mmook using IM now

[Anya Ristow]

I called it. I said there was no reason bots sending private messages couldn't instead send IMs, and that people who were suggesting just turning off private messages were one-step thinkers.

I just got my first IM-to-email spam from mmook.

Phil, you gonna suggest people turn that off, too?

[Canoro Philipp]

I wont suggest it, but if it brings a lot of trouble it can be considered to have it available as an opt-in feature making people aware of the consequences.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The 5000 per day cap on bot messaging in the new bot policy  includes IM's not just group messages or notices. 

Unsolicited spam is against the TOS, so AR anyone that spams you and do it everytime they do it.

6.2 You agree that you will not post or transmit Content or code that may be harmful, impede other users' functionality, invade other users' privacy, or surreptitiously or negatively impact any system or network.

...
(ii) Post or transmit unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials, that are in the nature of "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation that Linden Lab considers to be of such nature;

[Anya Ristow]

It's against the rules? Okay, that should stop it.

Not.

These accounts are throw-aways. They can create as many as they need to get around the cap.

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

Why do you feel the need to be so hostile with people here who can do nothing but offer suggestions as to what you can do?  It's LL with which you should be pissed, not those who are merely trying to be helpful.

Of course, judging by the way LL "fixed" the last issue with mmook, we may shortly find it impossible to send each other IMs at all.

Wouldn't it be amusing if this mmook spam nonsense actually forces LL to review their sign-up policy and maybe make it a bit more difficult for people to create throw-away alt after throw-away alt to use for nefarious purposes?

...Dres

[Griffin Ceawlin]

I'm going to repeat what Perrie suggested in your other thread:

You could set your e mail filters to dump anything with 'mmook' in it.

But that's forcing you to "jump through hoops"...

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

It's against the rules? Okay, that should stop it.

Not.

These accounts are throw-aways. They can create as many as they need to get around the cap.

 

---

FYI you aren't the only one who has this problem.  If anyone here in the forum could put an end to all the annoying spam it would certainly have ended a long time ago.  Only LL can do this and they aren't here.  The only way we have of getting their attention and response is to continue to AR every spammer until they are so sick of it they actually do something.

Apparently all you are willing to do is complain and then respond in a rude and sarcastic manner to anyone whose response doesn't offer you an immediate solution that involves no effort on your part.  I'm sure that is very effective.

Not.

BTW it is ironic that you complain about a rule breaker when you yourself have broken the rules of this forum by posting the guys in your OP.  Maybe you should read the Community Guidelines available to you at the top right corner of your screen before posting again.

[Anya Ristow]

---

Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

 

You could

set your e mail filters to dump anything with 'mmook' in it.

 

---

One-step thinking.

[Lunar Core]

---

Anya Ristow wrote:

---

Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

 

You could

set your e mail filters to dump anything with 'mmook' in it.

 

---

One-step thinking.

---

Wrong. Set the spam filter and guess what? You won't get e-mail spam from them until they change up their tactics.

Instead of harping at everyone else (including Linden Lab) to do something for you, do it yourself. Guess what? no one I know has been hit by these spammers.

Gee, must be because they're lucky ... or maybe because they don't do anything that would cause them to be targets.

[Anya Ristow]

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Why do you feel the need to be so hostile with people here who can do nothing but offer suggestions

---

Not so much hostile as snarky. Sorry, that's how I deal with simplistic, redundant, unrealistic one-step thinking. I'm impatient.

 

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

It's LL with which you should be pissed, not those who are merely trying to be helpful.

---

 

Anyone who thinks LL doesn't read these forums isn't thinking about their own behavior and the behavior of people they know. If LL cares at all about what they've created and what they spend all day doing, then they are reading here. Just like I am, though I'm not even active in SL. They care. They read. They obviously have a policy about not responding, but they definitely read.

In an AR you can only play whack-a-mole, and it's more trouble to get an account banned than it is to create a new one. Useless.

In a forum post I can describe the likely outcome of current policy and current practices for dealing with abuse. I said the mmook thing would render private messages useless, and it did. I said they'd move to IM and they did.

Unlike some, I think LL cares about these things, and I don't think they are dumb. I think I tell them nothing they don't already know, but by letting them know residents are aware of the problem and the likely outcome, I hope I can spur them to action, and it'd be nice if I had help, rather than letting them know that action isn't necessary because people are happy with ARs as their only recourse.

If LL isn't already working on a real solution then the've wasted a great deal of time. IM-to-email is too important to not already be working on a solution.

 

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

It's LL with which you should be pissed, not those who are merely trying to be helpful.

Of course, judging by the way LL "fixed" the last issue with mmook, we may shortly find it impossible to send each other IMs at all.

Wouldn't it be amusing if this mmook spam nonsense actually forces LL to review their sign-up policy and maybe make it a bit more difficult for people to create throw-away alt after throw-away alt to use for nefarious purposes?

---

 

There's an example of thinking that isn't one-step :matte-motes-smile:

[Anya Ristow]

---

Lunar Core wrote:

no one I know has been hit by these spammers.

Gee, must be because they're lucky ... or maybe because they don't do anything that would cause them to be targets.

---

You mean like being seen in public? Has SL become so anti-social that it's considered foolish to be seen?

 

[Lunar Core]

Actually, that is an example of thinking that is overkill.

 

There are message boards, MMOs ISPs and other systems out there whose sign up process is SIMPLER than the one Linden Lab employs and they have handled spammers far, far beter. Their user base does not complain nearly as much when someone slips through the cracks either.

 

In short, stop whining.

[Lunar Core]

Nice try there.

 

Try again - and perhaps choose where you go a bit more carefully next time.

 

Public sandboxes? Don't go to them. Brand spanking new club? Stick to the ones you've been to before, where you are known. New outlet mall opened up? Shop at a main store or the marketplace. Use common sense and your chances of being hit by spam are reduced.

 

As I have already said - stop your whining and take a bit of personal responsibility.

[Venus Petrov]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Why do you feel the need to be so hostile with people here who can do nothing but offer suggestions

---

Not so much hostile as snarky. Sorry, that's how I deal with simplistic, redundant, unrealistic one-step thinking. I'm impatient.

 

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

It's LL with which you should be pissed, not those who are merely trying to be helpful.

---

 

Anyone who thinks LL doesn't read these forums isn't thinking about their own behavior and the behavior of people they know. If LL cares at all about what they've created and what they spend all day doing, then they are reading here. Just like I am, though I'm not even active in SL.

They care. They read. They obviously have a policy about not responding, but they definitely read.

In an AR you can only play whack-a-mole, and it's more trouble to get an account banned than it is to create a new one. Useless.

In a forum post I can describe the likely outcome of current policy and current practices for dealing with abuse. I said the mmook thing would render private messages useless, and it did. I said they'd move to IM and they did.

Unlike some, I think LL cares about these things, and I don't think they are dumb. I think I tell them nothing they don't already know, but by letting them know residents are aware of the problem and the likely outcome, I hope I can spur them to action, and it'd be nice if I had help, rather than letting them know that action isn't necessary because people are happy with ARs as their only recourse.

If LL isn't already working on a real solution then the've wasted a great deal of time. IM-to-email is too important to not already be working on a solution.

 

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

It's LL with which you should be pissed, not those who are merely trying to be helpful.

Of course, judging by the way LL "fixed" the last issue with mmook, we may shortly find it impossible to send each other IMs at all.

Wouldn't it be amusing if this mmook spam nonsense actually forces LL to review their sign-up policy and maybe make it a bit more difficult for people to create throw-away alt after throw-away alt to use for nefarious purposes?

---

 

There's an example of thinking that isn't one-step :matte-motes-smile:

---

See bolded.  Dream.On.

 

[Anya Ristow]

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Lunar Core wrote:

choose where you go a bit more carefully next time.

 

Public sandboxes? Don't go to them. Brand spanking new club? Stick to the ones you've been to before, where you are known. New outlet mall opened up? Shop at a main store or the marketplace. Use common sense and your chances of being hit by spam are reduced.

---

They gather avatar names with bots that collect every name they see. They clearly don't have enough of them for good coverage, but if you think "the [clubs] you've been to before" and "the main store" aren't the best places ever to gather avatar names, then you aren't being realistic.

With message caps, they'd do well to gather names only of avatars that move or speak, so they don't needlessly send as many messages to other bots.

So, yeah, a strategy that might work is to not go places where you'll be seen, and to not move or speak.

[Anya Ristow]

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Lunar Core wrote:

In order for such a bot system to properly function, they would need thousands of bots, all teleporting and gathering names

---

When I did my bot surveys I manually teleported to 500 sims, and moved within them to seek out all the avatars I could get to. It only took two days. And I was slowed by observing and counting and taking notes while I was doing it. I found 1000 avatars this way, and had I programmed my viewer to record them, I'd have their names.

And that was by teleporting to random places, manually, including low-occupancy and empty sims.

If I wanted to gather names, I'd instead teleport to selected places that I knew about from experience, that I gathered from search and from the destination guide and events list, and from observing the map. And I'd use a bot to do it, of course. A bot that carefully tried not to trigger any bot-detecting algorithms could easily gather 10,000 names in two days by visiting popular places rather than random places. It'd probably find that many in the first 12 hours of infrequent teleporting, and then take time off to avoid detection.

Repeat this every couple days, forever, with a handful of bots, and you'd collect a lot of names. Overlap coverage to the best places and you'd also be able to detect other bots and exclude them from your list, helping you get around message caps on your other, spamming bots.

FWIW I programmed and ran a bot in SL, so I already know how to do this. So does Phil, and probably 50 other people. Learning how to do it is just a matter of a couple week's effort for a great many more people than that. Programming ability is common in SL, and there are at least two publicly-available code bases to start with, including LL's, and you can get help with both.

Here's someone who visits a whole lot of places with bots. She'd be able to program a popularity-seeking, name-gathering bot in a perhaps a day.

What I predicted was an easily-foreseen outcome of existing capabilities, and not some wild speculation. I'm just shocked it took this long to happen. I've said for years it would happen. And now that there's a demonstration, it'll happen a lot more if LL doesn't figure out a way to stop it.

[Lunar Core]

Your assumption is that these users will do things the way you did them.

 

Spammers of this sort do not.

 

Your experience is thus void for use as anything but an anecdote.

 

All of that said, Linden Lab went nuclear concerning message caps and now you want them to do something further? No thank you.

 

From here on out, anyone else wishing to have further "protection" from spam should do it themselves.

[Anya Ristow]

It's also possible that one of those name-to-key datanases, or the alt-detection database that was all the rage a while ago, is available through back channels. It's possible that mmook was handed, or just asked for, or stole, their list.

Of course those databases were aquired using bots. If you doubt it can be done, witness the completeness of the name-to-key databases, back when people actually went places in SL. Judging which alts have been spammed, though, I'm guessing the name-to-key databases aren't the source.

Most likely, they're getting their list using bots. I'm getting spam to accounts that have been in-world in the time mmook has been operating.

 

[Lunar Core]

How they're getting their list is irrelevant.

 

How the users handle this, is quite relevant. Linden Lab does not need to take any further action. Every time they have taken action to fight off a nuisance, they have opted for the nuclear option.

 

Enough is enough.

[Lunar Core]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

It's also possible that one of those name-to-key datanases, or the alt-detection database that was all the rage a while ago, is available through back channels. It's possible that mmook was handed, or just asked for, or stole, their list.

Of course those databases were aquired using bots. If you doubt it can be done, witness the completeness of the name-to-key databases, back when people actually went places in SL. Judging which alts have been spammed, though, I'm guessing the name-to-key databases aren't the source.

Most likely, they're getting their list using bots. I'm getting spam to accounts that have been in-world in the time mmook has been operating.

 

---

I have yet to get any sort of spam from them, ditto many of my friends, one of which is in SL regularly, DJs every Tuesday (at a fur club mind you) and has been known to explore on occasion.

No spam there either.

Either their bots are not too bright or there is something those who have been getting spammed are doing wrong.

[Anya Ristow]

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Lunar Core wrote:

Every time they have taken action to fight off a nuisance, they have opted for the nuclear option.

---

They can't do that this time. What's at stake this time is IM-to-email. Phil can't just suggest that people turn it off, and LL can't simply disable it. It's too important to SL.

Mmook hasn't even had to resort to obfuscation, yet. They will. And they'll have company soon. You'll be adjusting your email filters forever. And so will every other person who wants to leave IM-to-email active.

[Lunar Core]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

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Lunar Core wrote:

Every time they have taken action to fight off a nuisance, they have opted for the nuclear option.

---

They can't do that this time. What's at stake this time is IM-to-email. Phil can't just suggest that people turn it off, and LL can't simply disable it. It's too important to SL.

Mmook hasn't even had to resort to obfuscation, yet. They will. And they'll have company soon. You'll be adjusting your email filters forever. And so will every other person who wants to leave IM-to-email active.

---

I won't be doing a thing, nor will any of my friends.

So you are aware, the e-mail systems I have used tend to flag normal messages from SL as spam from time to time, based on nothing more than a word or frequency filter. It is the very rare spam message from more normal web sources that gets through. That only happens once in a blue moon.

And sorry, if you honestly think that Linden Lab won't go nuclear a second time, you're not being realistic whatsoever. They have done so with some 'essential' functions in the past.

Have fun adjusting your spam filters.

[IvanTwin Rogers]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

---

Lunar Core wrote:

Every time they have taken action to fight off a nuisance, they have opted for the nuclear option.

---

They can't do that this time. What's at stake this time is IM-to-email. Phil can't just suggest that people turn it off, and LL can't simply disable it. It's too important to SL.

Mmook hasn't even had to resort to obfuscation, yet. They will. And they'll have company soon. You'll be adjusting your email filters forever. And so will every other person who wants to leave IM-to-email active.

---

thats is correct, i am agree with Anya , completly :matte-motes-angry:

[Phil Deakins]

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Anya Ristow wrote:

I called it. I said there was no reason bots sending private messages couldn't instead send IMs, and that people who were suggesting just turning off private messages were one-step thinkers.

I just got my first IM-to-email spam from mmook.

Phil, you gonna suggest people turn that off, too?

---

No I'm not going to "suggest that too". That suggestion worked perfectly for feeds but it won't work for IMs. So I'm going to suggest something completely different this time - grow up and fix it yourself.

You were already told how to fix it in the other thread and, if you'd done it, you wouldn't have seen any IM-email spam from them. You've been told again in this thread, so the best I can suggest to you is to grow up and use the 1 munite it would take to fix it yourself, instead of using the many minutes it takes you to write your whining posts here.

[Aethelwine]

How do you stop ims from throwaway accounts like the ones mmook are now using? I blocked profile messages from non friends. But now I and others are getting ims in world from mmook. Whilst the previous solution allowed me to brush the problem under the carpet it has no effect on inworld ims.

 

So far only one account has spammed me in world and blocking it has solved problem for now. But I hope this does not continue with new throwaway accounts like it did on profiles because I get enough junk messages from shops and groups I have opted into without getting spammed by stuff I haven't