Help Us Fight Spam

[The Illuminator]

Haha, nice one Esther. I was just thinking the same way. I got a lot of that sort of bots on my msn-account. Really anoying. But I recognize them immediatly because they are mostly the only one who speak to me in English starting with the line: 'Hi honey, are you single?' The next thing I only have to do is asking them a phylosophic question that can't be answered by only 'yes' or 'no' and than I'm on my way straight away to the magnificant block button.

So people, how do we recognize the bots around here? What do they say usually? If I will recognize one I will report them, but I need to be sure before I will offend something that is actually alive here.

They do not always say things, Leto. Sometimes they say nonsense like "This message should not be translated" or something insignificant (about dating or clothing, like that). In that case it's all about the signature: there's a text like "Buy ...-shoes with 75 % discount!"

Don't worry, you're not likely to offend anybody alive by reporting his message. And if you do, explain it was a mistake, I'm sure they will understand.

[Asleep]

Simstar,

That's really not enough to justify a post.  Sorry, but we can't necessarily interpret what you're trying to say with just some periods and a question mark.  And again, if there's something referenced that you don't understand, Google or Wikipedia are an excellent way to learn about it, if you're interested.  Discussing those sorts of things just pulls the thread too far off topic. 

Sorry about that. 

[Pam]

Sorry about that. 

No harm done.  I'm just trying to keep the forum on target and suggest ways you can find out about things. 

[Pam]

Thank you, malteser60!  I appreciate your kind words and I'm happy you enjoy our forum.

Leto - If it's a bot, it will be pretty obvious.  The most recent one was a post in the money tree thread that said something like, "Do you want to make more money?  I tried this method and it really works!" and then a link to something.  If it looks like any kind of advertisement, that's a spam bot.  Don't worry too much about it.  We haven't had a real problem with this yet and I was just letting everyone know the changes that have been made and how to use the "report" function.

[Leto85]

Hahaha, that is so standard! 'I tried this method and it really works!'
If that's all, than there is no real harm. Even though when you accidentially will click on the link. 1 click, 2 oops, 3 click the red X. And your done.

I thought you where talking about bots that do even more harm than that.

[samoht04]

I have only seen one spam, which was some new person who had their first post saying something like:

'Warning - Major Trojan Virus all over the Internet! Downlaod your protection here!'

Then went on basically describing what it does and how serious, so I thought, probably what the link gives you...

[Esther1981]

I have only seen one spam, which was some new person who had their first post saying something like:

'Warning - Major Trojan Virus all over the Internet! Downlaod your protection here!'

Then went on basically describing what it does and how serious, so I thought, probably what the link gives you...

Yea, the link probably gives you the Trojan! That's sad that you can't trust people. One of my rules on my computer is NEVER click on links from someone I don't know or trust. If the moderators post links, I feel safe clicking it. I was raised to trust people, but in this day and age I can't! So sad.

[Leto85]

Yea, the link probably gives you the Trojan! That's sad that you can't trust people. One of my rules on my computer is NEVER click on links from someone I don't know or trust. If the moderators post links, I feel safe clicking it. I was raised to trust people, but in this day and age I can't! So sad.

I feel the same way. If you don't know the person, just don't click on anything they say you should.

[Esther1981]

I feel the same way. If you don't know the person, just don't click on anything they say you should.

Click this!! Why? You want my computer to blow up don't you?! I agree one million percent Leto!

[Leto85]

Click this!! Why? You want my computer to blow up don't you?! I agree one million percent Leto!

I hope this will not be to much off topic but I'll feel bad about myself if I don't warn you people here. Because you have to know that people can also fool you when they are less stupid than the 'click-on-this-and-get-screwed' hackers mentioned above.

When someone is able to hack around and is a bit creative with photoshop, he can also create a link to make it look like it will be safe, by copying parts of this site for example. Or faking a login hotmail screen where your e-mail address and password will directly been sent to the haker, and you will never find out.

Another cheap way is answering the following questions: 'Hey Esther, I know you have a very nice pet. What was his name again?'
'We joined the same class. What was the name of our teacher?'
Hotmail uses these questions as a backup plan for people who want to login to Hotmail, but forgot their passwords. For most people the answers of these questions are completely or partly the passwords they use for their Hotmail accounts. And if they are not, then the answers can still be used to send a new password to an alternate e-mail address, which will be one the hacker makes himself.

So be careful people.

And don't be scared that I know this way, fellow members. I am not a hacker, because if I was, I would never post this. Simply understanding the way they work can be very handy in some situations.

Know your enemies.

[Pam]

Leto speaks the truth, I'm afraid.  One thing I always do is look at the email address of origin.  Ignore all the logos and claims to be Microsoft or whatever.  Just look at the address that sent it to you and you'll see that it's not legitimate at all.  It will be some crazy looking address that most certainly isn't affiliated with who they claim to be. 

[The Illuminator]

I cannot believe this! This does not have to do with spam on the forum but I want to warn you!

Yesterday I got 20 e-mails containing spam and advertisements. I do get a lot of spam but I was really surprised to see that the sender was my cousin! She is only 12 years old so she clearly didn't send me spam! So I called her to ask if she had send me any e-mails that day but she hadn't logged into hotmail for 3 days.

Conclusion: Her e-mail adress has been/is being used by some company! So watch out people, they can use e-mail adresses from innocent people!

You can recognise those "company hackers" by spelling mistakes and/or a foreign language like Japanese.

To repeat Leto: Know your enemies well!

[Alsier]

I cannot believe this! This does not have to do with spam on the forum but I want to warn you!

Yesterday I got 20 e-mails containing spam and advertisements. I do get a lot of spam but I was really surprised to see that the sender was my cousin! She is only 12 years old so she clearly didn't send me spam! So I called her to ask if she had send me any e-mails that day but she hadn't logged into hotmail for 3 days.

Conclusion: Her e-mail adress has been/is being used by some company! So watch out people, they can use e-mail adresses from innocent people!

You can recognise those "company hackers" by spelling mistakes and/or a foreign language like Japanese.

To repeat Leto: Know your enemies well!

It is fairly common for spammers to spoof the sender field in the e-mails they sent out to make it more difficult to block them.  It is also common with e-mail worms, although it does not necessarily mean that your cousin's computer has been infected.  What can occur is that someone is sent an infected e-mail and they open the e-mail, triggering propagation.  The worm finds the addresses of various people within the address book of that computer, and then the worm sends an infected e-mail to people on that list, but spoofs the e-mail header so that it appears to have been sent by other people on that list.  So this may mean that someone who has both your cousin and you in their address book has been infected.

[Leto85]

It is fairly common for spammers to spoof the sender field in the e-mails they sent out to make it more difficult to block them.  It is also common with e-mail worms, although it does not necessarily mean that your cousin's computer has been infected.  What can occur is that someone is sent an infected e-mail and they open the e-mail, triggering propagation.  The worm finds the addresses of various people within the address book of that computer, and then the worm sends an infected e-mail to people on that list, but spoofs the e-mail header so that it appears to have been sent by other people on that list.  So this may mean that someone who has both your cousin and you in their address book has been infected.

Exactly. Just opening it is like you say 'yes' to please sent this junk to ALL my msn buddies.
I got that today (again) and on msn I immediately got the question if I have sent some weird stuff. Of course I didn't.
Anyway: the only way to get around this is just to not open it but mark it as spam, junk or whatever your mail account gives you for name.
And then we got another problem. I am not getting back to my inbox after every mail I have written and answered. Mostly I open the first one at the top, and after clicking that one away the next one appears at my screen, opened at all. So, if that one is such a mail like described above I am already screwed. Is that a neat way of saying things in English? I thought it was, but if it isn't I apologize.

[The Illuminator]

I understand. But my "cousin's" e-mail had nothing as subject, so I opened it. I thought it was just an average mail from my cousin.