Hello,
it was decided that the PMs will be completely disabled.
Currently I disabled the sending, in a week or two I will also disable reading, so please backup important messages you’ve got there somehow, since they’ll be otherwise inaccesible.
Kubecj, with all respect to your decision. But I think this is a radical option and there will be other options to do so.
IM is a good instrument for the forum. I hope this won’t have an even worse impact than closing the Off Topic forum.
Again, my opinion only. I think a little of cold water won’t be bad before taking this decision.
That seems to be precisely the intention of the spammer and the others that put on Alwil the responsability of it: damage avast image, damage avast forum image.
Please, reconsider.
Hello kubecj,
Can I ask whats the reason for this decision? I know for the last spam PMs, but I don’t think that this is a reason for completely disabling the PMs. (this is only my opinion) I mean, the PMs are really useful feature and I am pretty sure that the others will think the same way.
Isn’t the restriction for 20 posts enough? :-\
EDIT Tech was faster than me 
A decent spammer can generate 20 (or 2,000 you name it) posts in no time.
This is a temporary solution before the situation calms down. You only see the tip of the iceberg - but our support department is swamped with angry people who got offended by the spam and this is the decision that was made by our CEO.
Hopefully, in a week or so, we find an alternative (but still reliable) solution to the problem and will be able to re-enable PM’s.
This is very frustrating for all - but it’s simply unacceptable to risk another spam attack now.
Thanks
Vlk
My opinion:
Those who want to disable PM’s can, with the * in their blocked senders list. No more PM’s.
However, those that are willing to put up with the spam to continue using the PM function should be able to.
Just my opinion. The decision, is of course left up to the adminstrator. 
Thanks for this forum. ;D
Thanks for taking the steps needed to stop such spam on the forum. It is unfortunate that PMs will have to be disabled and I hope all others here will understand why this is necessary. 
Before PMs were disabled, someone sent me one asking why all this spam. Of course, I really do not know. But, there could be many reasons and among those … a grudge against awil, an attempt at forcing a forum program update, a general attempt to make others suffer, just plain old stupidity, etc. >:(
I am glad to say that most members of this forum are very good people. This forum is one of the very few I have always be proud of being a small part. 
Ok. We respect it.
Thanks
OK, thanks for the answer Vlk. Hopefully you’ll find a solution soon :-\
In my opinion disabling PM’s is not needed to stop the spam, make rules when sending PM’s such as each user can only send 1 PM every 90 seconds. This will slow down the spam bots a lot. There is no need to disable PM’s completely, but this is just my opinion.
I’m confused.
Glancing at the number of posts about the same topic, there are tons of tips of iceberg in this forum enough for inducing the current status of Alwil… 
I am a new comer, who are rarely affected from the decision but old members have already warned about the situation in a thread. Hopefully, the moderators will make up to the rather slow move at the stat of this confusion.
In my opinion disabling PM's is not needed to stop the spam, make rules when sending PM's such as each user can only send 1 PM every 90 seconds.
We’re open to any (realistic) suggestions. But they must be realistic - meaning that the forum software (SMF) has to support them. Are you sure something like this is supported?
I'm confused.
So are we. Sorry :-\
We’re thinking of disabling the “email” part of IM’s by default (i.e. this would be opt-in rather than opt-out). This should make the feature unattractive enough for most spammers.
We're thinking of disabling the "email" part of IM's by default (i.e. this would be opt-in rather than opt-out). This should make the feature unattractive enough for most spammers.Vlk, Is this to be done in lieu of disabling PM's? If that's the case, that would be a great solution since the fact that there is a message waiting is always displayed each time you visit the forum. What still disturbs me is the fact that someone who isn't part of management was able to get to the members email addresses. That's the part of this whole intrusion that needs to be remedied. If it happened once, it's going to happen again.
I don’t know if the attraction is the fact that PM posts will be notified by email or the fact that they have been able to hit so many PMs in a short period of time.
Yes the no email by default would be a good option unless you opt-in, allied with the No PMs for users with less than X posts llama/newbie, etc. and the double step registration before they can become a member. With these three restrictions PMs would still be workable for members but unattractive to spammers.
The two step registration and guests only having read only access, should also limit the drive by forum posting that we have also seen recently.
I don’t know if IPs can/should also be recorded at registration as a form of deterrent.
PMs are an important function and I would hate to see them disappear or become unworkable. Many have now chosen to hide their email address in their profile settings (quite rightly), to avoid harvesting by bots scanning the publicly available forum pages, so with no email address you are forced to use PMs.
Well, what does it mean “to get to the members e-mail”? They didn’t learn these e-mails, of course. But if your settings say that the forum should send you the notifications about received PMs, you’ll get the message, yes.
In that case, nothing was compromised. I don’t open garbage mail or PM’s the only place I saw the XXX picture was in the forum itself and that was
because a member posted it in a thread on the forum. Not the spammer.
That was annoying to me. The PM’s are easily deleted and to me, this isn’t a reason to stop the PM function.
PM’s are a selected function so unless you elect to receive them, they should be blocked.
Hi VLK,
The Comodo Forums use SMF 1.1 RC3 and the Admins made a rule (due to spammers) that each member can send 1 PM every 90 seconds, I am only a moderator there so I couldn’t tell you the steps to enable this option. Also since you are using an older version of SMF (not RC3 of the latest) this feature may not be available yet. However you may wish to check into it. And in all honesty I don’t really think that any real member here would need to send more then 1 PM every 90 seconds. Also it doesn’t have to be 90 seconds it can be as long or short as you wish, although I think that 90 seconds is a good time. Like I said I am not sure how to set it on the SMF forums because I am only a Mod at the comodo forums, but that feature is available in the latest 1.1 RC3 if it is not available in the version that the avast! forums use.
We have been waiting for SMF 1.1 for a very long time. The problem is, RC2 was released on December 2005, and now there’s only RC3. I mean, how long is it going to take to get to the final version?
For obvious reasons, we don’t want to use pre-release (beta or RC) version of the forum in “production” environment.
I’m a mod at two Yahoo groups which are medical-support (one for head-injury survivors like myself, the other for psoriasis) in nature. Medical-related groups in particular are prime targets for spammers because of the opportunity to offer “cures”.
Obviously the mechanics of a mailing-list group are different from the boards here. But we’ve come up with what seem to be workable solutions for us.
The psoriasis group was often the victim of new “members” who obviously joined for the sole purpose of spamming. The list-owner finally decided that ALL new members go onto moderated status (i.e., postings must be approved by him or a mod) until they’ve done some legit posts, which is essentially what’s being proposed for the PM’s here.
We play it even tougher in the head injury group. Membership is restricted (not just hit the “Join” button), and we want a brief intro letter describing the nature of the applicant’s injury and problems and work-arounds before we’ll approve membership.
I think that a simple warning to the member who decides to accept PM’s that doing so could result in possible SPAM, should be sufficient.
As long as the spam is kept out of the actual forum. Acceptance of PM’s or NO PM’s should be left up to the individual members. IMHO