Spamalot

[BrigitDoon]

I see we've had a couple of spam attacks today. There was an item on the breakfast news about the Indians hiring people to overcome captcha mechanisms. There must be something better to do with superfluous human beings. Paying them to do nothing would be an improvement.

[John]

Yes I have wasted much free time late last night and today deleting and tidying up. Enough is enough.

[BrigitDoon]

I wonder how many people like John are affected by the action of one spammer in a day? Consider the mess they make and the man-hours spent clearing it up.

Imagine hitching up the muck-spreader to the John Deere and driving it around Glasgow until it ran out (or the police intervened). What would the penalty be? How many street cleaners would it take to clear it up? How much would it cost?

How would you punish them?

I'd rather be minding my business, but unfortunately, such as spammers intrude their tedious activities into my world. I don't like to dehumanise people, but spamming causes as much trouble as vermin.

Here's a picture of my pet lump hammers:



We all know to be careful with these (they're the 4lb beasties) because it hurts if you miss the target and hit your thumb. Which gives me an idea.

If someone held you down and another threatened to break your fingers with one of these beauties, would you continue to put fingers to keyboard and send spam?

[scaryman2u]

Subtlety was never your strong point Brigit, but i`m not for testing out those knacker crackers so am on your side here
I hope when you go for your op they have moved on to more practical methods

[BrigitDoon]

Swann Morton these days, I believe.

When I was in Somerset, one of the local farmer lads, who used to kill and butcher his own animals offered to do the job himself and "save the NHS a bob or two". The pub started to fall about with laughter and then I asked him if he'd be using bailer twine to sew it all back together...

[BrigitDoon]

Subtlety was never your strong point Brigit, but i`m not for testing out those knacker crackers so am on your side here

Actually, why don't I just set up a service for beleaguered spam victims?

"Tired of bollocks in your inbox? Call Nutcrackers on 0141 666 .... "

edit: typo

[Dave]

I was getting 10-15 spam sign ups per day (small beer I know). I found deleting through was a chore so I decided to let Admin decided if the punter got an account, now my inbox is filled with shite,

Activate User............"sIrspAmAlOt"

But even at that they never get posting, but I still need to delete the account so I'm going to revert back to the user verifying. No point in filling my inbox with pish if I'm going to end up carrying out the same duty to clean things up.

[BrigitDoon]

Separate email address, perhaps, Dave?

[Fossil]

I see we've had a couple of spam attacks today. There was an item on the breakfast news about the Indians hiring people to overcome captcha mechanisms. There must be something better to do with superfluous human beings. Paying them to do nothing would be an improvement.

yeah seen it as wll B. BBC click. should be on watch again I think if you missed it

[wee minxy]

I got spam as a comment on flickr the other day...first time ever.....just four links to some sites. Nothing on the posters profile.

[cheesemonster]

A phpBB forum I administer has had a flood of spam accounts signup recently. Is there anything I can do apart from deleting them manually?

[Sharon]

just installed this mod - randomises the names of the fields to foil spambots http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1576255

wont stop the human spammers sadly.

could maybe add somesort of slightly geeky question into the signup process... still havent looked for a mod to do that tho.

[John]

Ask a geeky question about Glasgow.

[bcuk10]

last night Username:[b]JHotOntors posted links to porn sites all over our site i put a warning not to click on these sites as i did and I got a message from norton antivirus warning me of a detection of a virus so i posted next to his posts to warn others

norton message

Trojan.FakeavalertRisk Level 1: Very LowPrinter Friendly Page
SUMMARY TECHNICAL DETAILS REMOVAL Discovered: October 10, 2007
Updated: October 10, 2007 5:08:11 PM
Type: Trojan
Infection Length: 7,680 bytes
Systems Affected: Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000

Trojan.Fakeavalert is a Trojan horse that displays false antivirus alerts and lowers security settings on the compromised computer.

ProtectionInitial Rapid Release version October 22, 2007 revision 040
Latest Rapid Release version July 20, 2009 revision 073
Initial Daily Certified version October 10, 2007 revision 023
Latest Daily Certified version July 20, 2009 revision 086
Initial Weekly Certified release date October 17, 2007
Click here for a more detailed description of Rapid Release and Daily Certified virus definitions.

Threat AssessmentWildWild Level: Low
Number of Infections: 0 - 49
Number of Sites: 0 - 2
Geographical Distribution: Low
Threat Containment: Easy
Removal: Easy
DamageDamage Level: Medium
Payload: Lowers security settings on the compromised computer.
DistributionDistribution Level: Low

Writeup By: Sean Kiernan
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[Josef]

Thanks, bcuk. Now all zapped. Busy bunny, weren't they?