Quote:
Originally Posted by peanut
"We recently had one member receive an email (at his private email address) . . . . . We are looking into how his email address was obtained, we don't believe it has ever been published in any post on this forum, but are researching to confirm that."
I wouldn't waste too much time looking. Sure, this member's email addy COULD have been obtained from this site - - but the the chances of that are probably small. The reality is that his info is probably "out there" on so many other venues that it will be impossible to say for sure how spammers got it. Does (s)he use facebook? Do they tweet? Tiktok? Do they use ANY other social media? How many other websites/chat groups/blogs have they registered at? Have they bought anything ever online that required them to give out their personal email addy and/or phone number? Harvesting personal info and buying/selling/trading it is so common and ubiquitous it buggers the imagination. Anyone that does not know that or understand it has no business hooking their computer up to the internet.
And as for
"CURRENTLY ACTIVE USERS: 707 (18 MEMBERS AND 689 GUESTS)
All of those guests are "not members". A few are people who just haven't yet joined the forum but are looking at posts",
you make it sound like virtually all of the "guests" are spammers. Huh? Doubtful. Sure, some probably are. Some probably are acting (or trying to act) nefariously. But most? Probably just lots of lurkers and/or people who simply stop by to see what's going on. I stop by at least once every day - sometimes several times a day - but only bother to log in if I want to post something. So I, usually, am one of those "not members" that show up in the stats most times.
All that being said - - reminders are a good thing. Thanks.
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Maybe you read something I didn't but I got nothing like "virtually all of the guests are spammers. Huh?" Of course most don't read every post and see the "spam" prevented from coming on the forum as others do - and realize the number of attempts made to access the membership. The post was a friendly, needed reminder that there are "things" out there in the web world so be careful. Heck, my DD, in IT, just warned us (DW and myself) again today about the many, many scams going on in every format and to be careful - this after her entire team was warned by a very large security organization. Better safe than sorry, complacent or uninformed.