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Spammers out to get us!

Posted by Connie Mettler on April 15, 2010 at 9:29pm
Hi Nels and everyone else who has asked:

Here is what was happening. I had the settings on this site so anyone could add a blog post and no one would review it. It would be immediately viewable to everyone. That was just fine, we're all adults here and it was fun to discover what everyone had to say.

However, earlier this week spammers started hitting the site and did blog postings about drugs, aceteminophen, darvocet, etc., every day at least five or six blog postings -- then those blog postings would go out onto the AFI Facebook page, giving them double exposure, and also in the newslettters that were going out every morning with the synopsis of the previous day's activity on AFI -- triple exposure. People were cancelling their memberships, writing me lots of emails asking me to stop it, etc. After three days I put the hold on all the blog posts so I could catch them before they went out over the network and into everyone's email boxes, etc. They come in periodically throughout the day. I was out today and came home to find fifteen waiting in the list of blog postings!! What this means is that blog postings will not be immediately added to the site. Luckily, most of the time I am here. It is the best way I can think of to stop all this infection!

I have been to the site Help desk and basically this is what all the other site organizers on this network are doing.

Here are a few sample blog post - headlines -- the whole message was much more lengthy:
You have a new blog post "Buying Pills Smok-OX. Tablets Purchase Smok-OX" to approve on Art Fair Insiders
You have a new blog post "Generic Buying Acai. Buying Without Prescription Acai" to approve on Art Fair Insiders
You have a new blog post "Buy Floxin Free Delivery. Purchase Floxin Free Delivery" to approve on Art Fair Insider
You have a new blog post "Buying Methotrexate no Prescription. Cheapest Buying Methotrexate" to approve on Art Fair Insiders

You have a new blog post "Tablets Purchase Pravachol. Buy Without a Prescription Pravachol" to approve on Art Fair Insiders
Tags: spam, spammers
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Comments

  • Connie Mettler April 21, 2010 at 3:30pm
    Yes, Phil. That is what it means. It has always been "open post" here except for a few days here while I wrestled with what to do about this.

    However, you still have to "play nicely with others."
  • Connie Mettler April 21, 2010 at 10:36am
    4/21/10 -- so the latest on this: Ning, the platform that hosts this site, recommended that I set it up so that all new members have to be "approved" -- heretofore it has been "y'all come" with anyone welcome to join us here. So all new members will be moderated. In order to keep this up to date and not make motivated people wait too long Larry Berman has joined my team vetting the new members. Thanks for your patience. I think I'll get my life back.
  • Barbara Sistak Baur April 16, 2010 at 11:05pm
    Thanks for taking control of this, Connie. It was weird getting those strange newsletters. But I knew, and hope everyone else did too, that it was the spammers at work. I get them on my blog as well. I also have to moderate that -- very annoying.

    Keep up the good work!
    Barb
  • Ginny Herzog April 16, 2010 at 1:28pm
    Thanks for your explanation, Connie. I did see one of the spams that must have slipped by you, a couple of weeks ago. What a headache. We can live with the delay of the postings so the spam can be deleted. A price we need to pay, I guess.
  • Connie Mettler April 16, 2010 at 9:40am
    Exactly, Geoff -- that is precisely why when you sign up to be a member here you are asked for an email address (so I can know you are real) but it is not seen by anyone but me.

    I have just spent an hour this morning deleting spam accounts from this site once again. Their posts also seem to be interfering with the regular blog postings. I am having one heck of a time, and frankly, I do have other things to do!
  • Geoff Coe April 16, 2010 at 9:27am
    Thanks for the thorough explanation, Connie...idiots don't rule the Internet but they sure make it inconvenient for the rest of us.

    This is a good reminder to folks to make sure not to put personal information in your profiles and postings that could cause you to get spammed via your home email accounts. Especially, don't list your home address.
  • geri a. wegner April 16, 2010 at 12:53am
    I didn't know you needed a prescription for acai. I thought it was a fruit. All those posts look like the spam on my yahoo account.

    Seriously though, I am sorry for all the inconvenience this is causing you. Perhaps you can take it as a compliment-- there is so much traffic on the website that the spammers have found it.

    (we are off to Illinois for the summer this weekend. We always stop overnite in Atlanta. It is killing me to be there and miss the Dogwood festival. I don't think the other half would appreciate the schedule being thrown off for me to go to one more art festival when I have over 20 scheduled for this summer in Illinois and Wisconsin, but still........)
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