PPRUNE Spam

[ExGrunt]

Recently I have started to get spam sent to the email address that I only ever used to register at PPRUNE.

Has anyone else had that problem?

Who should I aggratvate about this?

EG

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Originally Posted by ExGrunt

Who should I aggratvate about this?

I wouldn't dream of trying.

Even if you travelled to Russia or whever and managed to find the spammers, you'd probably find that they were handier with guns or whatever than you, and you might find that you never came home.

[frostbite]

You seem to be implying or claiming that Pprune is responsible for your spam.

Unless you have been specially selected, I would very much doubt this.

I have never received spam on the address registered here.

[matelot]

I continually get PPRuNe spam; an address I never use externally. Therefore the implication is that the email addresses were harvested in the past from PPRuNe (a common enough ploy by spammers).

[Land After]

I posted a thread about this a while ago. I get spam on a PPRuNe only address - which has not been made public. It's either been grabbed from here, or from the mailservers at 1&1 - my domain host.

It has never, ever, been shared or published. It doesn't even "exist" in the true sense - I have a catchall account for <anything>@mydomain.com. The good news is that I can change the address as necessary and tweak the spam filter once it gets rumbled.

[PPRuNe Towers]

Errr,
We show e-mails as an in line graphic, if you look behind the scenes by pulling up the raw coded page you can see email addresses are also encrypted. So, we stop the spybots and automated harvesters.

However, each complainer has chosen, has actually opted to make their e-mail address available to other users. You can check for youself by holding the mouse down over the username - try both matelot and Land After as examples.
If people chose to accept e-mail from others and there are low wage economies where they will go through the angst of stripping the contact details there's not a lot else we can do.

The reality however is that is not terribly cost effective and ISP's have a serious problem with staff, errr boosting their incomes.

Stables and bolted doors and all that: You can change your userCp up near the top of every page to block your email from being available to others. Personally I'd destroy the problem email address from your system, get a new address, go into userCP and change them over. At the same time check that you don't have the option for others to e-mail you selected.

Regards
Rob

[BOAC]

You can check for youself by holding the mouse down over the username - try both matelot and Land After as examples.

- I think that is an 'admin's function', PPT and I do not see any email addresses through that route at my level, and of course at 'user's level' they will never see one. My understanding of the PPRune 'email a user' function is that the address remains hidden by the software?

One option we have, of course, ignored is that a trojan could be sitting on the relevant user's computer and is passing the email address to all its 'friends'.

[redsnail]

BOAC,

When the mouse is over the username, click. Voila, all is revealed.

[BOAC]

.............you see an email address? What do you see for mine?

[redsnail]

I can't see your email but I can send you one.

Hmm, I wonder how the bots are doing it then? It would be a time consuming task to click on the links and send an email.

[Keygrip]

Likewise - I can't "see" your e-mail address, but can send you one.

So the "hover over name and click" function is not available to all.

[BOAC]

Exactly!

My understanding of the PPRune 'email a user' function is that the address remains hidden by the software?

It may be that PPT and Danny and other admins can actually 'see' the email address (would that explain the new cars.......?) but I suspect the real reason for the spam is far simpler.

This topic arises every now and then as you can see from the list at the page bottom.

[Mr Grumps]

I have a charity domain name email address that gets huge amounts of spam. The address is only used for charity work. All my other addresses are fine even the one used for this site. My 'man who does the technical bit' can't make head nor tail out of it either.

[Land After]

Originally Posted by PPRuNe Towers

Errr,
We show e-mails as an in line graphic, if you look behind the scenes by pulling up the raw coded page you can see email addresses are also encrypted. So, we stop the spybots and automated harvesters.
However, each complainer has chosen, has actually opted to make their e-mail address available to other users. You can check for youself by holding the mouse down over the username - try both matelot and Land After as examples.
If people chose to accept e-mail from others and there are low wage economies where they will go through the angst of stripping the contact details there's not a lot else we can do.
The reality however is that is not terribly cost effective and ISP's have a serious problem with staff, errr boosting their incomes.
Stables and bolted doors and all that: You can change your userCp up near the top of every page to block your email from being available to others. Personally I'd destroy the problem email address from your system, get a new address, go into userCP and change them over. At the same time check that you don't have the option for others to e-mail you selected.
Regards
Rob

I can't see an email for me, or matelot, with the mouse hover. I suspect that this is a mod facility in the BB software, more so as I have the "Accept mail from mods" box ticked.

The "send email" function does not have an address in the raw source either. Sending a mail from this form should preserve the anonymity of the receiver, though the senders email will be exposed when the mail arrives. This mail send does not use the senders normal mail client.

It's a work of seconds for me to create another PPRuNe address. If I need to turn off my acceptance of mails because holes in the BB software, so be it. If there is a problem with the security of PPRuNe address with options in the CP, perhaps a gentle warning it that area. It may save a few with only one email address getting swamped.

[Land After]

Originally Posted by Mr Grumps

I have a charity domain name email address that gets huge amounts of spam. The address is only used for charity work. All my other addresses are fine even the one used for this site. My 'man who does the technical bit' can't make head nor tail out of it either.

My theory is that you have sent a mail to a contact who uses Outlook. They have saved your address in their address book. The address book has subsequently been harvested by a bot and your email address sent on to a spam list.
The best way to tackle spam is to own your own domain and use multiple addresses. Otherwise, I find that SpamSieve does an excellent job, though it is for Macs.

[ExGrunt]

Originally Posted by PPRuNe Towers

Stables and bolted doors and all that: You can change your userCp up near the top of every page to block your email from being available to others. Personally I'd destroy the problem email address from your system, get a new address, go into userCP and change them over. At the same time check that you don't have the option for others to e-mail you selected.
Regards
Rob

Rob,

Thanks for pointing this out to me - Hopefully this will solve the issue. Although I am not sure I ever opted in for it nevertheless I will just put it down to experience.

Thanks

EG

[BOAC]

ExG - be aware that I do not think it will solve your problem, as your email address is NOT directly available through PPRune to anyone other than mods.

[IO540]

My theory is that you have sent a mail to a contact who uses Outlook. They have saved your address in their address book. The address book has subsequently been harvested by a bot and your email address sent on to a spam list.

I am sure that is the reason. I don't see how anybody (robot or human) could extract somebody's email address from pprune.

For what it's worth, I get zero spam to my pprune address, but get thousands of spams per day to other aliases on that domain.