worst (do they really need cookies that collect data for 30 years?). If you poke around you'd be surprised at what Google has become/is becoming. An intersting link:

http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Of course I'm one of those nutcases who hates the fact that the grocery store tracks my purchases too . . . black helicopters?! Run!!!

j.

edited to add link


Here you go :laugh

http://www.smugmug.com/photos/69531143-L.jpg

I use gmail and I bet the program falls asleep when it gets to my inbox.

[BubbaZanetti]

I use gmail and I bet the program falls asleep when it gets to my inbox.



lol, ditto, all my "juicy" stuff is in myspace