Forum 2.0

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  • Luke Blanchard January 31, 2013 at 9:06am

    I'm sorry to hear that, JHK. If the spammers send the messages through the board (that is, if what you've been getting are automatic messages telling you a message has been left for you) you might be able to stop  this by resetting your Email settings. When you're logged in, click on "Settings" on the upper right to get your My Settings page. You'll find the link to the Email settings page on the upper left.

     

    I haven't had this problem, and can't offer a good suggestion as to why I don't and you do. I think spammers tend to victimise newer members because the Members page on its default setting lists newest members first. I don't know how spammers manage to send personal messages without getting their targets to friend them first. Someone else might be able to explain this.

     

    I don't know if this is relevant, but I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, so I haven't enabled sharing with them.

  • JHK January 31, 2013 at 10:10am

    Thanks, Luke. I don't bother with Twitter and Facebook either. I think the spams are what you more accurately describe as an attempt to "friend", then if I bite (too smart for that), they have a live one. Anyway, it's only a few times, and if it gets worse, I'll change my email info.

  • PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod January 31, 2013 at 2:02pm

    I've deleted Stacy and another member for spamming.

  • Lee Semmens January 31, 2013 at 11:24pm

    I have got a couple of these over the past two years, through this board from people I have never heard of (including "Stacy", a day or so ago), claiming they wanted to befriend me, or some such thing.

    I suspect both were just some sort of scam, and indeed when I googled the first one, it confirmed my suspicions as a "Nigerian scam" type of thing - he was also operating in Africa.

    I just ignored and deleted them.

  • Richard Willis February 1, 2013 at 12:50am

    I received one from Stacy, too. It's happened a couple of times since I joined.

    It's generally made to sound like a sexy woman who is somehow fascinated with the person receiving the email.

    Pretty transparent. 

  • Kirk G February 1, 2013 at 1:07am

    What???Q!!!  You turned down that EASY MONEY?   How un-american of you!

  • JHK February 1, 2013 at 11:50am

    It was obviously a scam. I just wanted to bring it to this site's attention in case there was a possibility of avoiding scammers from getting our email addresses. 2 years ago, my hotmail email was spoofed. No one had actual access to the account, but my address was used to send thousands of spams out; I'd have hundreds of MAILER DAEMON notices in my junk mail, which also occasionally contained real emails. The only thing I could do was close the account, losing all my contacts, drafts, etc. No fun.

  • Richard Willis February 1, 2013 at 12:18pm

    In many cases your own computer can be used by hackers to send out spam and denial of service attacks. Everyone should have bi-directional firewalls and strong anti-malware. If spyware is installed on your computer they can either read all your keystrokes (account numbers, passwords) or they can send out, as you said, thousands of emails that look like they came from you. You might not be aware of it until the FBI knocks on your door. A bi-directional firewall stops installations from hackers and also asks you if you really want installed software to automatically send out mail, etc. This applies to Macs as well as other PCs. Also, strong passwords on email accounts are necessary. They also have "robot" programs that can guess commonly used passwords.

  • Captain Comics February 1, 2013 at 12:51pm

    I encourage all Legionnaires to report board spam with a quickness. We will find and delete the spammers immediately!

  • JHK February 1, 2013 at 12:59pm

    Richard: Great info. Never heard of bi-directional firewalls before; will look into that. The weird thing with my spoofed account was how they were sent not from my computer; it was turned completely off. And Microsoft/Hotmail was clueless how to rectify my problem. I started using hotmail in the 90s so that I would never need to have a new email account (right after the old aol email accounts everybody had).

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