MALWARE SPAMMERS

[John_Perkowski]

Jeff and I are seeing a spate of malware spammers since Monday 18 September.

PLEASE:

- LOOK AT LINKS BEFORE CLICKING ON THEM.

- REPORT IF YOU SEE AN UNUSUAL OR OFF TOPIC POST.

Your moderators and admins are here to make this the best railroad related forum going. We may be employees, former employees, or foamers, but we care about steel rails and iron horses.

Thanks!

[Jeff Smith]

Indeed. While we've made great strides against spam (thanks primarily to fellow admin gprimr1) some are persistent, and find a way around the registration questions, and activation screening. If you see backlinks in posts (some are better hidden and some are fairly obvious), please send us a PM or report the post where you see it. The links may also appear in the user's profile or signature. In some cases, user accounts can be hacked much like Facebook accounts are; it's not a site issue but a user issue generally when this happens.

A determined spammer will occasionally slip through. So as always, CAVEAT EMPTOR.

[gprimr1]

A note on links:

Many people may choose to use URL shortners such as bit.ly, goo.gl, and others. Before clicking on one of these and you don't know the sender, you may want to verify where it will take you.

http://www.checkshorturl.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This website will show you where the shortened URL will take you, thus allowing you to ensure it is a legit website.

Also, adding a + sign to the shortned URL will show you a preview page without actually taking you to the website.