Email spam and how to combat it.

[Orrrrmus]

Here's an idea to get these Email Spammers out of the way:

 

Introduce your squelch system that you have for the chat also to email.

Once at least 10 people (or 5 unique acconts, or 15 reports in total) reported the same sender for Spam, block them for 24 hours. - For each subsequent report add an hour to the squelch. (Number are ballpark figures, ofc)

 

This way the Email spam will soon subside, because even if they make new toons, they are soon squelched again.

This also has virtually no impact on the rest of the community since (afaik) no one is really using ingame mail to communicate and if so they are either consenting to it, ignornig it or reporting it anyways (which leaves less reports for you to sift through... freeing you up for answering them faster )

 

Also, if these accounts are only F2P, why not block them from sending mail at all?

Maybe allow them to mail to other characters of their own account and guild that they are in but that's it.

 

No more email spam

Sounds good?

[dr_mike]

I run a webhosting company.

 

Sounds good?

 

We blocked 6+ million email connections yesterday. Even though they're blocked, we still get the attempts.

 

Spammers get paid for sending the emails, not if they're received or not.

[aceite]

I'm hoping something gets done soon. I now get up to three advertisements with the subject "Announcement" for each character I log on to. Even after I have ignored the sender, I still get an alert that "You have new mail." Those I have reported have remained online continuously for days if not months. Edited April 2, 2016 by aceite

[nanamaryjj]

Must admit, my gripe with the spammers, is that even if I click report it, they can still mail me, opened my tickets up other day as I recognised a spammers name. And low and behold I still had a reported ticket there for that person from ages ago

[dr_mike]

Must admit, my gripe with the spammers, is that even if I click report it, they can still mail me, opened my tickets up other day as I recognised a spammers name. And low and behold I still had a reported ticket there for that person from ages ago

 

Blocking on a report is done in some games and not in others. It's not done in this one. You could always block first and then report if it's a concern for you.

 

But, heck, I'll trade you your 3 a day for my 6+ million a day.

[nanamaryjj]

Blocking on a report is done in some games and not in others. It's not done in this one. You could always block first and then report if it's a concern for you.

 

But, heck, I'll trade you your 3 a day for my 6+ million a day.

 

I more meant it should auto block the spammer once you hit report

Must admit I don't see anywhere near the amount of spam some get, maybe 1-2 a day at most but then X that by alts,,

[xordevoreaux]

/ignoring a spammer prevents that particular spammer from emailing you again.

Also:

If you see a level 1 standing for hours in front of mail box with a name like ajafalsdjfasdfasf .... that is a spammer. The second you see that person, /ignore him. Yes, the /ignore list is capped, but you've peace of mind for a bit until you reach it.

 

Or switch toons.

[aceite]

/ignoring a spammer prevents that particular spammer from emailing you again.

Also:

If you see a level 1 standing for hours in front of mail box with a name like ajafalsdjfasdfasf .... that is a spammer. The second you see that person, /ignore him. Yes, the /ignore list is capped, but you've peace of mind for a bit until you reach it.

 

Or switch toons.

It does not prevent the spammer from emailing you. Even though you may have those characters ignored, they are still able to send you a message, and you still get the notification "You have new mail." When you go to your mailbox, there is no message.

 

They're sending messages to every character that is logged on, so switching characters just gets you more mail.

[dr_mike]

ajafalsdjfasdfasf

 

Not sure which server you're on but here on Shadowlands, lately it's been 3 random names followed by a 2 digit number.

 

Without going into details, a purely random string of characters in place of a name will set off an anti spam trigger. (I work for a webhosting company and we do our own in house anti spam solution.)

Edited April 2, 2016 by dr_mike

[xordevoreaux]

It does not prevent the spammer from emailing you. Even though you may have those characters ignored, they are still able to send you a message, and you still get the notification "You have new mail." When you go to your mailbox, there is no message.

 

They're sending messages to every character that is logged on, so switching characters just gets you more mail.

 

You are correct... you get the notification, but don't get the mail. So /ignoring someone does have an effect. You just have a mysterious email "you have mail" message with nothing in your mail box, and when you open it, the mail notification goes away. But you never, throughout all that, experienced anything other than the notification, and when you have other (legitmate) messages as well, there's no problem. You've no idea that they sent it. So it DOES work. It's just a residual bug that you get the notification message that you have mail.

[eaglemkl]

What I would love to see is how many goldseller mails I've reported as spam. Maybe even put in an achivement for reporting a certain number of goldsellers.

[DreadtechSavant]

I run a webhosting company.

 

 

 

We blocked 6+ million email connections yesterday. Even though they're blocked, we still get the attempts.

 

Spammers get paid for sending the emails, not if they're received or not.

 

This. Plus any filter can and will be gotten around in little to no time if the sender is determined enough. Are they that determined? well maybe, maybe not, but if I ran BW I would not waste or send money on it tiring to find out. Why you ask? Well while its annoying it takes what 4 seconds for any player to delete the spam mail if that? Hardly worth it.

 

 

What I would love to see is how many goldseller mails I've reported as spam. Maybe even put in an achivement for reporting a certain number of goldsellers.

 

That would be far better. At least the player gets something even if its just a token achievement.

Edited February 25, 2017 by DreadtechSavant

[Cassianus]

Also, if these accounts are only F2P, why not block them from sending mail at all?

Maybe allow them to mail to other characters of their own account and guild that they are in but that's it.

Quick solution which should prevent mail spam from free accounts:

1) Unlimited letters only to yourself, to guild members and friends (who have added you to their lists)

2) Maximum 5 letters to other players per day.

3) No any letters to non-friends before level 10.

Spammers will quickly realise that creating a new account and character, levelling to 10 and sending only 5 spam letters (with subsequent ban, of course) is too inefficient and time consuming.

 

Long, but the best solution: need to add the self-learning spam filter to both chat and mail.

[bluehufsa]

Got an idea: since the spammers use impossible names, the character creation screen should prevent using that kind of names. No more Glabbbdtj and so on.

[SteveTheCynic]

Got an idea: since the spammers use impossible names, the character creation screen should prevent using that kind of names. No more Glabbbdtj and so on.

Yeah, Dofus has that. The game swarms with bots, both gatherers and spammers.

 

Squelch in and of itself does nothing. If the spammer knows he's been squelched, he'll abandon the character or the account and create a new one (stealing another credit card number if he has to(1)). And he can always find out.

 

(1) What? You thought they used their own money to pay for subscriptions? Um, how naive are you, anyway?

[bluehufsa]

I wasn't talking about credit cards. How to explain this? If someone attempts to create a character with a gibberish name, the system should block it. This might discourage spammers and gold sellers since they use only gibberish names impossible to pronounce. Edited February 26, 2017 by bluehufsa

[SteveTheCynic]

I wasn't talking about credit cards. How to explain this? If someone attempts to create a character with a gibberish name, the system should block it. This might discourage spammers and gold sellers since they use only gibberish names impossible to pronounce.

My point was that Dofus has such a rule, and it has more bots and spammers than you can shake a stick at (there aren't enough sticks to shake, even), so that rule would do NOTHING for the problem.

[Battilea]

I wasn't talking about credit cards. How to explain this? If someone attempts to create a character with a gibberish name, the system should block it. This might discourage spammers and gold sellers since they use only gibberish names impossible to pronounce.

They'll just make a minor adjustment. Like using the random name generator and then tacking on something at the end of it, potentially off of a list. You're basically looking at only slowing them down by a second or two.