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View Full Version : Welcome to the new member from USA


gloria townsin
21st February 2007, 01:29 PM
Hello and welcome - hope you will soon introduce yourself to us and tell us how you came by FOM's and the Chronicles.
Jeff
21st February 2007, 06:16 PM
Hi Gloria,

Our "new member" has a username of "Buypharm3" as in Buy Pharmaceuticals i.e. a SPAMBOT. Their owners trawl the net looking for forums and they use a script (the spambot) to fill in the registration form. Some forums (fora?) allow auto registration and what happens then is that the spammer injects loads of spam into the forum, so much sometimes that the forum can be completely brought to a standstill and members just drift away. That is why we manually vet every user that registers, it's the only way and the reason we have such a happy, friendly community.

This week alone we have deleted the accounts of the following spambots.

1 Purveyor of Xanax (some sort of drug)
1 Pharmaceutical supplier (more drugs)
1 Gentlemans Appendage Enlargement Service (erm...)
:D
Unfortunately, the forum software lists these bots as registered although they are waiting for Lin and I to authorise their account. Luckily, they are obvious to spot as their email address or website address gives the game away.

By the way, we missed you the night you went to see Evita. I kept asking Lin if she thought something was wrong as you hadn't posted for hours :D

Take care,
gloria townsin
22nd February 2007, 02:51 AM
Hello Jeff
I had a sneaking suspicion that all was not right with that person but thought I would post a welcome just in case but after the last alert you posted I didn't take a look at the web-site. These people are a real nuisance I hate junk mail through the letter-box and to have it appear on screen is even worse.

'Evita' was good - more so once the interval came round and we moved seats further back in the stalls (we wanted to do this to begin with as there were empty seats but the jobs-worth guy wouldn't let us). We were in the 3rd row from the stage and I almost joined the cast a few times in the back row of the chorus!! When the stage lights came up we were caught in the glow........