Another bot?

[oddjobber]

in the past few days i have gotten 3 spam pm messages..different profiles each time. whats going on?

[Gyev]

I can only imagine how many unnecessary reports the mods received.

[Darechallenges]

True. I just reported my second one, when I saw the users currently online in the forum... The site seems to have an issue. I hope you can solve it without too much work involved!

[Gyev]

Sure, keep spamming the reports section, so the mods will have an additional work to do, because surely they haven't noticed these bots yet

[Sam~]

yes, best not to report them. Or more serious matters will get missed or slowed down. Reporting each spam pm is not going to help anyone. There are thousands......

There doing what they can. Hope they can think of a long term solution though.

[oddjobber]

since there is no real trouble ticket system, a thread like this for spam reporting is worth while. spam within the site is potential sign of greater underlying problems. it should be reported, at least somewhere, so mods or admins can track frequency and trends. any information will help them diagnose and resolve the problem.

[lola.fox]

There are currently 35 pages of reports about spam since Riskyflame posted not to report it.. it's safe to say no moderator will be looking at reports for quite awhile. If you have an urgent matter, pm someone, as your report will likely go unread.

[Gyev]

Originally Posted by oddjobber

since there is no real trouble ticket system, a thread like this for spam reporting is worth while. spam within the site is potential sign of greater underlying problems. it should be reported, at least somewhere, so mods or admins can track frequency and trends. any information will help them diagnose and resolve the problem.

I think you don't realise how annoying being flooded with the reports is. Among your hundreds or dozens of reports, there may be one real report about something unrelated to the obvious problem, which will remain unnoticed, because some folks decided to spam the reports section. Between all reports saying "another bot who sends messages" (while it's already known to everybody) there may be one report on a vile member who acts against the rules, and no one will see this report.

Besides, a staff member in another thread already asked people to stop reporting.

EDIT: And now another staff member said the same

Well, congratulations fellow members, your reports are so helpful that no one is even going to read them And unfortunately important reports won't be read neither because of that.

[oddjobber]

reports should be filed..not saying each pm needs to be reported but when you start getting them everyday when you havent before, theres clearly an unresolved issue.

if high priority issues are being missed, theres a problem with the reporting system as well.

[Gyev]

Originally Posted by oddjobber

reports should be filed..not saying each pm needs to be reported but when you start getting them everyday when you havent before, theres clearly an unresolved issue.

if high priority issues are being missed, theres a problem with the reporting system as well.

I'm on the invisible mode and haven't received a single message from a bot.

[oddjobber]

Originally Posted by Gyev

I'm on the invisible mode and haven't received a single message from a bot.

i'm getting them twice a day now amd not when i am online..never got any prior to a few days ago. just seems to me that theres a new vulnerability being exploited

[Gyev]

Eh, nevermind....

[KittenLicks]

Originally Posted by oddjobber

i'm getting them twice a day now amd not when i am online..never got any prior to a few days ago. just seems to me that theres a new vulnerability being exploited

I'm just dropping in cause I'm curious, but what vulnerability might that be? I'm not an expert on bot nets, but from what I saw when signing up, there's no inherent security against this sort of thing, aside from the 'what colour is the sky' thing, which doesn't change. To the site's eyes, there's no difference between 1000 bots and 1000 users, except for the names and the fact that they all signed up together.

I'm a bit grateful this person is so practical, honestly. Imagine how annoying it would be if they had the bots spamming the forums.

[qmu]

Originally Posted by KittenLicks

I'm a bit grateful this person is so practical, honestly. Imagine how annoying it would be if they had the bots spamming the forums.

That happened with the last bot, I think it was in April? They kept spamming the AMA forum with pseudo-medicine advertisement...

[oddjobber]

well..if the bot can automate creating user accounts and spamming...theres a clear issue..where does the bot live? on the host site? thing like that...if they can spam pm safe to say they can do more. pm's might just keep them under the radar