Comments & WishesSpam in Private Messages

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ParkerLewis2nd
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:25 pm

Spam in Private Messages

Post by ParkerLewis2nd »

Tonight I received two private messages which are obviously spam:
Spend a little more than you meant to? Need to increase your
by Renetta_Alva » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:30 am

NEXT STOP – FINANCIAL FREEDOM WITH FOREX
by Robin-Good » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:34 pm
Apparently some bot managed to finish the registration.

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localghost
Site Moderator
Posts: 9202
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by localghost »

Thanks for the report. The concerned user accounts have been kicked and the corresponding IPs banned permanently.


Thorsten
qbk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2011 8:42 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by qbk »

Hello,
I've just registered few days ago and received spam today.

From: chizizy4u, email: maurenappiah@yahoo.com

Quick googling says it's widespread dating spam.
Regards.
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localghost
Site Moderator
Posts: 9202
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by localghost »

Thanks for this note. This account has been registered just today. The concerned user account will be kicked and banned.
k_lau
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 3:17 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by k_lau »

Hi,

I just got spammed by personal message by: bobyjohnsons

Thanks,

K
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localghost
Site Moderator
Posts: 9202
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by localghost »

Thanks for the message. The concerned user has been banned and will be kicked.

You can report PMs directly to the board team by clicking on the exclamation mark in the message head straight to the right of the message title.
ubuntu2014
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 12:42 am

Spam in Private Messages

Post by ubuntu2014 »

localghost wrote:Thanks for the report. The concerned user accounts have been kicked and the corresponding IPs banned permanently.


Thorsten
I think that corresponding IPs shouldn't be banned permanently. What if that person was spamming through a cyber cafe ? Many people in the world don't have internet facility at home and therefore they might use cyber cafe but they won't be able to access the website since that IP is permanently bllocked.
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Stefan Kottwitz
Site Admin
Posts: 10324
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by Stefan Kottwitz »

For information, we solved the spam problem and did not need to make any ban on name or IP again, since years. Spammers automatically broke the graphic captcha at that time, but since I added a simple question at registration, nearly no spammer has comes through since then. Before, we had 30 spam account registration each day. Now, hardly one in a year. Most spam is done by programs, so a simple barrier can prevent such activity while standard captchas are broken by programs.

Stefan
LaTeX.org admin
SJIsles
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2025 12:53 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by SJIsles »

Hi Stefan,

Unfortunately, it seems one of the solutions is to completely ban domains. It is not the domain that spams, but the user. I am using Yandex.com as my main email service. I had left Gmail some years ago. But for the sake of this forum, I have had to reopen my Gmail account. This seems a little too drastic and troublesome to me. Since it is obvious that I have been a member here for a while and certainly did not spam, can we not have the Yandex.com domain allowed again. I hate having to maintain another email account just for this purpose. If somehow this is not possible, may I request that I my specific email from Yandex to be added to some exclusion list if that exists? I can send it to you via a private message. Let me know. Thanks.

Best regards,
S. J. Isles (Mr)
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Stefan Kottwitz
Site Admin
Posts: 10324
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:44 pm

Re: Spam in Private Messages

Post by Stefan Kottwitz »

Hi,

it's good that you have another email address. Seeing that Yandex is Russian and that country is running a war in Europe and is internationally sanctioned for this, I don't start connecting with it. I hope you can understand that.

Stefan
LaTeX.org admin
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