Home › Forums › Archives › Instant Messaging › Yahoo! Messenger Support › Spammy Offline Messages
- This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 3 months ago by stevestraughn.
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January 8, 2008 at 8:16 am #28123sarahtownyMember
Hi
Everytime I go into Yahoo Messenger, I get loads of spam offlines, sometimes I get them when I am on line. I report everyone I get, but the problem seems to be getting worse, I popped in last night and there were about 15 of the stupid things :crying:
I have no idea how I am getting them, I never visit chat rooms etc, how did they get my name? It’s getting to be a real pain.
Anyone know of a way to stop it?
Cheers :0)
January 8, 2008 at 10:29 pm #166004sarahtownyMembermmmh ok this post has been viewed 43 times and no one knows … Am I in a IM website?
January 9, 2008 at 12:17 am #166008YahooliganMemberUsually it’s common to wait 24 hours before bumping a forum post. The person with the answer might not be in the same time zone! 😀
You don’t have to go into a chat room for a spammer to snag your Yahoo ID. They can get it anywhere, including Yahoo! Member Directory or anywhere you’ve shared your Yahoo! ID. They can even grab it for a forum like BigBlueBall, if you’ve shared that info in your profile, your signature or one of your posts.
The seriously evil spammers use software to scour the network (or even just Google Search!) to collect Yahoo! account names in a database, then automate their nasty spam.
I get a bunch of spammy offline messages too, and I’m pretty careful about where and with whom I share my account name. I usually just scan the titles looking for REAL messages from friends, then close the offline message window. All the offline messages automatically get deleted when you close that window, so it’s quicker than deleting or reporting them one-by-one.
If you are already getting them, good luck getting them to stop. You can try reporting them, but I find that they somehow keep getting through.
If it really, really bugs you, the only suggestion I have is to setup a new Yahoo ID, hide your profile and be careful not to share that name anywhere on the web.
Good Luck!
January 9, 2008 at 1:33 am #166011PhilipModeratorWell Yahooligan has given a pretty good reply, I must say. Also you might like to PM Dermot or Venom, our Yahoo gurus. Best of luck, Sarah.
January 9, 2008 at 1:44 am #166007imported_Ven0mMemberActually, PM spam is getting worse on Yahoo ever since Yahoo added the captcha to the chat rooms.
If you use Yahoo specifically, you could use an application layer gateway companion program like YTK Pro or Y!TunnelPro to filter out the spam. Since you mentioned you don’t use chat rooms, I wouldn’t suggest chat clients.
There’s multiple ways spammers get IDs, like Yahooligan said, the member directory is one of them. The other one is a bug in Yahoo’s own system, where people whom are not on your buddy list appear to “sign in” (the ghost logins issue). I suspect spammers are getting IDs this way too.
January 9, 2008 at 8:07 am #166003sarahtownyMemberThanks everyone! Sorry I got a bit impatient, it is rather annoying though. Looks like I will have to live with it grrr. I cannot change my yahoo ID which is a shame as it would be the quickest way to get rid of this situation.
Oh well, let’s just hope they get bored of trying ;0)
January 9, 2008 at 1:01 pm #166009VvWolverinevVParticipantsarahtowny;225596 wrote:let’s just hope they get bored of trying ;0)Not bloody likely 🙁 The problem is even a bit worse on a Mac since Messenger for Mac doesn’t compile the offline messages into a single window. I have to close each spam message separately.
January 9, 2008 at 5:31 pm #166005sarahtownyMemberVvWolverinevV;225600 wrote:Not bloody likely 🙁 The problem is even a bit worse on a Mac since Messenger for Mac doesn’t compile the offline messages into a single window. I have to close each spam message separately.Eeek that’s even worse! Poor you :crying:
ps congrats on 100 posts 😉
January 9, 2008 at 10:14 pm #166010VvWolverinevVParticipantsarahtowny;225603 wrote:ps congrats on 100 posts 😉lol, thanks. It’s been a difficult trek, without water, through the snow, uphill both ways, in bare feet… but I made it 😀
January 10, 2008 at 7:40 pm #166001Jeff HesterKeymasterYou can also choose the option to ignore everyone who is not on your list too. that will make it so you receive messages from only the people on your contact list.
January 11, 2008 at 10:37 am #166012stevestraughnMember@garydd 225628 wrote:
You can also choose the option to ignore everyone who is not on your list too. that will make it so you receive messages from only the people on your contact list.
I use this method too. Its called ‘ignore list’ . I dont receive spam anymore except for a 2-3 sneaky ones per month.
January 11, 2008 at 7:06 pm #166002Jeff HesterKeymasterCan these spammers actually see your Yahoo status message too if you display one?
January 12, 2008 at 3:35 pm #166013stevestraughnMemberI suspect so gary unless they use an automated bot in that case nope. But im sure they can if they want to.
January 19, 2008 at 2:54 pm #166006DermotParticipantMany Spam bots collect Yahoo accounts and collect ids in chatrooms when they pass through them and it’s quite easy to grab a whole chatters list.
They can then pass them to a online database where the bots can simply just call one, spam it, move to the next.
Yahoo! captcha has been cracked with a success rate of 30% to 35% ratio of automation, to put it simply , every 100 they try they can get into 35 rooms easy, that been said yahoo captcha is known to be one of the hardest for machines to read.
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