Jump to content

Anya Ristow

Resident
  • Posts

    76
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Anya Ristow

  1. Pussycat Catnap wrote: The IM from the feeds is basically an ability to IM from out of world. That is how bots work it without ever having logged into SL to begin with. No need for that functionality to exist. As far as I can tell, there is no longer any way to contact people via IM from the web interface. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I select IM from your web profile it launches the SL viewer. That is, there's no web interface for IM. Right?
  2. Lunar Core wrote: Thank you for confirming that all you are capable of is projecting your own nonsense onto anyone who dares to give you common sense advice. If you honestly expect each and every service provider to do everything for you, you will live in eternal disappointment. That is your choice. One. Solitary. Step.
  3. Lunar Core wrote: Nope - it's reality. Yep. Definitely. One-step thinking. There's your reality.
  4. Aethelwine wrote: I remember reading the hypothesis the mmook spammers were going through the database of SL names alphabetically so maybe that is why those with names beginning with A are the ones complaining whilst those later in the alphabet are oblivious? Yeah, here's an Amanda who's been spammed: in-world spam Also, I received just the one. Maybe LL is on top of it.
  5. Lunar Core wrote: No, it is not "one step thinking" It's one-step thinking.
  6. Lunar Core wrote: tell a user how to fix it on THEIR END one-step thinking mathematical fail I-got-mine solution Reminds me of the spam apologists of the 90's. Just delete it. Learn to use procmail. Blah blah blah. Look around you at the people in your life. Do they know how to filter their email? Should that be an obstacle to using SL? Ever hear of a company called google, and a product called gmail? That's right, people like spam filters. People *need* spam filters. My solution would be even simpler than yours. I could block all SL email. Done. No adding to filters ever again. I got mine. But some part of me still has hope for SL. I want it to be non-hostile to real people. I want it to be successful. I want it to be a place that isn't only for dweebs and their anti-social suggestions and their spam filters. Any effort LL makes is multiplied by the number of users they have. It's worth some effort to protect their platform and make it non-hostile for their users.
  7. Phil Deakins wrote: Anya's specific problem is the IMs going to email. That can be easily and quickly dealt with by creating a filter in the email client, to put everything that mentions the spam site into the Trash. One-step thinking.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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?
  13. 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:
  14. Griffin Ceawlin wrote: You could set your e mail filters to dump anything with 'mmook' in it. One-step thinking.
  15. 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.
  16. 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?
  17. These are coming as private messages. You can stop those from going to email by changing your settings at my.secondlife.com. This is a lot like giving up, but since LL will do nothing about it you kinda have no choice. This spammer has effectively disabled private messages for everyone. Soon someone will come along and do the same for IMs.
  18. Phil Deakins wrote: If it will take you a couple of hours to delete the Feed spam that you've already received, then you look at your feed very rarely Correct. I rarely sign in at all. I handle responses to questions via email, which is why I'd be upset if I could no longer be contacted that way. Both my main and my RL-name alt had exactly 20 of these spams to delete. Is 20 a cap? I haven't looked at my other alts. I guess I'll be visiting the settings page for each. I probably won't bother deleting the messages, as that has to be done one at a time. Ugh.
  19. Poking around in-world I see that quite a few people have disabled private messages from strangers. One-step thinkers will consider this the solution. Problem is, now that LL has demonstrated that they'll accept spamming, there is nothing stopping someone from writing the spam bot to work in-world, doing the same thing with IMs that this spammer did with private messages. You going to block those, too?
  20. As the creator of a popular megaprims collection, I often receive requests from people for things I did not build. They want to find something they see in world, or they've bought something and need help with it. Also, in the past, I've sold some fairly expensive scripted items. I'd like to provide lifetime support for those, for as long as LL doesn't do anything that breaks them. My choice now is to not allow these people to contact me, or to receive spam.
  21. Phil, you're still bad at math. With the 1990's-era tools I have to deal with this, it will take a couple hours just to delete the messages I've already received. I, and everyone who has received these, will have to spend that time. That's multiple lifetimes of uncompensated time to deal with one God damned spammer. This is very basic stuff.
  22. If LL lets them do this, they are serving as a role model for more potential spammers. This will not end well.
  23. Perrie Juran wrote: Anya Ristow wrote: If I have to stop receiving messages through email then my participation in Second Life is essentially done. You could set your e mail filters to dump anything with 'mmook' in it. I'm not jumping through hoops for each damned spammer. If LL isn't running SL anymore then I'm done with it. Just pull the damned plug already. Stick a fork in it. It's dead, Jim.
  24. If I have to stop receiving messages through email then my participation in Second Life is essentially done.
  25. Submitting a thread with a useful title on the off chance that LL will see it... We are getting spammed for a 3rd party L$ exchange called mmook.com. This has been going on for a long time. The perp uses a different account each time, so there's no sense blocking them. LL, fix this. They haven't made any attempt to disguise their spam, yet you haven't stopped it.
×
×
  • Create New...