Porn bombs

March 24, 2002 6:45 PM

Porn Bombs? I just read through that thread and it looks like "porn bombs" are a mix of regular old-fashion homecooked spam and people signing you up to adult sites and mailing lists. Today someone signed me up to 20 adults lists, both gay and straight - this guy wasn't taking any chances. Someone else I know who is "high-profile" got the same treatment today. (more)
posted by skallas to MetaFilter-Related at 6:45 PM (26 comments total)

According to my log files, there was a user hitting metafilter today with that IP address. At 3AM and 5AM today, the user named phalkin made comments to metafilter from that IP address. You might want to email him and ask what is up, and of course he may be not guilty here.

I got the same treatment a few months ago.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:03 PM on March 24, 2002

> adsl-64-170-52-149.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net

Honestly, a timestamp and that IP information should be enough to get whoever it was in trouble bigtime with their ISP. When I used to work for Speakeasy, a quick note to abuse@ would get someone on a short list to "three strikes you're out" and those IP addresses, even if they have dynamic IP addressing, are a pretty dead indicator of one single machine or home network.
posted by jessamyn at 11:14 PM on March 24, 2002

I was hit as well, not nearly as much porn as computer related internet.com and zdnet.com lists. Luckily most of it got revoked by the listservs when it noticed that the mail was forged.

I have another IP to offer (quoted from a listserv):

"They connected from IP: 63.26.116.75 They used this browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Q312461)"

That IP shows up in about 20 of the subscribes. It's in Baton Rouge, LA, I believe. I already emailed uunet about it.

Jessamyn, I've been told that "lsan03" is Los Angeles.
posted by perplexed at 11:22 PM on March 24, 2002

How are you guys finding the IP of the subscriber in the trash mail? I have this similar problem, but I don't see any in the representative sample I've taken that list the IP of the person who signed me up? Please advise...
posted by evanizer at 12:14 AM on March 25, 2002

I have been getting hit too, and this after months and months of absolutely no spam at all.
Ditto on evanizer's question.
posted by anathema at 2:50 AM on March 25, 2002

I've been having trouble too.

It'd be interesting to find out whether we've been getting the same stuff.


posted by Spoon at 4:02 AM on March 25, 2002

i have been signed up to simpleattraction.com i think, or it could be typical hotmail spam?
posted by Frasermoo at 4:40 AM on March 25, 2002

Before anyone thinks all their porn spam in metafilter-based: these people specifically started getting porn spam on one day, after someone signed them up to lists. This is different than your average pointless porn spam. I've gotten subscribed to porn under an obvious name "sorrymatt@my domain" but for the most part my spam comes from scrapers that pull it off the many webpages out there with my email shown clearly.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:55 AM on March 25, 2002

This wasn't your typical unsolicited porn spam, this was about 400 subscribe requests to mailing lists in a 4 hour period.
posted by perplexed at 10:51 AM on March 25, 2002

along with the more important context, skallas:

This just makes me glad I got all the cracking out of mysystem when I was younger. When I got caught then, it was a stern visit from men in cheap suits. Now... I fear to contemplate what the results would be.
posted by moz at 3:42 PM on March 25, 2002

A witch! A witch! Burn him! Burn him!
posted by evanizer at 4:34 PM on March 25, 2002

Yea, no kidding, evan....

Perhaps the "waiting for him to email me back or join the thread" could have lasted more than six minutes before adding that second post.

No doubt you were just being helpful and not encouraging others to bombard him, skallas, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt and a possibility of a reply/explanation before others get too riled up and start forming a mob, eh?

posted by cyniczny at 5:25 PM on March 25, 2002

Christ. And how many other people has he pulled this shit on, who are going to get porn spam for the rest of their (email acount's) life? I think our boy owes some people some answers, at the least.
posted by rodii at 9:05 PM on March 25, 2002

I've had a new address on my profile for four days now @BayInsider.com and have received nothing but genuine messages from MetaFilter members. So I guess this was a spur-of-the-moment, big practical joke, whereby someone went crazy one night and decided to spam a lot of us en masse. Though I'd be very surprised if it was phalkin - check out his entirely bona fide and cheerful posting history.

In any case, I think it best for those most affected to change their addresses and start all over again. My old account, which I depended on, is ruined. Why don't we all use free Bay Insider addies exclusively for all our MetaFilter needs and keep our own private account private, apart from Matt, who may need to contact us urgently?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:22 PM on March 25, 2002

I guess we really should burn him... Why did he do it, skallas? I'm amazed.
posted by evanizer at 9:26 PM on March 25, 2002

Wow. Caught the guy red handed. Way to go skallas.
posted by dcgartn at 10:04 PM on March 25, 2002

Skallas now appears forever in my mind with a blue cape and a big red "S" on his chest!

Striking a blow for justice! Well done, sir.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:20 AM on March 26, 2002

Skallas, you are now, and forever more, my hero. In my case, most of the cleanup was actually done by the guys on the university side, so I was unable to verify if phalkin was the source of the crap I got. Either way, what you did was outstanding, and I salute you, Sir!
posted by Wulfgar! at 6:16 AM on March 26, 2002

At least he'll know enough to do it through an anonymizer next time.
posted by crunchland at 7:06 AM on March 26, 2002

Are you always negative, cynical and unpleasant, crunchland, or only here at MeTa?

Just askin'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:37 AM on March 26, 2002

i'm scared of skallas. i hear tell he killed a man once jus' fer snorn'.
posted by dong_resin at 7:47 AM on March 26, 2002

Miguel, of course the user profile stored in Google's cache still show's your old data to the world.

[sorry hadda point it out]
posted by DBAPaul at 7:52 AM on March 26, 2002

I prefer to think of myself as realistic and practical, stavros, but if you want to label it negative and cynical, go right ahead. As for the unpleasant part... I think that's a matter of opinion.
posted by crunchland at 8:25 AM on March 26, 2002

DBAPaul: Um, oh yes? Ok, thanks, I guess I.../me shoots other foot for the sake of parity and extra penance. :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:33 AM on March 26, 2002

Yeah, I've been getting a lot of spam lately, too. (sorry, late to the party).

To blindly sign up people to get spam seems kinda, um.. stupid.

Any good ideas for cleaning up the mess? (i.e. getting us off the spam lists)
posted by rich at 8:44 AM on March 26, 2002

I have to say, using Mailwasher has worked wonders in the short time I've used it, since someone mentioned it here on metafilter. You run it in front of your email client, and it intercepts incoming mail, blacklisting and bouncing the spam, making it look like your email address is invalid. In the past week, I've gone from 150+ spam messages a day, to almost none.
posted by crunchland at 2:29 PM on March 26, 2002