I am the the Admin on The Friendly Bunch. It would appear that everyone has been or is getting hit by a spammer calling himself The Last Outlaw, which just happens to be a username of a member on mine. I have been hit several times by this spammer who originally went by the name Mike Marshall, with all the filth posts and topics and PMs to members, he has used various usernames like Randall and a heap of others. This person was banned from a board a while ago called Alternate Timelines and ever since that happened, this person has made it a personal thing to attack forums everywhere. He has been using other usernames from other boards and where possible the real names of the person also, not only that but this spammer has my board link as their signature. This person also joined the board called Hidden Forest Grimalkin board where i told her about this spammer. The real The Last Outlaw joined Hidden Forest to defend himself against this spammer using his details. So i want everyone to know that this spammer does not and is not originating from my board The Friendly Bunch, he has also hit Brys site Lightweb and a heap of others.
And just for inlo on this person these are the IPs and Emails to date the spammer has used to join other boards
He barely laid his finger on mine though. All he did was make a petty intro thread while still waiting to be approved but when I saw this, I denied him instantly. I've also put my forum on complete lockdown until further notice.
I should also note that he had struck Moonface's forum also and few others. Really, this asshole needs a grip, or else. If he got banned from a forum, why in the hell would you take this out on others? Some people just confuse me, really.
He came around back in 2013 when I was running SMF, then once moved over to IPS he joined again, but I can say this that I hand't had an hard time like I did with SMF since SMF hasn't got an good spam protection back then. I was bad, I logged in the morning and seen that he made 40 posts and each one was images of an naked fat man.
I wouldn't lock the site down for one guy to messed up for others "members" Sounds like he's smart to able to keep going using VPN and whatnot, You just have to play his game untill he gets so bored and give up...
That's what I did, I keep on banning, blocking, poking him back until he stops
I had already mentioned it on the support forum for Zetaboards. The only thing they shared was....
While it is a shame that this person is doing this to so many boards, there's very little Zathyus Networks can do. The person is using a proxy and changing his/her IP address continuously. There are way too many free email providers.
You are correct that the only thing you can do is admin approval of all new registrations.
It's a pain and not 100%, but at least you get a chance to "look" at the person before they join. Also, you will know a new person has arrived so you can keep an eye on him/her.
You can set up a special group that doesn't promote to a normal group until after they make 20, 30 or 40 posts. Their first posts could go straight to moderation-queue so they aren't immediately posted.
There are tools at your disposal, problem is that if a bad person wants to be bad, they will. 🙁
Whatever you do, don't make topics and posts on your board about "how terrible it was" that "the bad person spammed us" and on and on. The terrorist will come and see how upset you are and will continue, excited they are causing so much turmoil.
I haven't completely closed of my board, i have restricted guests from viewing the board so the spammer cannot get in there to see or pinch any more usernames from mine, it is bad enough they have my boards URL as their siggy.
Honestly, the greatest weapon in your arsenal is indifference. You give the spammer enough indifference and it will take all the wind out of their sails because they feed on your anger like a car feeds on gas. The more you show that he has gotten under your skin, the more he is going to attack you. I am sure threads like this one will only amuse him if he were to discover it or any of the others that were made in various places thus drive him to keep doing it to keep up his entertainment and to keep the attention focused on him which is likely what he is ultimately trying to accomplish through these attacks.
Yes but i made this thread in defense of my board, it is my boards URL he is using, i don't want others to think the person is from my board,i have already had PMs asking me this very question, though i do agree with you, i have re opened my board to view after implementing other security measures on it
I had a similar issue with the very first forum I started back in 09, after I banned the user he tried to do a dos attack on my site. Thankfully I was using a great host at the time and his attempt failed. He eventually got bored and moved on.
Yes, it had been. At least three other communities I'm on were attacked also in the same fashion. Besides, I don't know why would he want to attack ZB forums only... that's what some are actually debating over.
Also, Mozzie's right. The spammer was last active during August to October and I thought that would be the end of that. And since this has became a full-scale tragedy, everybody has had tighter security measures in place. For me however, I went for a complete lockdown and I will only put my forum viewable to the public again when this is over for good. I'm not taking any chances, even of him trying to snoop around my place too. I won't tolerate this shit. At all.
