Are we members at risk for hacking?

I understand your point Yorkie, however I'm trying to imagine worse case scenario and I, maybe blissfully, don't see it. Can you enlighten me/us? Thanks!

Amy

Security issues have been referenced in a couple of threads recently. Hacking is always an issue online and I have kept my personal information on this site to a minimum so that when this site is hacked, the hackers will get little from me. I'm always amazed at the personal information, locations, and pictures of family etc. that some share on a public discussion thread!

BCO needs to address this issue. I understand they are remodeling this site but have not been forthcoming on details. One hopes they are updating security and have a better plan for the spam.

Perhaps the techies on the discussion threads can weigh in.

Mods, adding the pop-up creates one more step each time we report spam, which seems counter-productive.

What about the idea that was suggested that we be able to report spam by user name, so that all of an individual's posts are flagged as spam though one action of reporting, rather than having to report each post separately? If this was possible, then certainly a double-check "Are you sure you want to identify all posts from this Member as spam?" would make sense, and of course you would need to retain the option to report a single post (for those extremely rare cases where a legitimate member of the board posts something inappropriate).

Considing the amount of spam on the board, the goal should be to make it easier to report spam and spammers, so that Members can quickly get rid of these posts, rather than add steps to the process.

I think we need to take steps to protect our identities no matter what site we are using. I have not posted an address here or a real name and I do not post pictures. Needless to say, I'm extremely careful with my credit cards on other sites. If there are other steps that you tech people think are urgent, please let us know.

I like the idea of reporting spam by name. It would cut down on transactions when one spammer posts 10 times before the mods can catch & block him/her.

Bosum - basically spammers set up a bogus name and start a new thread (or 5) that is selling things or trying to get you to click on a link that may take you to a bad, unsecure place.

Edited to say - you probably won't see much spam unless you are checking the 'active topics' area with some regularity.

I disagree. I generally check the active thread once or twice a day and usually only find spam once a week. I will admit that when it happens, the individual spammer gets away with 5-9 posts before he's reported & stopped. Maybe someone else is checking every hour on the hour and reporting things I don't see.

Spam IS very much rampant on this board and one doesn't have to be checking every hour on the hour to see it. In fact, it's there right now. If I come on late at night, it's unusual NOT to see it

Hmmm. I wonder why some see it a lot and some of us see it infrequently?

Hmmm...Perhaps you aren't looking at the same time of day I am. I assure you they are there and that the moderators go back and delete the ones I am referring to. Do you believe "male enhancement" and limks to boxing matches are appropriate posts here?

How do you believe new members feel when they click on links in " not diagnosed but worried" and find they are spam posts

Many of the thread titles are plausible, so unless you look at them, you wouldn't know it was spam. However, the body of the post typically is mishmash and links.

And...we once again have a slew of spam posts flooding the forum.

No brains necessary to spot the difference here. That any spam at all reaches the board means there's a problem, no matter how quickly it's eradicated. This mess below shows more proof it's happening and regularly.

Here is an example of the sort of spam that I see a lot.

I just took this screen shot a few minutes ago. Sorry that it's not very clear; what it shows are 5 spam posts from someone named 'Jopaykumusta' who just joined the board today (probably about 40 minutes ago, right before these posts were made). The posts all have subject lines that give the appearance of being breast cancer related, but they are all just a little bit 'off', which is what gives them away as being spam. Some of the subject lines here are: "Thousands Women Campaign" "LCIS after microinvasion Test Yesterday" "Color sample of my biopsy"...

These types of spam posts, when you open then, usually have a short paragraph that sounds almost legitimate, but it's followed by links to movies or videos or websites or something like that.

This is the type of spam that I see (and report) most often, and it is to me the most concerning, since it's not as obvious as the ones that include a website in the subject line, or the ones that have a completely nonsensical subject line. These tend to get a lot of views because they appear to be legitimate posts.

I suspect that many people don't catch these types of spam posts, and that's probably why some people don't think spam is a problem.

Spam is a problem. There have been days when I'm scanning the board, sign on to delete a series of 5 or 6 of these types of spam posts, and by the time I'm done and about to sign off, I see that another 5 or 6 have popped up from some other new user name. There have been days when I've reported 15 or 20 of these in a row.

I think the most spam posts I reported in a single session was 21. I paid dearly with all of the automated messages I got from BCO that night and the next morning. On that occasion, I was hoping that we could get the posts removed by the community until the mods showed up the next morning to permanently delete. Otherwise, I wouldn't have subjected myself to that.

Musical, I'm with you that these orphan references to deleted spam posts that continue to show are frustrating and clutter the board. It just gives the site an unprofessional feeling when it happens so often and so heavily. I think many are repeat offenders that come back night after night and then change to different tactics. To add to Beesie's point about the subject titles, I remember when the bulk of our spam was mostly random letters strung together, and then I remember one night a couple years back when (although I don't remember the exact details) a spammer posted a link to a thread where we were discussing spam. The next few days after that, when I would see spam, it was primarily like Beesie discussed above, where the title seems oddly-worded, but clearly the offender has browsed the boards enough to gather some words or phrases they think will be convincing to someone in order to get them to click on the thread. Because we have such an issue with spam here, I feel like BCO is probably on some vile spammer list somewhere that gets shared among these scumbags that lists sites that are easy to infiltrate.

I agree with Traveltext that spamming and hacking are two different things. I have never worried about being hacked here more than anywhere else, but I obviously worry about the ease with which the board gets plastered by junk with junk.

Perhaps Beesie is correct above that maybe it's the site-specific subject lines that are throwing some people and making them think we don't really have a spam problem. I think that probably accounts for at least some of it. All I know is I made a really funny, contorted, confused face when I read the couple of posts up-thread in which users didn't think we have a problem here.

"No doubt they'll put a fire through the backend with the forthcoming upgrade, and produce a site that should be virtually spam free."

Traveltext, I wish I shared your optimism. I have been on this site for 11 years. There was a time when the spam was much worse than it is now - literally 100s of spam posts at a time, rendering the board completely unusable - and if I remember correctly, that problem was finally resolved when the '5 post rule' for newbies was put in place. The level of spam that we have now has been pretty consistent for quite a number of years, and we've gone through quite a few upgrades over that time. I don't see how the type of spam that I highlighted in my earlier post can be stopped by an upgrade; those posts appear legitimate, after all. I think that only a rule change can stop this type of spam, either a rule that requires that all newbies posts must be verified before they show up on the board, or a rule that blocks any newbie posts that include website links and urls. That might work at cutting back on the spam, but it would also restrict the types of posts that we get from legitimate new members, and my impression is that BCO doesn't want to do that.

I used to do only what Traveltext stated - check the threads I'm particularly interested in each day. Now I usually also check the 'active topics' a couple of times a day. I rarely go to the "all topics" section. That said - I do see spam & I do report spam, but I certainly do not see it every day or every time I sign on. And I regularly check & read even the new posts that sound weird since I agree with Lintroller, you really can't tell w/o reading some of them. I have reported a couple that I though were 'bogus' even if they didn't jump out as spam. I agree, that part of it might be the time of day. As Beesie said, I don't think BCO wants to put too many road blocks in the way of people who are newly diagnosed and scared - as we all once were.