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Spam Comments on PBase Sites

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staggerwing
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:25 pm


helenpb wrote:Sure wish I had found a "batch" type control but didn't.... I went to each gallery same as if I were going to add a photos... at the top of the main boxed in area you will see "Advanced" in there you will find quickly where to reset comments... then be sure to drop down to just below that to hit "SAVE"


Thanks, I did look at advanced but didn't see that. It's set for "Who can comment -- nobody can post." I don't know how I managed to do that, but it now seems to be that way for all of my galleries, and I haven't gotten any more spam or comments at all. Maybe it was when I disabled comments under my settings? I hope I can figure out how to change it back after this is all over, if it ever is all over.[/quote]


I just had a quick look at 6-8 of your photos in different galleries and see that I could not comment so you must be good for now.. thought an outsider confirmation might be comforting 8-)

helenpb
 
Posts: 78

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:55 pm


staggerwing wrote:
helenpb wrote:Sure wish I had found a "batch" type control but didn't.... I went to each gallery same as if I were going to add a photos... at the top of the main boxed in area you will see "Advanced" in there you will find quickly where to reset comments... then be sure to drop down to just below that to hit "SAVE"


Thanks, I did look at advanced but didn't see that. It's set for "Who can comment -- nobody can post." I don't know how I managed to do that, but it now seems to be that way for all of my galleries, and I haven't gotten any more spam or comments at all. Maybe it was when I disabled comments under my settings? I hope I can figure out how to change it back after this is all over, if it ever is all over.



I just had a quick look at 6-8 of your photos in different galleries and see that I could not comment so you must be good for now.. thought an outsider confirmation might be comforting 8-)[/quote]

Thanks for checking; your galleries seem OK, too. The whole thing is confusing -- I can see old comments on pictures but not on the galleries themselves. Maybe that's the result of the instruction under advanced, which I actually never changed. Anyway -- I sure hope we can get back to normal soon around here!

jolka
 
Posts: 5633

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:01 pm


Yesterday I have allowed comments only from paid members of Pbase and the spam stopped, no more comments from those addresses (10 or so). Like Helen, I had to delete almost 3000 comments one by one.
Tomasz also got this spam, but not so many as me, only 16 pages :D while I had 129 pages!!!
It's frustrating the Admin does not respond to this problem :(

staggerwing
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:00 pm


jolka wrote:Yesterday I have allowed comments only from paid members of Pbase and the spam stopped, no more comments from those addresses (10 or so). Like Helen, I had to delete almost 3000 comments one by one.
Tomasz also got this spam, but not so many as me, only 16 pages :D while I had 129 pages!!!
It's frustrating the Admin does not respond to this problem :(



The problem I saw was that the spammers were not using guest posts, but had what appeared to be regular paid accounts... will be interesting to see if you get hit again or not.. I'm just keeping comments fully off until we get the all clear from Pbase admin. if we do...

helenpb
 
Posts: 78

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Tue Apr 02, 2019 10:15 pm


staggerwing wrote:
jolka wrote:Yesterday I have allowed comments only from paid members of Pbase and the spam stopped, no more comments from those addresses (10 or so). Like Helen, I had to delete almost 3000 comments one by one.
Tomasz also got this spam, but not so many as me, only 16 pages :D while I had 129 pages!!!
It's frustrating the Admin does not respond to this problem :(



The problem I saw was that the spammers were not using guest posts, but had what appeared to be regular paid accounts... will be interesting to see if you get hit again or not.. I'm just keeping comments fully off until we get the all clear from Pbase admin. if we do...


Well, I have enabled comments from paid accounts only, but given what you and others have said about it, may have to turn them off again. I'm going to try to keep an eye on comments this evening and perhaps disable them again overnight. I sorta don't think we'll hear anything from Pbase admin...

longbachnguyen
 
Posts: 22

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:34 am


I just did the same with only one gallery as a test to see if I get those damned spams again.

staggerwing
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:16 pm


longbachnguyen wrote:I just did the same with only one gallery as a test to see if I get those damned spams again.



Not seeing any new complaints so will reset to comments with subscription only fingers crossed...

kujoseph
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Wed Apr 03, 2019 4:28 pm


After seeing some of the spam comments myself, I had reset my comments option to only allow those from paid Pbase accounts, and I have had no issues since then.

I see that some folks have now started to go back to loosening up their comments options to see if the problem has been addressed. Thank you for volunteering to be the guinea pigs! :( My experience with this website is that problems seem to sometimes get fixed without a word (and in this case not even an acknowledgement) from the administrators in this regard. One is forced to be a beta tester without actually volunteering for that role in order to find out what is going on. This is not the first time this has happened. It is quite discouraging.

Kuriacose

helenpb
 
Posts: 78

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Wed Apr 03, 2019 4:52 pm


kujoseph wrote:After seeing some of the spam comments myself, I had reset my comments option to only allow those from paid Pbase accounts, and I have had no issues since then.

I see that some folks have now started to go back to loosening up their comments options to see if the problem has been addressed. Thank you for volunteering to be the guinea pigs! :( My experience with this website is that problems seem to sometimes get fixed without a word (and in this case not even an acknowledgement) from the administrators in this regard. One is forced to be a beta tester without actually volunteering for that role in order to find out what is going on. This is not the first time this has happened. It is quite discouraging.

Kuriacose


I think after this attack most people are sticking with comments from paid Pbase accounts only, as opposed to all Pbase accounts, but it was mentioned that the hackers were actually paid accounts, so I don't know where that leaves us. One person told me he saw a spam comment and was going to report it to management, but when he went back to it, the comment had disappeared, so maybe they did more behind the scenes than we realize. I agree, though -- even a word from the administrators would have been nice, instead of this total silence when a lot of people were panicking. I find that appalling, personally.

staggerwing
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Wed Apr 03, 2019 7:51 pm


helenpb wrote:
kujoseph wrote:After seeing some of the spam comments myself, I had reset my comments option to only allow those from paid Pbase accounts, and I have had no issues since then.

I see that some folks have now started to go back to loosening up their comments options to see if the problem has been addressed. Thank you for volunteering to be the guinea pigs! :( My experience with this website is that problems seem to sometimes get fixed without a word (and in this case not even an acknowledgement) from the administrators in this regard. One is forced to be a beta tester without actually volunteering for that role in order to find out what is going on. This is not the first time this has happened. It is quite discouraging.

Kuriacose


I think after this attack most people are sticking with comments from paid Pbase accounts only, as opposed to all Pbase accounts, but it was mentioned that the hackers were actually paid accounts, so I don't know where that leaves us. One person told me he saw a spam comment and was going to report it to management, but when he went back to it, the comment had disappeared, so maybe they did more behind the scenes than we realize. I agree, though -- even a word from the administrators would have been nice, instead of this total silence when a lot of people were panicking. I find that appalling, personally.


I sure hate to limit comments to Pbase subscribers only, but seems the best thing to do now that it's hit home... I do think that the ~Leave a message~ section will still allow non subscribers to leave a message even with the restrictions on comments.. I THINK that anyway..

Edit for typo

gaiyang46
 
Posts: 4

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:39 am


I selected 'nobody' for my comments box a few days ago, and so far that has resulted in no comments. Good so far. However, yesterday I uploaded two pictures. Today I checked the stats and the number of views is ridiculously high 6 to 10 times normal. I doubt it's a coincidence. When I was getting the attacks, there were all of a sudden a lot of views of every image in particular galleries. I'm giving this a week, and if things do not calm, I'm deleting everything and pulling the plug on the entire account. I'm wondering if anyone in the Pbase administration reads these comments. This is ridiculous.

kujoseph
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:41 pm


The operation of the statistics software on this website have always remained an unexplained mystery to me. I have found it best not try to to read too much into it. There seems to be a strange pattern to the manner in which the stats are processed. I am simply hoping that some of the hits that are being pointed to are not of the malicious kind.

dw_thomas
 
Posts: 481

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:21 pm


I'm almost afraid to type this out loud --- but I've had my account set for only comments from paid members for a number of years since some similar stuff happened, and cross all my fingers and toes, I've not seen any of this latest spam. Of course it could be as Marisa suggests -- my pages aren't that interesting. :shock:

I am surprised at the silence from The Management(tm), as there has been the recent flurry of improved functions and a frankly amazing speed improvement, which was accompanied by a fair amount of interaction with Emily.

Exciting, these here Interwebz! :mrgreen:

staggerwing
 
Posts: 13

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Sun Apr 07, 2019 1:51 pm


Well, seems it was a hit and run mass robo spam attack I guess and I've not had any problem since resetting comments to only subscribed Pbase persons Next I'm going to set a few galleries to let anyone post comments and see how it goes..

helenpb
 
Posts: 78

Re: Spam Comments on PBase Sites

Post Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:19 pm


staggerwing wrote:Well, seems it was a hit and run mass robo spam attack I guess and I've not had any problem since resetting comments to only subscribed Pbase persons Next I'm going to set a few galleries to let anyone post comments and see how it goes..


I haven't had any more problems by limiting comments to paid Pbase accounts; I'm fairly sure you'll be OK. But I'm still disappointed that we never heard a single word from Pbase management about the attack and what they were doing about it....

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