PA and Secretary Community - Deskdemon.com

I just spent better of an hour cleaning out my email and my manager's email of spam that gets through our spam filter.  What a waste of time.  I could be creating a power point presentation, doing mail merges, filing, etc.  Instead I am deleting the spam that clogs up our server.  Viagra and Phizer are the biggest source of this stuff.   There, I am off my soap box and done with my vent and now I feel better.  Back to work.

I have also posted this as a blog. 

Maybe your IT department need to know the volume of spam you receive on a daily basis.  They should be able to block stuff like that.  We don't get any spam like that in work.

May want to get IT involved. 

I am the IT Department.  We are a 7 person nonprofit outfit.  These spammers get more creative to get through the spam filter.  This morning I came into 170 spam messages in the spam filter.  I have to sort through that to make sure a legitimate message did not mistakenly get filtered.  In my regular email box I have 72 messages.  4 messages were real.  The rest were all ads for Viagra!  Ugh.  Time to get new software filtering.

Not only time for new filtering software. You should also be trying to identify how these email addresses are getting out. Could be time for a website redesign using forms if you have your email addresses included there.

To Susan and the Moderators...

With the increase of spam on this site on a daily basis, perhaps the BLOG section is not a good idea anymore, as this is the area spammers seem to target.

Can I make a suggestion to get rid of the BLOG section and see if that makes a difference?

Thanks for your suggestion Gee, however that is a section that some members enjoy using and it is not the blogs themselves that cause the problem.

Before removing it it would be more appropriate to use a passkey system (such as we have for entries under the Groups section) - the spammers are not people they are 'robots' and so a unique passkey that has to be added for each entry is not stopping us blogging but will stop the robot spam.

Please don't do away with the Blogs  :o

I enjoy reading these - they are quite useful, not to mention enjoyable to read.

We wont get rid of the blogs, we have some great posters.   I do delete the posts everyday, even on weekends  and even before I go to bed many days (dedication!).   I am west coast US so yes it is just about the latest in the day for those UK and East Coast.  I block the IPs, I block the names, they are a resilient bunch of people (or some type of software).   I don't know why or how they do it, I delete it as fast as I can so it isn't like it will stay posted.

Edited.. I thought the blogs did require an authentication.  I was looking into where they go into a pending file then be approved but if it doesn't have authentication that may work.  I will look into that!

I would say I love the blogs, but I really like everything DeskDemon offers, the home page articles, the blogs, my favorite area though is the forum board, even if I dont get to visit as often as I used too.   I have seen  spam but I also see it gone soon after.

That is my point Susan.  You have to take the time to go and delete the spam.  Time you could be spending doing something that is meaningful (like sleeping, spending time with family, etc.).  I just find these "bots" annoying and they clog up valuable space on our email server.

But the BLOG section is the only area being targeted.  Can't we rename it or move it or just post on the Forums instead?

I LOVE the blogs!  I have about 3 updates I have written but I need to copy/paste to the blogs!  I just want to put only one up at a time.  The reason they aren't posted yet is only because I have been busy.  Which is a good thing!  Blogs are great! 

I love the blogs too!  My original post was a vent to help me feel better after the frustration that I was going through that day.  Gee, it does not matter what DD does to block the spam it will get through.  These bots, people, etc., have nothing better to do and sometimes they "catch" people into their scams.  Susan is diligently trying to delete/filter them.  If you know they are spam, don't open it.  It is a nuisance, but it is a "fact of life in the internet age."

Thank you Susan - end of a busy week - authentication was the term I was looking for and we have it on Groups but not Blogs.  I don't see any spam in the groups and I am more than happy to authenticate to post a blog, although as Chikky says a certain amount of antisocial behaviour goes with the territory these days (the price for such open internet access) and frankly I bypass the spam entries which stand out like a sore thumb and read the blogs that grab my attention. 

Cathy

Chikky,
You were the one that started this topic saying how much time you were wasting clearing out your boss's spam, now you are saying "it is a fact of life in the internet age."  Understanding your frustration, I was merely pointing out how much this site is being targeted lately and in doing so, agreeing with you.  This never happened previously before the site was updated last year.

Cathy S,
Can you add the same authentication to Blogs as you have done for Groups?  Why is it only one section that is being targeted?

Susan has already indicated that she will look into authentication for the blogs as well as groups. 

As to your second question Gee, it isn't just the blogs that get targeted.  There are other areas that have been spammed but Susan is very diligent at keeping the site tidy.  It is a question of finding a balance between inconvenience to members having to authenticate every entry and the time it takes to tidy up the spam left by the bots in the first place.

It is not unique to this site, any site that allows member contribution can be open to spambots and it is nothing to do with the system architecture of the site now compared to the previous version - it is because the spam bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated at finding ways past the protections.  Spam attacks on e-mail inboxes, which is what Chikky started this thread about, are somewhat different and there are good filters that keep it at bay.

By the way, it is very easy to get drawn into spamming - how many people have forwarded one of those e-mails saying "WARNING  don't open the e-mail called blah blah with an attachment called XYZ it contains the most vicious known virus" - the majority of those are hoax virus warnings intended to create high volumes of internet traffic and slow systems down ... it is a form of spam because it is totally unnecessary.   If you receive one of these it takes less than a minute to run a check on a search engine that will confirm it is a known hoax and you can delete that bit of spam instead of growing it!

Cathy,

Before the site was revamped last year, there was no Blog or Group section, so we wouldn't have see any spam.  It seems to be quite visible now in the newly created sections.

I'm going to request again that we get rid of the Blog Section on DD.

This morning there is a full page of rubbish, and unless you scroll through the next pages, you would never know if anyone has posted anything worth reading.  It looks awful.

To Susan and the Moderators...

With the increase of spam on this site on a daily basis, perhaps the BLOG section is not a good idea anymore, as this is the area spammers seem to target.

Can I make a suggestion to get rid of the BLOG section and see if that makes a difference?

We will not take down the blogs, even with the spam it is a highly visited section.  We will just keep looking for other solutions. 

Susan

I don't think I have visited the blog section, however I have noticed that since its inception I receive more and more junk emails from the likes of South West travel with a link to my non-existent travel itinerary/hotel voucher etc (and those are some of the least offensive ones!).  I have tried blocking them, however more and more come each day and it takes me a good half an hour each week to troll through them to siphon off the genuine emails!

Coincidence?  I think not.

Jess (not too impressed with junk mail which is why I dropped Hotmail years ago because I have not now nor ever wanted viagra or a penis extension!)

Are you receiving this junk mail into your DD email inbox?  If so I am jealous as I don't get any  ;D

The thing with Blogs is that they are great from an SEO point of view  :)- just a shame if they are generating spam. :(

Jess,

You should read the Blog section.  Myself and others have posted some useful information as well as tips n tricks on features of MS Office.

My concern is, the more this area is targetted, the more the other postings will be lost.  No one wants to trawl through pages of spam to find the most recent postings if they are looking for something in particular.

Gee

Thanks for that, however I am talking about my dd email address that my friends have no knowledge of due to the amount of junk mail I cannot get rid of (and not a Office email or any of my other email addresses) and which is being targetted from the US bit time, and yes I have tried blocking them etc!

(phew - try saying that in one breath - almost fell off my chair trying!)

Jess! :(

Hey Jess,

I didn't mean read the Blogs in relation to blocking emails, I just meant you should read them in general.  :D

You  should check out the blogs, we have some good information on them.  As for the spammers they do drive me crazy, I think it is like a game to them.  They MUST see I delete them as soon as I can, so why post?  Go to am old board where they don't care and don't take them down! I have something new I will be trying so hopefully that works in blocking spam!  Implementing the captcha code was a good idea, it just seems someone is manually putting them in.

(ooops edited!  bloggers don't drive me crazy ahahha they are awesome!)

I report Spam on this site on a daily basis.  Can we get it removed?

I seem to be the only one that notices it or monitors the webpages on which it appears.

Advertising is bad enough but the spam is even worse.