editor Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 I have disabled the Personal Messenger system for most users.The company that makes the HAIF software has notified me that there is a flaw in the system which allows spammers to send out hundreds of spam PMs to users.A patch is being worked on.Until it's reday, PMs are disabled for ordinary users. Subscribers still have their personal messages enabled because the chances of a spammer subscribing to HAIF are pretty close to zero.Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll let you know if anything changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vertigo58 Posted April 9, 2009 Share Posted April 9, 2009 Groovy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfre81 Posted April 9, 2009 Share Posted April 9, 2009 As a moderator on another IPBoard forum I've received a lot of complaints/reports about mass PM spam lately. Are these spammers coming out of Russia perchance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20thStDad Posted April 9, 2009 Share Posted April 9, 2009 As a moderator on another IPBoard forum I've received a lot of complaints/reports about mass PM spam lately. Are these spammers coming out of Russia perchance?I have another private board that I run, with restricted admin-approved membership only, and most of the new member requests I've been getting lately are from Germany and Asia (non-Russia countries). A year or two ago it was several Russian based requests a day, I think with IP banning I may have cut most of that off thankfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted April 9, 2009 Author Share Posted April 9, 2009 I have applied the security patch. You should be able to use your personal messenger again now.But there is now flood control on it, so you can only send one PM every three minutes. If this becomes a problem, let me know and I'll consider adjusting it.While I was in there, I made it possible for HAIF members to store up to 1,000 personal messages.As a moderator on another IPBoard forum I've received a lot of complaints/reports about mass PM spam lately. Are these spammers coming out of Russia perchance?The security alert didn't specify where the attackers were coming from. They haven't hit HAIF yet, so I have no record of it.HAIF's most common spammers are from India and China. We used to get Russian spammers, but not really anymore.I have another private board that I run, with restricted admin-approved membership only, and most of the new member requests I've been getting lately are from Germany and Asia (non-Russia countries). A year or two ago it was several Russian based requests a day, I think with IP banning I may have cut most of that off thankfully.At one time I experimented with IP blocking on HAIF and it didn't work out. It ended up cutting off a lot of people in the energy industry who work in places like Russia and Nigeria who were using HAIF to keep in touch with life back home.The other hazard is that some corporate networks connect to HAIF through invalid IP addresses. For example, if I lock out a common range of IP addresses that are supposed to never be used, but are sometimes used by spammers, I end up also locking out Continental Airlines employees.Because of these reasons there are no IP addresses blocked at HAIF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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