Did anyone else get spammed?

[drummermom]

Hi everyone,

Life has been a hassle so I haven't been here much other than to lurk, but I just received a message that annoys me to no end from "forums@photoshopelementsuser.com".

I truly don't think it's generated by anyone here, so am assuming it's spam -- anytime I see a message with tinyurl in it, it goes in the trash.

Did anyone else get it? I'm not going to post the full text because I don't want to give idiot spammers any opportunities for publicity, but it basically promotes the "forward to 5 people" concept of viral marketing. :(

Please tell me it wasn't generated by the forum administration here.

[GaryK]

Yup..got it ..trashed it

[michoumisalade]

Me too...got it...trashed it :roll:

[drummermom]

I trashed it too, but what bothers me about it is that the privacy policy here is not to release emails or personal info to anyone. This email came into my private email box because forums@photoshopelementsuser.com is on my safe list.

So either someone with access to that email account has a worm, or someone was able to grab at least email addresses from the forum and use them to spam us.

K

[pwilder]

Hello Everyone,

This issue was just brought to my attention.

Please be aware that this spam was apparently sent from a compromised forum administrative account and was not authorized by anyone involved with Photoshop Elements Techniques, the photoshopelementsuser.com site, or KW Media Group.

We do not have reason to believe that any individual forum user email address information was compromised. It appears that the spam was sent via a bulk email feature available to forum administrators that simply blasts the email to everyone registered in the forum, but does not display the actual email addresses that the mail is being sent to.

We are taking this abuse of our system seriously and have started tracking how this spam was sent out so that we can take action to prevent such an occurrence in the future.

Paul Wilder
Systems Administrator
KW Media Group

[Wendy]

I got one too ... and sent it to Paul as requested.


Wendy

[TonyW]

Me too - BTW to see and copy the headers (which contain the details on when and from where the message was sent) look at file properties details (in Outlook Express you get those by right clicking on the email which you don't need to open)

Tony

[Wendy]

Mac folks who are using mail do:

View>Messages>Long Headers


Wendy

[richs]

I got one also and passed it on to Paul.

[lindajay]

Interesting that I did NOT receive the spam! If it was sent out as bulk to all forum members, I wonder why I wasn't bothered by it? I looked in my Trash to see if my spam blocker had sent it there, but no. NOT that I'm complaining, mind you, but it is curious.

--Linda

[Mary]

My ISP (Cox Cable) has instituted spam filtering on their end and I did not get this one and spam that does get through has dropped to 1 or 2 a month as compared to 10 a day that I used to get using a spam blocker on my computer. :)

[tfry]

Mary,

Thats a nice feature! I'm glad at least some of you were not bothered by this
evil spam junk. I'm just sorry that anyone was :(

[Wendy]

Hey Tami ...

Its just one of those things ... it happens :)

Wendy

[Punkinsmom]

I got it too

[Wendy]

Well it least it has only been the one :)

Wendy

[msmack]

Got it yesterday. Glad I read about it here.

Merrill

[bwolford]

Seems it should be traceable because the tiny URL has a user code imbeded. Also, I've been tracing detailed information in the headers of my email. They should help.

Didn't know how or if Paul wanted us to forward our trash to him... :)

Brice

[Wendy]

Hi Brice ...

Paul posted a special email address to send the spam to ... but I think that it has now been removed so I suspect that he has collected all the information he needs.

It just looks like it was a one off spam as we only seem to have received that one item ... :)

Wendy

[pwilder]

I collected enough copies of the email to gather all the information I needed; however, for anyone that still has the original spam email sitting around, the people at tinyurl and get6friends do not want to take my word to cancel the spammer's account, so if you could, please forward the spam, including full header information if possible, to the following two email addresses. The more people that forward the spam to them, the faster they'll take down the spammer's links.

1 - abuse@tinyurl.com
2 - support@getfriendsnetwork.com

Thanks,

Paul Wilder




Email sent to me from TinyURL:

We can't rely on a single person's complaint to terminate a TinyURL. The TinyURL has been set to have the traffic to it analyzed to see if there are signs that it is a violation of our terms of service, but up to now all we have it your word as the evidence and nothing else to suggest abuse. If you want to inform others how to submit spam complaints, they can be sent to abuse@tinyurl.com and must include the email with full headers.

- Gilby
TinyURL.com

[Wendy]

Paul ..

My goodness .. it is from one of the site email addresses and they still don't beleive that it is Spam!!! GGGGRRRRR.

As luck would have it .. I still have the email so will send it to them

Wendy

[bwolford]

What a crock of s... spam, yeah, that's it, SPAM.

Too bad there's no log from the forum account that was hacked to do this to log all the emails sent from the hacked account. Of course, I know how to spoof an domain in an email so that might not even tell you the real extent.

I sent the SPAM I received to the ids. Thanks Paul, I'll do anything to keep these forums user friendly and SPAM free. I only spam on bread with mustard and pickles.

Brice

[tfry]

I hope you toast that bread first... :)

[virgo1]

Hi Everybody,

We got back from a week of camping last night. This morning I cleaned the mail box and it was there. Will forward asap. It has that look and smell of BS.

Eva

[jazzfisher]

Forwarded my spam....as requested

[G. OReilly]

Drummermom: Yes I received the same E-mail...Yep it went straight into the trash bin! :twisted: :D

[Wendy]

George ...

Has yours only just arrived ?? ...


Wendy

[ridon127]

I got a private message from Adobe QA engineer. I thought it was a legit e-mail so I opened it and it is porn. What can I do about it?
Thanks
Donna

[msbrad]

Well, either I was totally clueless, upon its arrival, or I'm on their ignore list.:confused:
either way, I think I'm OK.
m

[GaryK]

Hi Donna

Old thread regarding the spam, but if I recall correctly that name popped up a few months ago but has since disappeared.
When was the PM sent?

[Wendy]

Hi Gary ...

Wasn't that the one that flooded the forum with spam ?? :eek:

Wendy

[GaryK]

Wendy

I can't quite recall if it was PMs or just posts .. but the name rings a bell.
Hopefully Donna's PM was an old one and he hasn't resurfaced.:rolleyes:

[GaryK]

Hi Wendy

After some more thought, I have a feeling it was posts.. I recall I was absent for a couple of days and missed all the fun.:eek:

[Wendy]

Gary ...

I was off line too and missed it all :eek:

Wendy

[NMarti]

Gary
It was new threads. Several got started before they were zapped by admins.

[GaryK]

Nancy

What do you recall about it? That was the person?
Did anybody get PMed that you can remember?

As much as I don't like this stuff, I just sluff it off. I know some people are very offended by it and it really bugs me that somebody forces this stuff on anybody.:mad:

[chas3stix]

I guess I was one of the lucky ones.....no unusual spam from the forum. But lots of the other usual trash that ends up in the bulk folder.....
Chas

[Wendy]

Hi Donna ...

Did the email address include the forum name ???

If so then you need to let them know about it ... but it doesn't look like anyone else has received it ..

Wendy

[NMarti]

Gary
No I don't recall anyone getting PM's but it was posted in several different sections. The person came on, posted and never returned. For a few weeks back in the summer there were a lot of new members almost daily and you could tell from their name they were up to no good. Usually there were advertising spam but a couple were porn. Remember the hot russians?:D I would watch for their first post to appear and report them immediately.

[ridon127]

it came last month. I don't remember the exact date. I never check my pm.
i put him on my ignore list. I was so shocked. I thought it had to do with adobe.

Donna

[Wendy]

Hi Nancy ...

The one looking for a man amused me ... she didn't manage to post the link correctly :D :D :D

Wendy

[GaryK]

Donna

I would let the webmasters here know nontheless.

It sounds like you may have just got the tail end of something that has been taken care of already.


Nancy:

I missed the Hot Russians by a day or two :D . I came on and could see things were in disaray but missed the event.