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Somethings is fishy with all my objects in the OBEX — Parallax Forums

Somethings is fishy with all my objects in the OBEX

Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
edited 2012-12-11 20:28 in General Discussion
Have a look at my objects in the OBEX. All of them has suspicious comments, and I'm wondering what's wrong.
I couldn't find any other object with these kind of comments.
Is my computer infected by something that somehow knows which objects belong to me?
Is it possible to find out who the sender is?

Parallax, help!

Comments

  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2012-11-13 10:59
    I bet it's because you have links to your OBEX objects in your signature. More links to a page give them higher priority on a search engine so your objects were targeted since they were more linked to than others.

    I'm sure it's just spam. Hopefully Parallax can remove them.
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2012-11-13 13:23
    I thought it had something to do with the links in my signature, but I still find it a little bit strange that my other objects are "infected" as well.
  • Mark_TMark_T Posts: 1,981
    edited 2012-11-13 14:22
    I recently found one spam comment in the Obex for one of my objects - I think its the only comment I have :(

    Anyone know a way to flag such abuse or remove spam comments in the Obex? The comment I had was from "Anonymous"...
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2012-11-13 14:39
    Ahle2 wrote: »
    I thought it had something to do with the links in my signature, but I still find it a little bit strange that my other objects are "infected" as well.

    Looks like the slime spammers have discovered the obex and that they can spam there without logging in. The spam will start slow as they test the waters and then it will increase.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2012-11-14 02:17
    Switch to some sort of captcha or require a forum login to post.
    (forum login is better)
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2012-11-25 07:11
    Definitely spam. Someone at Parallax, please remove it. The spammers these days try to post everywhere they can, and they try to make it look like a 'legit' question or comment (not that you can't smell them out anyway). To stop them you need to not only delete, but also block their IP. After a while most of them will move on (after you've blocked enough IPs..). I moderate another forum at the moment and I've had to block thousands of IPs and even more spam, but it does help. Now it's one spam every second or third day instead of having to fight them throughout the day every day. And it's important to hit quickly, their spam posts must not get the chance to get picked up by any search engine because that's payment in their book, and they'll get encouraged.

    -Tor
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2012-12-10 02:15
    It's A LOT worse now than before. It still seems to have affected my objects more than anyone else.
    If Parallax doesn't do anything about it, I will have delete all my obejcts from the OBEX as well as my account. :(
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2012-12-10 07:41
    I see what you mean, you have a personal anonymous heckler. I don't think us "normal" moderators have any say or power over OBEX comments. Have your tried obex.support@parallax.com?
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-12-10 08:47
    I just checked my moderator status in the OBEX and no joy; which makes sense as it's on a completely different site and forum.

    One of the OBEX forum Gurus will have to intervene.
  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2012-12-10 10:15
    Ahle2 wrote: »
    It's A LOT worse now than before. It still seems to have affected my objects more than anyone else.
    If Parallax doesn't do anything about it, I will have delete all my obejcts from the OBEX as well as my account. :(

    Don't do that! You have some great objects/code there that have helped out a lot of people. Perhaps one of the moderators can get in touch with the person who manages the OBEX site to remove them. I think that the site should be changed to only allow users that are logged in to post comments.
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-12-10 10:28
    I'll take the action and forward this issue to the Forum Gurus.


    ***Edit: notification done.
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2012-12-10 10:35
    RobotWorkshop wrote: »
    Don't do that! You have some great objects/code there that have helped out a lot of people. Perhaps one of the moderators can get in touch with the person who manages the OBEX site to remove them. I think that the site should be changed to only allow users that are logged in to post comments.

    I agree completely with all of the above. Ahle2 please don't delete your objects.
    davejames wrote: »
    I'll take the action and forward this issue to the Forum Gurus.

    Thank you Dave.

    Ahle2, Have you looked at Tracy's OBEX objects. Someone's gone crazy there.
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2012-12-10 11:11
    Oh my, not your personal heckler, but mine too. It reads like the same M.O. It should be possible to block that spammer's IP address. Furthermore, I agree with RobotWorkshop that only registered users should be able to post OBEX comments.
  • Matt GillilandMatt Gilliland Posts: 1,406
    edited 2012-12-10 11:20
    Hey all-
    We're aware of it...
    Thanks!
    -MattG
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2012-12-11 14:23
    RobotWorkshop wrote: »
    Don't do that! You have some great objects/code there that have helped out a lot of people. Perhaps one of the moderators can get in touch with the person who manages the OBEX site to remove them. I think that the site should be changed to only allow users that are logged in to post comments.

    Thanks for the kind words... I will not delete them. (yet)
    Duane Degn wrote:
    Ahle2, Have you looked at Tracy's OBEX objects. Someone's gone crazy there.
    Wow... that's even worse!
    Tracy Allen wrote:
    Oh my, not your personal heckler, but mine too.

    You can have him!     :tongue:
  • KyeKye Posts: 2,200
    edited 2012-12-11 20:09
    Hmm, those weird comments are on my objects too.

    Spammers...
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2012-12-11 20:28
    The comments aren't personal and not directed at the author of the object. It's spam pure and simple. The initial "comments" came slow and were directed at a handful of users. Now that they see it's possible and easy to program expect that soon every object in the obex to be infected.
  • Clock LoopClock Loop Posts: 2,069
    Theres no way of knowing, which way we are going?

    SPAM SPAM SPAM everywhere is SPAM...

    http://obex.parallax.com/comment/146280#comment-146280
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    That is awesome, ordercollegepapers. Why are we paying so much for research papers from traditional universities when we can just get these guys to do it for us?

    On the other hand, my name is on research papers that I did not even know were being written. Never had to pay a cent.

    More seriously, why doesn't this forum and other Parallax sites use HTTPS and take a little care of security?
  • msrobotsmsrobots Posts: 3,709
    ?

    And what does HTTPS exactly changes on the behavior of spammers?

    confused,

    Mike
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Webmaster notified. Moderators can not access OBEX.
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    Heater. wrote: »
    That is awesome, ordercollegepapers. Why are we paying so much for research papers from traditional universities when we can just get these guys to do it for us?

    On the other hand, my name is on research papers that I did not even know were being written. Never had to pay a cent.

    More seriously, why doesn't this forum and other Parallax sites use HTTPS and take a little care of security?

    You mean why don't they redirect people to their HTTPS? No idea. They have a valid wildcard cert for parallax.com. Have you tried https://forums.parallax.com ?

  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2017-10-26 22:50
    17 SPAMs deleted in OBEX. Webmaster quick to respond!
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    @msrobots,

    You are right HTTPS does not by itself change anything w.r.t. spammers.

    @xanadu,

    No. There should be no non-HTTPS access possible.
  • RS_JimRS_Jim Posts: 1,764
    Publison wrote: »
    Webmaster notified. Moderators can not access OBEX.
    How ironic, spammers can, moderators nan not!
    Jim
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    RS_Jim wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    Webmaster notified. Moderators can not access OBEX.
    How ironic, spammers can, moderators nan not!
    Jim

    I meant to say Moderators can not access security portions of the OBEX needed to delete Spammers.

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