I have my email set to check every 10 minutes and was bummed to see that I got one since getting one meant that the specs I was hoping not to get that day had arrived. So I was actually pretty happy to read the message. I read it before she was banned but it just didn't seem right. You want me, a random person on the internet to read your book because your boyfriend doesn't like it? And your boyfriend flat-out told you it sucked? Me no believe. So I clicked her username and it came up with 0 posts meaning she was very likely a scammer.

The book is really good. The plot twist was fairly predictable though, if you were paying attention at all to the foreshadowing (especially during the bit where it's raining)

Well I'm not going to say 100% for sure that it's safe. But I can say that a few posters who work in IT/network security for a living checked out the page and didn't find any scripts, iframes, or anything indicating that the PM was anything other than some sort of attempt to drive up traffic to some website.

My link had asterisks in it. I had a hunch something was up and I tried to respond to them asking how such a URL would work (since I've never seen asterisks in one), but they had "opted not to receive private messages" so off my PM goes to Gurg.

The other day, I went to stick a fork in an electrical socket, but some joker had gone and put these plastic things on all the sockets in my house that I couldn't get off. I wonder how they planned to plug in lamps and stuff.

The allusions to Hemingway during the docks scene were awfully hamfisted/amateurish, you have to admit...

Vaguely related -- the keylogger spammers on the WoW forums are getting a bit more refined in terms of post content and grammar as opposed to the ol' "How sex this girl is?" type of things.

Of course, the actual url itself should be a huge tip off. Just be careful when browsing WoW forums pre morning coffee.

If you're using Opera, I'd recommend turning JavaScript off by default then enabling it manually under "Edit site preferences" when you come across a site that needs it switched on to function or one that you're positive is clean and safe (an example of the former would be YouTube and an example of the latter would be this very site we're posting on now), as well as adding "http://*.cn*" to your blocked content list (unless of course you're actually Chinese and need to visit legitimate .cn sites on a daily basis).

With this setup, even if you *do* happen to accidently click a keylogger link, the chances are Opera will catch the ".cn" in the URL and refuse to load it, and if it isn't a .cn link (which is pretty rare from what I've observed), in most cases nothing will happen seeing as almost all keylogger sites require JavaScript to function, and regardless of that, most of them don't actually do anything under Opera anyway even with JavaScript enabled.

Anyway, sorry if I'm taking things a bit off topic, just thought I'd add my 2 copper seeing as some of you have mentioned browser security. If I recieve any suspicious-looking PMs, I'll be sure to report them.

Will have to agree there - fell for one on the Druid forums about new forms for shapeshifting. Didn't quite expect -that- to be a keylogger. Of course, no morning coffee meant I completely glanced over the exact URL.

As stated above, a more carefully crafted post/pm would do marvels in getting somewhat smart people to actually click on a link.

While we're giving spammers directions, they should probably find a way to pick 'random' accounts, rather than the traditional 'go alphabetically through the members list' strategy.

Or, alternately, we could stop talking about it. Clever spammers like to engage the boss without watching the video first, amirite?

Be advised there is still an email scam going around for information, saying you've been caught trying to sell your account blah blah and tries to get your info.

Keep your firefix consistently updated.

Normally security bugs involving stuff that can be easily exploited don't happen to firefix because of the scrutiny that it bears.

Here's a question concerning the moderation of these boards:
Would it prove more useful to report via PMs or simple 'Report this Post'? Also, do more reports mean quicker response? In the case of malicious links, time wasted means quantity of possible 'misclicks'.

Use the report post button.

For most posts I'd suggest the Report this Post button, it gets put into a forum that all the mods can see.

For malicious links, I'd suggest reporting the post as well, feel free to PM me as well, the email the PM sends can sometimes make me read the boards when I've not been paying attention. I'm pretty sure all of the more active mods wouldn't mind that as well.

Elitist Jerks - Show Groups - This should show you who is online, you are looking for Admins, Super Moderators and Moderators out of that list.