Hello everyone,
Thanks for your continued vigilance in reporting spam and other such troublesome fools to us. In light of recent tech changes at our end, and world events, I have some notes here and requests that will help keep the site running as smoothly and securely as possible.
- We are seeing a large increase in malicious traffic from Russia. Our systems are blocking the vast majority of these actors, but the odd one may sneak around our defences and end up posting. As big a risk as anything if one wished to be a truly malicious rather than merely annoying interloper, would be your passwords: please make sure these are as secure as possible. Loosely disguised, memorable English words or phrases are sadly no longer enough. Any decent browser these days will be able to remember passwords, and third party software to encrypt and store your passwords, is readily available. As far as is possible, a truly random password that looks like you're randomly bashed a load of keys on your keyboard, should be aimed for.
- When a spammer makes it through our registration process and ends up posting, please DO NOT REPLY. This is exactly what they want. Even if you're mocking them, replying gives the post/thread validation, and is seen by search engines automatically indexing the site as indication that their links are good quality and should be taken notice of. Simply hit the Report button and we will clear up the mess ASAP.
- An increasing tactic is not to directly spam and attract attention to their nefarious products, but to seed links for long-term gain in search results. They will register an account, post in a few threads completely innocuously, then come back again months later and edit their posts to insert the spammy link, once it's buried X pages on from the current discussion and won't be noticed by human eyes.
In combatting this latter approach, please look out for:
1. New users
2. Posting bland or only semi-related comments
3. Often in busy threads
4. Without introducing themselves anywhere else
5. Likely no more than two or three threads before disappearing
6. Often in the middle of the night
7. Usually with not-quite-broken but not fluent English
8. Not commenting on comedy
It is always possible a poster ticking all of those boxes could be legitimate, but anyone half-matching such criteria, please report their posts and I will be able to assess. You'll never be chastised for being overly cautious in use of the Report function.
Thank you!
