15 replies to this topic

[Eli L]

This announcement is for all active members of the Expert 2000 plan (as well as good information for people on the Personal 300 plan).

It has come to my attention from Adsense, MySQL database activity and the emails being sent out that many of you are setting up forums like phpBB, MyBB, SMF, etc on your accounts and leaving them unattended and unmaintained. Leaving these forums unattended may, and has, caused spam bots to find these and mass spam them with inappropriate and pornographic materiel. The main problem here is that some of these boards have our ad code on it and I'm getting reports from adsense that I'm in violation of their TOS (as well as your accounts in violation of our TOS).

So the solution to this is if you're on the Expert 2000 (or even Personal 300) and you have setup a forum (or forums) for production or testing use, and you have stopped using it or maintaining it, please delete the forum and delete the database. This is especially important if your forums have our ad code on it.

If your account is found to have unattended forums and are being spammed, your account will be suspended without notice.

Thank you.

Edit: This also applies to any kind of page on your site where people/members/users/etc can post things like comments.

Edited by Eli L, 04 April 2011 - 09:29 PM.

[Ad Bot]

[muazfa]

It means, if I'm using wordpress, this is not a problem for me right?

[Eli L]

muazfa, on 19 March 2011 - 04:15 PM, said:

It means, if I'm using wordpress, this is not a problem for me right?

It could also happen with wordpress comment spam but if you have Akismet, that usually stops most the spam.

[swoop]

Hi Eli.  I haven't been on in a long while, but I'm nearing the point of being able to do more with this.

I saw the email on this topic and wanted to sign in and make sure I wasn't part of the problem.

I could sign in to the forum part just fine - but couldn't seem to sign in to the administration of my Expert 2000 account.

Do I still have one?

Please shoot me an email when you have time to the email account on file here.

Thanks!

Gary

[Eli L]

swoop, on 19 March 2011 - 08:56 PM, said:

Hi Eli.  I haven't been on in a long while, but I'm nearing the point of being able to do more with this.

I saw the email on this topic and wanted to sign in and make sure I wasn't part of the problem.

I could sign in to the forum part just fine - but couldn't seem to sign in to the administration of my Expert 2000 account.

Do I still have one?

Please shoot me an email when you have time to the email account on file here.

Thanks!

Gary

Hey Gary,
You do have an account. If you cant login to cpanel or ipanel your username is "swoop" and your email is the same as this forum account. You can reset your password with that information.

[Rakib Hasan]

i think we must keep our working site as good as we can. In the forum we should keep it going regular.

[Rakib Hasan]

Elli please make your speech clear as it is unclear. I need to know what did you say. Please confirm the people who are in only 2000 plan. I am using it. SO what should i do please make me clear.

Rakib

[Eli L]

Rakib Hasan, on 19 March 2011 - 10:50 PM, said:

Elli please make your speech clear as it is unclear. I need to know what did you say. Please confirm the people who are in only 2000 plan. I am using it. SO what should i do please make me clear.

Rakib

If you have installed a forum on your account and its not being used or maintained, I ask that you either delete it or maintain it so spam bots do not take it over.

[mocanu86]

hello .. so i have registred www.coltclub.ro on your server.
I hade a problem in that many bots were trying to register in my ibp forum.
For me, it was just to validate a new user created but there were to many a day to try to make a selection so.. many unvalidated users were pending in my admin ipb.
So, i read ur mail and i have deleted all pending accounts and now .. i have disabeld user registration on my forum. For a user to register now, they have to send a personal mail for me to know that a user is a real person.
I hope this will resolv the problem. Other than else, i don't think this will stop bots accesing the forum, clicking on the google ad. If this will not work, i will make that if only a user logins, he will be able to see the content of my forum, including google ad.
sorry for my bad english and if u have any other suggestions...

[Eli L]

mocanu86, on 20 March 2011 - 02:39 AM, said:

hello .. so i have registred www.coltclub.ro on your server.
I hade a problem in that many bots were trying to register in my ibp forum.
For me, it was just to validate a new user created but there were to many a day to try to make a selection so.. many unvalidated users were pending in my admin ipb.
So, i read ur mail and i have deleted all pending accounts and now .. i have disabeld user registration on my forum. For a user to register now, they have to send a personal mail for me to know that a user is a real person.
I hope this will resolv the problem. Other than else, i don't think this will stop bots accesing the forum, clicking on the google ad. If this will not work, i will make that if only a user logins, he will be able to see the content of my forum, including google ad.
sorry for my bad english and if u have any other suggestions...

If this is an active board it might be a bit much. A captcha enabled helps. But bots always register on boards, you just have to moderate your forums posts to make sure there is no spam.

[Arekay]

My forum  has reCaptcha and all posts by non registered people must also be approved by my, I'm I okay?

[Eli L]

Arekay, on 20 March 2011 - 12:01 PM, said:

My forum  has reCaptcha and all posts by non registered people must also be approved by my, I'm I okay?

Yup, sounds pretty good.

[ifunikom]

Hello, i use the hosting for my blog (wordpress) and my school community (smf), both of them is still active until now, and i'm sure there is no spam on especially our forum.

Just let you know.

Thank you.

[shinryuurey]

Hello there Eli.

I have a phpBB forum that is not active for a while now. I'm visiting it if some suspicious users have signed up on my forum. Should I disable the board temporarily or totally delete it?

[milleja46]

shin why not install some anti-spam measures on it? i'm certain that if you need the forum if you just install some measures against suspicious users it won't be a problem to have it there...

[qazikhalid]

I'm using wordpress for websites,
I am sure this is not a problem for me & u ???
sorry for late response.

Thanks and Best Regards

Edited by Eli L, 05 June 2011 - 09:29 AM.