Community SPAM

[KregRep]

Just so everyone knows, we've been having a bit of a problem with SPAMMERS creating profiles on the Kreg Jig Owners' Community and then posting blog entries about buying prescription pills, etc.  Please know that these are not valid offers and are being removed by myself as quickly as possible.  If you see additional SPAM on the community, please do not hesitate to send me a Private Message through the community 'Messages/Inbox' function, along with a link to the SPAM post if possible.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work to keep these spammers out of our fine community!  Much obliged!

[Mike Kahle]

There is a new spammer on the site: JOYREAL [e-mail]

Improper English and misspelling is verbatim. 

 

"([e-mail])Hello.My Name is joy how is your health i went to your profile today at (kregjig.ning.com) and i love it i think we can click from their!please i will like you to email me back threough my email thus; ([e-mail])i am waiting to recive your lovely reply soonest! Yoursjoyplease contact me through my email address so i can give you my picture and tell you my detial have a nice day."

 

Lets be honest here and I am not trying to start any trouble... I really like this site and the people I have met here that is why I bringing this up.

As the Admin to the site, are you not allowed to make the changes that need to be made to stop this spam? Do you just not know how to make them? Do you just not want to make them? Be honest. If you are not allowed to, tell us who we need to take this to for them to give you the power to make the security changes needed. If you do not know how to make the changes, just say so, I will personally get the information on Nings help pages as I have perused most of them dealing with moderation and securing a site.

Now if by the off hand chance you just do not want to make the changes... Why?

Thanks

[Jay Boutwell]

Hello Mike, I'm glad you are here and speaking up about this spam situation.  I have repeatedly  opened the problem on multiple times and so far got no where other than a reply which really was no solution to this.  The last time is when several members, including myself, had their main page changed and a few receiving adverse computer complications meaning virus and trojans on their computer.  Another member of whom addressed the situation was one whom had difficulty with his computer.  He and i discussed this and he elected to have a computer tech go through his computer  and the results were the same as what I came up with.  His findings were added to the growing lists and also found that his problems were traced to the Kreg site.  I elected to do my own and using another computer I traced the "miraka" spammer to dakar Africa and found the true owner name of the e-mail that was given as the one to contact.  It came back to a different person than "marika" and of whom has several  e-mail addresses of which are known connected to frauds.  I dug a little deeper and looked into her funny book.  I found several contact records made to the Kreg community including members of this site whom had replied back to the e-mail.  I had also picked up a trojan and several malware problems.

I did as the other member did and I traced the computer span to have came for Kreg site and the ning server located in Palo Alto California.  On April 11,  I  wrote a e-mail to the Rep giving him the information.  i further advise him that this "marika" was still a member on this web site and that beginning on page 24 and thru at least pg 31 members of whom still had the "marika" ad on their page.  Two days ago (saturday morning) I was on the Kreg community site and noted a new person known as John on line and wanting to see who it was I looked at his profile and there for everyone was another vicitm with the "Marika" ad on his page.  As of tonight

04-18-2011 at 1800 hrs the person "marika" is still a member.   Now there is a new one reported of which has three membership pages listed under the same name.  This means that this person has opened up 3 e-mail accounts of which I know is how it is done.  She or he is using the e-mail address of "AOL" but also has the same message and name using email address of Yahoo.Com

As todate I have yet to receive a reply to my e-mail in which I reported the situation.  To solve my problem with the chance of receiving additional span and malicious computer threats i have began using an older computer that i have had off line for a period of time.  I can't afford to have a main comuter  infected with spam as there is too many important documents on them.

Mike Kahle said:

There is a new spammer on the site: JOYREAL [e-mail]

Improper English and misspelling is verbatim. 

 

"([e-mail])Hello.My Name is joy how is your health i went to your profile today at (kregjig.ning.com) and i love it i think we can click from their!please i will like you to email me back threough my email thus; ([e-mail])i am waiting to recive your lovely reply soonest! Yoursjoyplease contact me through my email address so i can give you my picture and tell you my detial have a nice day."

 

Lets be honest here and I am not trying to start any trouble... I really like this site and the people I have met here that is why I bringing this up.

As the Admin to the site, are you not allowed to make the changes that need to be made to stop this spam? Do you just not know how to make them? Do you just not want to make them? Be honest. If you are not allowed to, tell us who we need to take this to for them to give you the power to make the security changes needed. If you do not know how to make the changes, just say so, I will personally get the information on Nings help pages as I have perused most of them dealing with moderation and securing a site.

Now if by the off hand chance you just do not want to make the changes... Why?

Thanks

[KregRep]

Mike Kahle said:

Lets be honest here and I am not trying to start any trouble... I really like this site and the people I have met here that is why I bringing this up.

As the Admin to the site, are you not allowed to make the changes that need to be made to stop this spam? Do you just not know how to make them? Do you just not want to make them? Be honest. If you are not allowed to, tell us who we need to take this to for them to give you the power to make the security changes needed. If you do not know how to make the changes, just say so, I will personally get the information on Nings help pages as I have perused most of them dealing with moderation and securing a site.

Now if by the off hand chance you just do not want to make the changes... Why?

Thanks

Mike Kahle said:

But you can set it to where all new comments are moderated. Its a matter of common sense from then, if someone posts legit comments, they are more than likely not a bot or spammer. You approve the post and then change that members status to non moderated. If they post spam, you delete it and them. Just a little more work for you, but well worth it to the community. Thats why any and all communities like this should have a staff of moderators. It is very hard for just one person to run a community this size. I am surprised you havent already started to pull your hair out by the roots.

Mike, we're 100% committed to reducing spam in the community, thank you for your comments.  However, some of your suggestions as to changes that should be make are based on factually incorrect assumptions of what the Ning platform is capable of.

Here are the steps Ning provides to reduce spam, along with my own brief description of our personal implementation:

• Sign-up quiz: This has been implemented on the KJOC.
• CAPTCHA: This has been implemented on the KJOC.
• Email verification: This has been implemented on the KJOC.
• Suspending members: This has been implemented on the KJOC.
• Member moderation: This allows the moderator to scan the email addresses of all new members and 'approve' them before they have the ability to post (not subsequent to multiple posts, but before the initial post).  Due to the fact that many spammers use purposefully misleading emails, and that many genuine potential users have emails that we'd find suspicious, coupled with the ultra low percentage of spammers to members (hundreds upon hundreds of new members per month, yet only 3-5 spammers in the same time period) and the negative effect this would have on the ability of new members to quickly and easily gain access to content/posting, this step has not yet been determined to be necessary or wise.
• Content moderation: If you notice that members are posting spam with particular features, such as photos, videos, blog posts or events, you can turn on moderation for the feature before content is approved.  For example, if we had a problem where spammers were adding bad photos to the photo section of the site, and it was a repetitive problem, we could turn moderation on to that feature alone. However, as of yet, virtually NONE of our spam has been on the photos, videos, blog, etc. sections of the site, but rather comments on individual users pages.  Individual pages are not available for universal moderation - only by the individual owners of those pages.

I also think it would be prudent to reiterate that currently we only have about one new spammer per week, with each of these being deleted within a few minutes/hours in almost every case.  We're very pleased with the results of our anti-spam efforts and while we will continue to improve our efforts towards reducing spam, we should also put the issue into perspective and carefully weigh the positives and negatives of implementing further steps which have the potential of reduce the general experience and usability of the site for our valued members.  Your suggestion regarding additional moderators is something we are advancing to the planning stage as we speak, and I would look for some sort of additional information on this in the coming weeks.  Thank you again for your suggestions and for taking the time to address this issue.  Together, between admins and members, I have no doubt that we'll continue to keep this community alive, thriving, and a positive, safe place to discuss everything related to the Kreg Jig and general woodworking!

[Mike Kahle]

More spam posted to my page: at 4pm this afternoon.... poster is still on the site according to the chat members...

 

HELLO
   Compliments of the day for you.
   I'm Favour by names but I am one, how are you, hope you are okay I went through your profile and read it and took intersest in it, if you do not mind i will love to know much better, please i will like you send me an email at my private e-mail contains, so that I will tell you everything you need to know about me and the picture myself.i believe distance and color will not be barear between us, I hope to read from you, thanks and God bless.
   Best Regard,
   Favour.
contact me now to my address ([e-mail])

[Betty]

I got hit with the same one a little after 11 p.m tonight.  I sent an Issue Report and delete the comment from my page.

Mike Kahle said:

More spam posted to my page: at 4pm this afternoon.... poster is still on the site according to the chat members...

 

HELLO
   Compliments of the day for you.
   I'm Favour by names but I am one, how are you, hope you are okay I went through your profile and read it and took intersest in it, if you do not mind i will love to know much better, please i will like you send me an email at my private e-mail contains, so that I will tell you everything you need to know about me and the picture myself.i believe distance and color will not be barear between us, I hope to read from you, thanks and God bless.
   Best Regard,
   Favour.
contact me now to my address ([e-mail])

 

 

[Mike Kahle]

Thank you Betty.

I have my comments set to be approved, so they do not automatically get displayed and someone unknowingly send an email or clicks a link posted by the spammer. It is sad that we have to do this on here, but there appears to be no other choice left to us.

 

[Steve Gronsky]

I received this same piece of trash at about 9:30 MDT.  I didn't file a report.  I simply deleted it from "my page".

 

Betty said:

I got hit with the same one a little after 11 p.m tonight.  I sent an Issue Report and delete the comment from my page.

Mike Kahle said:

More spam posted to my page: at 4pm this afternoon.... poster is still on the site according to the chat members...

 

HELLO
   Compliments of the day for you.
   I'm Favour by names but I am one, how are you, hope you are okay I went through your profile and read it and took intersest in it, if you do not mind i will love to know much better, please i will like you send me an email at my private e-mail contains, so that I will tell you everything you need to know about me and the picture myself.i believe distance and color will not be barear between us, I hope to read from you, thanks and God bless.
   Best Regard,
   Favour.
contact me now to my address ([e-mail])

 

 

[John Hoskison]

http://kregjig.ning.com/profiles/comment/list?attachedToType=User&a...

 

Just had this spam - over to you