Concerning Private Messages from "Patricia"

[Bob Hubbard]

Our apologies for these. A spammer, now banned, signed up and sent out a significant number of these to our members. We have banned the scum sucker, and added the spammed website to our filter.

[arnisador]

I've received additional questions about this. The person sent a great many PMs, at least some of which were of a religious nature, before being caught. The problem is now fixed but there may still be PMs in your PM folder!

-Arnisador
-FMAT Admin

[Bob Hubbard]

The pm's have all been deleted from the system.

The PM in question seemed to concern Buddhism, and directed you to goto a website. The website is reportedly harmless. Based on information on a few webmaster forums, this is a bot that is hitting hundreds of forums using a sophisticated tool designed specifically for spamming forums and web blogs.

Reading the pm won't infect your computer with anything (it's just text) and the site has not been hacked or otherwise compromised.

[Bob Hubbard]

To fight this stuff, we need your help. If you get a weird PM or Email through this site, let an admin know. What is weird? Something like "Hi I'm new here and looking for info on product x" or weird religious stuff, with an attached website. We'll look into it and see if it was a single message sent to you or something sent to a lot of people.

[punisher73]

And here I thought she just wanted to make a love connection with me...LOL

[Beungood]

She said I was sexy,had a big baston and that she was also a virgin...

[Bob Hubbard]

No, she said she was a Virginian. :D

[arnisador]

She said I was sexy,had a big baston and that she was also a virgin...

I thought she said that she had a big baston, and that you were a... :D

[5tirosCamarin]

Hey, I'll give anyone a dollar if he/she can tell me where the term "spam" has its origin. I'll give you a hint. It has to do with unladen African swallows and whether or not they are migratory, and their ability/desire to carry coconuts, whether gripped by the husk, held under the dorsal guiding feathers, or carried with the aid of another with a strand of tree bark, weight ratios between birds and coconuts notwithstanding, from tropical to temperate climate zones.

[arnisador]

Yup, someone flooded an early MUD with "SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM..." messages, based on the Monty Python sketch involving hungry Vikings! The term caught on quickly. I remember in the early 90s when some people argued that only USENET flooding was technically spam and that "e-mail spam" was an oxymoron due to the differences in nntp vs. smtp and local storage issues.

[Brock]

I'll make sure you get that dollar.

[5tirosCamarin]

Ah, crap. Now I owe you a dollar.

[arnisador]

This came up a lot when I hung out on news.admin.net-abuse.* in the early 90s! So, I know the story well. But, please donate the dollar to charity!

[arnisador]

I've received notice that more PMs of a religious nature are being sent. If you receive an unwanted PM that appears to be spam, please send a copy to me via PM or e-mail! We'll take action on it as soon as we can.

-Arnisador
-FMAT Admin

[buguhan]

Hi all,
I also recieved a Pm by a person called "Stephanie"!
But I noticed immediately that "she" was banned!
First I thought "she" is a friend of mine with the same name!

by the way:I also knew the Monty Python story about SPAM as the origin, but don't want the dollar 'cause an Euro is better :)

[arnisador]

Thanks for letting us know (and others who e-mailed/PMed me)!

We've tried to delete these, but you might still have received a notification that you have such a PM.

[5tirosCamarin]

Haha after reading this thread, my questions from the "spamming" thread have been answered. Where'd you get the coconuts?

[arnisador]

We now know that these message were sent by a spambot and are from the same source as the one that the original post in this thread was about. It's hitting many vBulletin sites (not just ours).

-Arnisador
-FMAT Admin