Deadly Sushi
Formerly The Giant Mojito
If I find out who the hell is responsible for this spam Im going to freaking KILL them!
Whats with all this freakin spam??
- Thread starter Deadly Sushi
- Start date
The Tourist
Banned
I had quite a lengthy telephone conversation with Mike Crenshaw (calls himself 'hso' on the THR forum) about the rash of spam and porn entries that have cropped up on numerous forums.
I have always secretly wondered if the impetus of things like this were akin to "union organizing" in the 1930's. In other words, someone with an idea and a few bucks decides to develop a revenue stream (be it forum advertising, union garbage services, porn sites, etc.) and makes a bold move to consolidate his share of the market.
For example, think of Rupert Murdock.
If an unscrupulous company can't buy your shares or buy you outright, they trash your business and drive away clients. Then when your business is about to fail, they sweep in and buy it for a song.
On just about every forum I've seen there are numerous annoying banner advertising pitches. Some of them are not happy with just the banner, but they are starting to show ads along the margins. Computer forums are just an untapped area to sell ad space.
Mike Crenshaw and I began our conversation with the fight for control on his forum. In a corporate version of "cutting your nose off to spite your face," their forum and clients' ads were shut down for about twelve hours.
The funny part is that Mike and I saw this coming about six months ago. It's no secret that I have a small retirement business, but I couldn't afford to undergo the mudslinging a long-term affair might bring.
To make sure my company was not involved, I asked Mike to ban me. In that manner any shrapnel from a ugly fight never touched me, or my company's reputation.
I could always say, "It's not my affair, I left months ago."
I have always secretly wondered if the impetus of things like this were akin to "union organizing" in the 1930's. In other words, someone with an idea and a few bucks decides to develop a revenue stream (be it forum advertising, union garbage services, porn sites, etc.) and makes a bold move to consolidate his share of the market.
For example, think of Rupert Murdock.
If an unscrupulous company can't buy your shares or buy you outright, they trash your business and drive away clients. Then when your business is about to fail, they sweep in and buy it for a song.
On just about every forum I've seen there are numerous annoying banner advertising pitches. Some of them are not happy with just the banner, but they are starting to show ads along the margins. Computer forums are just an untapped area to sell ad space.
Mike Crenshaw and I began our conversation with the fight for control on his forum. In a corporate version of "cutting your nose off to spite your face," their forum and clients' ads were shut down for about twelve hours.
The funny part is that Mike and I saw this coming about six months ago. It's no secret that I have a small retirement business, but I couldn't afford to undergo the mudslinging a long-term affair might bring.
To make sure my company was not involved, I asked Mike to ban me. In that manner any shrapnel from a ugly fight never touched me, or my company's reputation.
I could always say, "It's not my affair, I left months ago."
The Tourist
Banned
I would like to further add that Mike Crenshaw knows that what we are seeing is a systematic foreign attack. This barrage of unwanted advertising and serious porn comes from companies overseas, and is not connected to any members here at NC.
If anyone doubts my claims, they should also speak with my SIL.
Additionally, we picked up some domestic problems over the past several weeks. Both of us have needed special "deep cleaning" software programs directly from Microsoft.
We both received a serious "Trojan" virus. In simple terms, not only did we get the thing, but part of the program shattered like shrapnel, placing tiny lines of code into our existing programs.
Even with traditional spyware cleaners, some of 'pieces' remained, allowing the virus operators a "backdoor" into my computer. They didn't get much from me but e-amil addresses. However, to one smarty-pants Romanian virus creator, there are two dozen bikers who would like to speak with you.
The Microsoft programmer gave me two specially designed programs with lines of code for these styles of virus. They found 61 traces that my normal spy program could not identify.
Now, let me calm your fears. This was about a week before I came here. I ran these special programs--as well as my normal anti-spyware programs--daily for about ten days in a row as I closed my computer down for the night.
Other than cookies, my computer is clean.
But let me add this, this is no time for finger pointing. No one here infected the group. No one here is a ringleader or should be identified as unschooled. This is one heck of a country-wide spam and virus campaign.
My advice is to contact your local computer geeks periodically, and check for newer versions of Malware with new lines of code.
If anyone doubts my claims, they should also speak with my SIL.
Additionally, we picked up some domestic problems over the past several weeks. Both of us have needed special "deep cleaning" software programs directly from Microsoft.
We both received a serious "Trojan" virus. In simple terms, not only did we get the thing, but part of the program shattered like shrapnel, placing tiny lines of code into our existing programs.
Even with traditional spyware cleaners, some of 'pieces' remained, allowing the virus operators a "backdoor" into my computer. They didn't get much from me but e-amil addresses. However, to one smarty-pants Romanian virus creator, there are two dozen bikers who would like to speak with you.
The Microsoft programmer gave me two specially designed programs with lines of code for these styles of virus. They found 61 traces that my normal spy program could not identify.
Now, let me calm your fears. This was about a week before I came here. I ran these special programs--as well as my normal anti-spyware programs--daily for about ten days in a row as I closed my computer down for the night.
Other than cookies, my computer is clean.
But let me add this, this is no time for finger pointing. No one here infected the group. No one here is a ringleader or should be identified as unschooled. This is one heck of a country-wide spam and virus campaign.
My advice is to contact your local computer geeks periodically, and check for newer versions of Malware with new lines of code.
Jim_S
Resident Curmudgeon
I agree, next to impossible anyone here had anything to do with it. Looks like the problem here started over on Net Tractor Talk and then followed the links there to this forum. The attacks on NTT started around 6AM and the problems here started several hours later. The bulk of the attacks here were copies of the NTT attacks, just made at a later time. No telling how they found NTT in the first place.
NTT has been hit much harder than here probably double the spam posts and spammers. Doc's other forums are taking lesser amounts of hits and I'm a member of several other forums where I've seen spam posts that disappear after a few minutes when the moderators see it.
Jim
The Tourist
Banned
Jim, I'm happy to hear your opinion. This is a good place, and I'd like to see myself and the other members grow NC into the best cooking forum we can build.
My issue here is that everyone is going to second-guess themselves or blame someone else.
These spammers and virus guys are pros, and I mean big time.
With a snippet of code, they can hack your entire hard-drive, all of your e-mails and your mom's secret recipe for marinara sauce.
Even ten years ago with technology from that era, I flipped on my computer one morning--at my adult job--and got a cascade of over 400 pictures of porn in .5 seconds, locking it immobile. It took the MIS director to unlock the computer to clean it out.
(While I sought help, the last picture was locked on my computer screen. I asked him to send a company-wide e-mail about the issue. I usually have enough trouble with my big mouth, and I didn't need that.)
I would ask my friends here to weather the storm. Don't be embarrassed by these events. Don't leave the forum, don't accuse the other members.
It looks like most of this stuff comes from Romania and China.
My issue here is that everyone is going to second-guess themselves or blame someone else.
These spammers and virus guys are pros, and I mean big time.
With a snippet of code, they can hack your entire hard-drive, all of your e-mails and your mom's secret recipe for marinara sauce.
Even ten years ago with technology from that era, I flipped on my computer one morning--at my adult job--and got a cascade of over 400 pictures of porn in .5 seconds, locking it immobile. It took the MIS director to unlock the computer to clean it out.
(While I sought help, the last picture was locked on my computer screen. I asked him to send a company-wide e-mail about the issue. I usually have enough trouble with my big mouth, and I didn't need that.)
I would ask my friends here to weather the storm. Don't be embarrassed by these events. Don't leave the forum, don't accuse the other members.
It looks like most of this stuff comes from Romania and China.
Jim_S
Resident Curmudgeon
Things should be back to normal soon. There's a new add-in for the spam hack Doc uses that is should take care of this particular type of attack. That should tell you that it just isn't us over in this small corner of the v-bulletin world. It is happening all over the country. Doc is trying it on NTT first. If it is ok there he will add it to the other forums.
Romania #1 ip, Russia second with what has hit us, if you believe that the ip address showing is correct
Funny thing is out of the hundreds I've seen on 4 forums, all but a couple have a time Zone of GMT-12, The Marshall Islands
Jim
The Tourist
Banned
That's another good point. They could be ping-ponging the messages through several servers and routers. I doubt it.
These guys are either the "quick buck" guys or nerds who take great pride in knocking out a whole bunch of computers. If the guy is in East T-Shirt Louisiana he wants the notoriety. He doesn't want the public to believe some commie out-hacked him with an east-German knock-off Mac.
Jim_S
Resident Curmudgeon
I doubt it too, because if they go to the trouble to mask their ip, don't you think they would be smart enough to set the correct time zone?
Doesn't matter really, forged ip is plenty of reason to ban them.
jim
Deadly Sushi
Formerly The Giant Mojito
Wow!!!!! I cant understand the folks that do these spam attacks. Why would anyone visit the sites OR try to purchase ANYTHING from them. Just one of those odd things I suppose
The people have programed bots to do their dirty work. I had bot blockers but they figured out how to get past them. Now I've put another hurdle in their way. It has worked for others, and it slowed things down here. I'm sure glad. We needed the breather. 
smoke king
Banned
I believe Hormel is responsible, and frankly I love the stuff!!!
The Tourist
Banned
Not Spam, they mean spam.
Just this morning I had spiced ham, a trojan spy-bot, two eggs over easy, and a second helping of spiced ham.
In effect, I had "Spam, spam, eggs and Spam."
...long way for a joke...
Just this morning I had spiced ham, a trojan spy-bot, two eggs over easy, and a second helping of spiced ham.
In effect, I had "Spam, spam, eggs and Spam."
...long way for a joke...