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Mon 12 Apr, 2004 06:25 am
We have had some major problems recently with porn spammers who have tried to join Able2Know and use the "Favorite Website" field in their profiles to tout pornographic sites. Essentially, what these people are trying to do is to use A2K's very large membership and traffic as free advertising for their porn. Naturally, is this not permitted under the Terms of Service.
We are currently taking steps to combat these problems. One of them will result in making registrations a bit more difficult, so if you have friends who try to join and are having difficulties, please direct them to the Help page where they can send a note to Support.
If our steps are unsuccessful, we may have to remove the Favorite Website field. Hopefully, it will not come to that. Thank you for your understanding.
To be specific, they are using automated tools to submit mass registrations.
Visual confirmation code has been added but if this too fails to prevent the pornographers from mass registrations of profiles with porn sites listed as the favorite that field will have to be removed.
Deleting the mass registrations will be more problematic as the automated tools are starting to register more than we can delete.
Go ahead and delete the "Favorite Website" field, then. We'll learn to live without it. No biggie.
Geesh those dudes are getting to smart.
The automated (and manual) registrations from porn sites registering dozens of accounts has continued.
They do this for the sole purpose of getting a link to their porn sites in the favorite site field on A2K.
Because this type of spamming is increasing in prevalence (I'm seeing more software being sold that allows mass registrations for this purpose) the field will be probably be removed shortly.
The administrators don't have time to keep up with the onslaught, and if an alternate method to deter the mass registrations isn't found the field will be removed.
do what you have to - I have not seen a board that has better than A2K.
If you drop the website field. Then loosen the rules a bit on personal websites (like allowing them in signatures)
The website field is pretty much ignored anyway. If the porno folks are mass-spamming, just do away with it.
Just do what needs doing & requires the least amount of extra work for you, Craven & jespah.
That's the downside to success. Do what you have to do!
as msolga said
and I'd second the 'could we put it back in our signatures' request, {as long as it isn't a commercial site}
I would really like to see the work of fellow members on their sites and at the moment this is difficult
is this problem with spammers the reason why I've had lots of unpleasant spam lately? or is that coincidental? penis enlargements (difficult for a female!) are the least of it
I'm thinking of changing my email address
Wouldn't bother me. It's a feature I've never used in any way.
I didn't even know it existed. If it's causing problems just do away with it.
Vivien, spam in your email account is unrelated to a2k - unless you've posted your address here somewhere, of course. (Not a recommended practice!)
These pornographic spammers are also using the signature line field to promote their sites.
you mean to say I can't have ww.makelovetogautam.com in my signature ?
Nice one G. I checked, and that particular domain is still open.
Buy it cav ! Mark my words - when I turn professional, that domain is gonna be worth a lot of money !!
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