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Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:14 pm
by Madman
Some sort of javascript or captcha could fend those bots off. It really takes a lot of time to write a crawler that understands scripts. Heck, even google bot is not crawling them.

Then you can always change identifiers of buttons so that the internal id of submit is cancel and cancel is submit.

But darn, those bots are getting annoying, and they attack everything in sight.

One more thing, do those bots have the same browser ID string, maybe you could filter them that way.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:51 pm
by Shinare
Textual Confirmation stopped bots cold on my phpbb forum. I was getting 10's of bots signing up a day and this cut them all out.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:40 pm
by Kevin
Madman wrote:
Some sort of javascript or captcha could fend those bots off.

phpBB 3 already comes with CAPTCHA. It's obviously not working well.

Shinare wrote:
Textual Confirmation stopped bots cold on my phpbb forum. I was getting 10's of bots signing up a day and this cut them all out.

That's for phpBB 2, we upgraded to 3 awhile ago.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:49 pm
by bhtooefr
Kevin wrote:
phpBB 3 already comes with CAPTCHA. It's obviously not working well.


Many CAPTCHAs have been broken already. Besides, I almost wonder if it's a Slashdot-style copy-and-paste troll, not a bot.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:44 pm
by NeXus 6
I got a very nasty one from ol5350. Please ban them.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:46 pm
by Kevin
Done.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:14 pm
by Kevin
kx6660 banned. Did it yesterday when I noticed the name in the member list, but didn't post here until now.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:59 pm
by jill
I received this in my e-mail from Yahoo answers
I don't know what to think of it
I have never received anything like this
if you could help to prevent this from happening to others
I would be grateful
Thank you, jill


From: lk7600

Subject: retard

Message: Can you please ******* die? Preferably by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. *beep* *****


I would love to kick you hard in the face, breaking it. Then I'd cut your stomach open with a chainsaw, exposing your intestines. Then I'd cut your windpipe in two with a boxcutter. Then I'd tie you to the back of a pickup truck, and drag you, until your useless *beep* corpse was torn to a million *beep* useless, bloody, and gory pieces.

Hopefully you'll get what's coming to you. *beep* *****


I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It'd be hilarious to see you begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head, leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. *beep*

Shut the *beep* up f *****, before you get your face bashed in and cut to ribbons, and your throat slit.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:11 pm
by bhtooefr
It's just someone (or maybe even a bot) that's very bored. Just ignore it, report it to whoever is in control of the site if possible, and move on.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:28 pm
by Kevin
lk7200 has been banned.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:06 am
by Kevin
hk6900 has been banned.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:41 am
by UberGerbil
Here's a relatively subtle one (not harassing or private, but spam):
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=929918#p929918

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 10:50 am
by PRIME1
lk9800

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 1:07 pm
by PRIME1
kktk5950

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 1:10 pm
by Meadows
PRIME1 wrote:
[multiple names]

I wonder why you are harrassed of all people now.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 10:54 pm
by Kevin
mvik9950 and kktk5950 have been banned.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 9:43 am
by BIF
I have not received one of these, but I did notice a naming convention.

lowercase alpha, literal lowercase "k", numeric (usually 4 chars)

or some iteration of such.

lk9999
tkak9999

This may lend a clue to "what" or "who".

I read that pm that "Jill" got (see above). Inexcusable. Makes me angry. Somebody like that writer needs to be institutionalized for his/her own safety, as well as the safety of society in general.

Oh sure, the message(s) may be distributed by bots today, but I still think that some deranged, mentally ill PERSON originally wrote it.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:36 pm
by just brew it!
Time to bump (and sticky) this.

There seems to be a new wave of people/bots signing up for new accounts who are sending harassing PMs to forum members. If you are the recipient of any of these out of the blue "you suck go crawl under a rock and die" type PMs, please report it here (or PM me).

I believe this may be part of an effort by SEO spammers to drive legit users away and overwhelm the mods/admins, with a goal of turning our beloved forums into a SEO haven. We see (and can directly deal with) the spam posted directly in the forums, but we don't see the PM harassment unless you let us know.

Please help us keep the forums free from random harassment and SEO spammers!

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 4:07 pm
by Captain Ned
Include me in your PM reporting. I'm a lazy ass who's always at the keyboard.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 4:40 pm
by Ryu Connor
Same as Ned. Please let me know.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 4:42 pm
by Airmantharp
What do you guys think about suggesting that a 'Report' button be added to the PM system like we have for the forums? Could use that in the comment system too, though I can see how that one might be too easily abused.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 5:53 pm
by just brew it!
For the PMs, it pretty much comes down to what's readily available as canned mods/plugins for phpBB, or (failing that) what morphine has time & budget to code up from scratch. Front page comment system is still full custom AFAIK.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:59 am
by superjawes
It would be nice to have a "report" feature if possible, although I will point out that more than one conversation in the last few weeks has been pushed to PM, so if we get that feature, don't abuse it.

But right as I read this thread, I found two messages from xres625e that fit the bill. I did get a good lol at the effort put into one of them, but that probably would drive newer users from the site, especially since there is a contest going on right now.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 2:48 pm
by Klimax
Hello.
Whose turn is it this time to forwards nice spam messages?

I got one fresh and two bit older. (With members still unbanned)

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 3:13 pm
by Captain Ned
Klimax wrote:
Hello.
Whose turn is it this time to forwards nice spam messages?

I got one fresh and two bit older. (With members still unbanned)

Send them to JBI and me. If we never hear about them, we can't ban the members.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 3:51 pm
by Chrispy_
I find the hate messages to be gratifying actually. If someone gets really really worked up, it's usually because you've humiliated them - i.e. called a troll's bluff, or posted a link that proves someone's entire argument is completely void. In present society you'd just move on, perhaps have an irrational argument about it in some cases, but that's it. With the veil of anonymity provided by the interwebs though, all normal social models go out of the window ;)

I must have enraged someone by posting a link to a page that refuted their biased/incorrect troll argument way back in 2008 - the guy was banned regardless of my inaction - but it's messages like this that make me thankful I have enough self-control to never get myself this worked-up about anything.
Here it is, censored, for your viewing pleasure:

****** bitch
Sent: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:42 am
From: yv6550
To: Chrispy_


Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. **** bitch

I would love to kick you hard in the face, breaking it. Then I'd cut your stomach open with a chainsaw, exposing your intestines. Then I'd cut your windpipe in two with a boxcutter. Then I'd tie you to the back of a pickup truck, and drag you, until your useless **** corpse was torn to a million **** useless, bloody, and gory pieces.

Hopefully you'll get what's coming to you. **** bitch


From my parent's home in Wyoming, I stab at thee!

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 5:03 pm
by willmore
Is this still a thing? I don't come to the forums much, so I didn't see this. (Okay, I almost *never* come to the forums)

I have two:
idiot
by g852ifewaifewaiefwa on Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:12 pm
Contents: "diaff cretin."

idiot
by xres625e on Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:50 pm
Co0ntents: "die of aids c u nt"

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 5:04 pm
by Captain Ned
willmore wrote:
Is this still a thing? I don't come to the forums much, so I didn't see this. (Okay, I almost *never* come to the forums)

I have two:
idiot
by g852ifewaifewaiefwa on Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:12 pm
Contents: "diaff cretin."

idiot
by xres625e on Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:50 pm
Co0ntents: "die of aids c u nt"

Forward them to me through PM and they shall be tweated rwudely.

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:29 am
by willmore
Messages away! Thank you good sir!

Re: Received a harassing private message?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 4:15 pm
by Airmantharp
Another review of an AMD product, and they're back!