Spam Comments on PBase Sites

[amoxtli]

Hi,

Based on messages I have received from other PBasers I know I am not the only one receiving spam comments on my site. I just wanted to let you know that I have contacted Emily about this. (For technical reasons I could not attach the screenshot I sent to Emily to this post as I don't want the spam posts on my site for all to see). My message to her below:

"Hi Emily,

Starting yesterday, I have been getting spam comments on my PBase site. They are advertising mostly for Porn and “Contact”. I clicked on several of the accounts and they contain no images and look like trial accounts all opened on March 31. Several other PBase subscribers have reported receiving similar comments. I have attached a selection of the spam comments at the bottom of this message. I hope something can be done soon. Thank you so much for looking into this."

[jolka]

Walter, thank you for reporting this. I have got several spam comments as well, deleting them and getting new ones after a few minutes. Hope this unwished and unpleasant problem can be solved ASAP.

[helenpb]

I had the same experience on Sunday, when I got at least 150 pages of spam comments. I stopped trying to figure out how many pages there were when I got to 150; for all I know there could be thousands of them. Unfortunately, I was away from home when this transpired so couldn't even attempt to do anything to stop it. When I got home I switched my settings to only allow comments from paid Pbase members (as opposed to just Pbase members, which I had switched it to long ago, not realizing the "paid only" option existed) and thankfully haven't gotten any more spam. Now I just need to try to delete all the comments, which could take months. I hope Emily can at least cancel all the new Pbase accounts that were responsible for this. And if she has the ability to delete pages of comments, that would be a relief.

[danad]

I experienced the same problem from two days. This morning again.. and more and more ! It is urgent to do something to solve this problem as we spent more and more time erasing them.

[ianm_au]

About 50 so far. I tried tracking the source, but the source server fails the connection, almost as if someone is trying to block it.
Ian

[helenpb]

It sure would be nice to hear something from Pbase; I wrote them at 6 EDT last night, and people have posted messages here, but not a word AFAIK. At the very least they should be canceling those fake accounts, and maybe they should be rethinking "trial" accounts since that seems to be what happened here. Meanwhile, there are 20 comments on one page, and I've already deleted 70 pages of them. I have absolutely no idea how many more are left.

[calopteryx]

I had a lot of these 'contact' and 'porn' spam messages yesterday and today.
I guess about 40 messages.
Hope you wil solve this problem soon.

[jolka]

I went thru all pages with spam, it took me to 129, 20 comments on each which makes 2580 of them all. Is there an option to erase the whole page of comments? Or do I have to delete every single one, which will take a lot of time. No other "normal" comments, so it would be good to take the whole page off.

[helenpb]

I went thru all pages with spam, it took me to 129, 20 comments on each which makes 2580 of them all. Is there an option to erase the whole page of comments? Or do I have to delete every single one, which will take a lot of time. No other "normal" comments, so it would be good to take the whole page off.

I had the same question for Pbase, but so far I haven't heard back and can't figure out a way to delete comments other than one by one. I have so far deleted 100 pages of them, meaning 2,000 comments, and quite frankly my hand is aching. Where in the world is PBase management??

[tomleroy]

I had over 100 pages of SPAM comments on my images today - hope you don't experience the same problem.
no choice but to change the settings to not allowing any comments temporarily. Tried PBasers with paid accounts only; it does not work.

[helenpb]

I had over 100 pages of SPAM comments on my images today - hope you don't experience the same problem.
no choice but to change the settings to not allowing any comments temporarily. Tried PBasers with paid accounts only; it does not work.

I just deleted probably around 3,000 comments. You mean these people have paid accounts, or that the security protections are inadequate?? This may be the end of Pbase for me if that's the case, but for now, I guess I'll cut off all comments.

[globalgadabout]

this onslaught of unwanted messages, sleazy in character, has been going on for several days, and persists this morning too.
The messages might well prove harmful as well, and could contain a virus to attack both the website and individual user's galleries.
can pbase management eliminate the problem straight away, as in TODAY, and perhaps inform loyal account holders of where we stand????

[isabel95]

Thankfully, only two - but one of them was "loading" forever. Thankfully, I was able to delete it.

I have heard that changes profile to accept comments from only paid pbase members hasn't worked to defeat the spam.

[ianm_au]

Paid accounts setting will not work because the accounts appear to have been hacked or the password database has been hacked.
I haven't checked the full details of each spam message, they appear to be coming from the same accounts.
Ian

[helenpb]

Paid accounts setting will not work because the accounts appear to have been hacked or the password database has been hacked.
I haven't checked the full details of each spam message, they appear to be coming from the same accounts.
Ian

That is just appalling, if even paid accounts are at risk. I hated to disable comments and hopefully will be able to turn them on again soon, but no way do I want to go thru what I did today with deleting thousands of comments. And yes, they seem to be from a limited number of accounts. I recognized the names appearing over and over.