The software we use to run the forum has recently been under attack by a new way of spamming that involves humans (to get by the validation process) and automated bots (to PM everyone, over time). Other forums that run the same software have reported similar issues.

We have applied a software patch that does PM flood control on the PM screen, which means that members will not be able to send more than 1 personal message every few minutes. This will ensure that bots cannot PM spam anymore. In addition, we have disabled BBCODE in the PM system, so it will be impossible to send formatted text (or active links) in personal messages.

Anyone who still wants send many PMs will have to go through the normal process of signing up for a new account and posting a message in order to become validated, which is how we have prevented most spammers from having access to our forums. The initial post these spammers use to become full members are all pretty obvious and are normally off topic—report them early, and hopefully, we’ll get to them before they manage to send anymore PMs.

We’re told that the upcoming version of our forum software includes a centralized SPAM reporting and banning service, which means that as soon as one of these guys hits one forum, they will be banned on all of them. This is the same method that most blogs use for anti-comment spam, and has been shown to be extremely effective.

This spam situation was not much different than a normal user logging in, listing all members, and sending personal messages to everyone, one by one. The only differences was the content and the script that (presumably) automated the process. No spammers were able to get your email address. By default, Wetpixel hides your email address, but if it makes you feel better, you can go into your Email Settings and make sure that “Hide my email address from other members” is checked.

The reason some of you received the PM as an email is that your Email Settings are set to do so. To turn this off, go to Email Settings and uncheck “Send a notification email when I receive a new private message”.

If you’d like to turn off personal messaging, go to Board Settings and set “Disable your personal messenger?” to “Yes”.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. We’ll try hard to make it as hard as possible for spammers to do anything here again, although it is always a game of catch-up as they find new ways to get in.

If you have other issues, please contact us at http://wetpixel.com/contact

Best,
Eric Cheng
Publisher/Editor, Wetpixel.com