NationStates Jolt Archive

We are aware of a puppetmaster sending spam telegrams; only contact the mods if the nation that sent the telegram is still live. Otherwise, simply delete the spam.

Good idea to sticky this :)

Could you possibly clarify more on exactly what constituted the spam TG in this case, and what types of TG's we should be reporting?

Otherwise you may get people reporting Regional adverts, etc.

The telegram would have been from a nation who's name was a random combination of two words [name][name]; earlier incarnations have a three-figure number at the end. The telegram was advertising a site with 'iwalton' in the name.

hey, [NATION] Check out this website:
www.iwalton.com

I think they've got some cool stuff. Let me know what you think.

Ahh - now I read in a topic about 10 minutes ago that the URL was actually a link to a virus. I'm not sure how realistic those claims are, but it is always best to be prudent :)

Thanks GMC :)

great idea...

why do people send every1 hates it and its always unusefull
i hate it *spam* :sniper:

I don't believe it links to a virus, nothing tried to download to my computer. It appears to be an online shop, but it may be a phishing scam. Regardless, there's no need to follow the link.

The hacker's nations are easy to recognize. They don't start with a Capital character.

ya, in my post i noted that it maybe a virus but after i did a scan of my computer i found nothing that appeared to be from that site. But i may be wrong and it always pays to be cautious.

he's talking about watches

hey, evil_accountants. How are you? Take a look at the watch I bought for someone:
www.iwalton.com

What do you think?

i'll report him via GHP.

I have checked my puppets, and he messaged most of my puppets beginning with an "A". Some of their messengers are still active. He simply creates a puppet, which sends a message immediately and than gets forgotton. I think he creates 1 puppet for each message. It would be much easier if the creation of new nations would be dissabled for a while.

Bah, its just a sign of NS' increasing popularity ^_^
But I got the second one (Check out this watch I bought for somebody), and I dont have any active puppets (Tandu Systems might still be around, but he prolly hasnt gotten the telegram yet.
So, its either an industrious spammer or the Creo Tellus/Somebody else punks getting 'revenge'.

He does use the puppets more than once. I tged him back asking why he sent me the link and he replied

Sorry, I thought you were someone else

Nation creation has been temporarily disabled while we deal with this.

Dude, no one go to that ste. I just did a quick...slightly contreversial check and the virus' on there are really bad ones.

Nation creation has been temporarily disabled while we deal with this.

Good call :p

He does use the puppets more than once. I tged him back asking why he sent me the link and he replied

Sorry, I thought you were someone else


I got that as well. Must be an automated response.

The Queendom of scupfaro :sniper:
Received: 4 hours ago

the iwalton.com site.

Regards Kempelhoff

Wow. Not only has it reached me, it has reached my puppets, too. And I don't have that many puppets. At first I thought I got it because I'm active on the forums and all over NS, but my puppets aren't. Strange...

Glad to see your guys are on top of this. Keep up the good work.

He's busy. He telegrammed my main nation and all of the my puppets. I've seen that link before on Net forums, so I wasn't foolish enough to click on it due to the wide-spread rumor of viruses.

I believe that a bridge.dll spyware thing came from one of those sites as well. Adaware got rid of it for me and I never pinned where I got it but timing plays that one of those telegrams might have been it. It was a site with some cool things to buy. Possible it may have had some spyware? Yes.

There are a whole lot of things I would like to say to this guy... Anyone mind if I drop a couple of four letter words?













Not really going to but good god what a...

Why cant you IP ban him? My main nation has gotten 2 more messages on top of the original. I went to the site and i got a virus from it but I deleted it/

I believe that a bridge.dll spyware thing came from one of those sites as well. Adaware got rid of it for me and I never pinned where I got it but timing plays that one of those telegrams might have been it. It was a site with some cool things to buy. Possible it may have had some spyware? Yes.

I only found some tracking cookies when I ran Adaware and I did go to that site. Perhaps I wasn't there long enough or I used Mozilla instead of IE or something...

Yes I use IE so that might be the difference.

Why cant you IP ban him? My main nation has gotten 2 more messages on top of the original. I went to the site and i got a virus from it but I deleted it/We're working on a long-term solution to problems like this.

This guy and all his nations should be taken care of now, though.

The telegram would have been from a nation who's name was a random combination of two words [name][name]; earlier incarnations have a three-figure number at the end. The telegram was advertising a site with 'iwalton' in the name.

Damn good thing I didn't follow that link in the telegram. The nation who sent me that telegram no longer exists. The nation name was "sackpyic 185".

We're working on a long-term solution to problems like this.

This guy and all his nations should be taken care of now, though.

Ok. What would be great is if Max sent a msg to his ISP and got his connection shut off.

Telegram I recieved:

sackpyic185
Received: 1 day ago hey, tomzilla. Check out this website:
www.iwalton.com

I think they've got some cool stuff. Let me know what you think.

Telegram I recieved:

sackpyic185
Received: 1 day ago hey, tomzilla. Check out this website:
www.iwalton.com

I think they've got some cool stuff. Let me know what you think.

Yeah I got that. Shortly afterwards, though I can't be sure this was the cause, my Ad-Aware popped out a bridge.dll catch every time I opened IE. It may have been something else but timing just seemed to coincide.

I have recived serval of those telegrams as well.....

yeah i kinda... went there on accident im scaning with norton corp. right now as well as a xoft spy scan...

but for some reason 7 min. after the link a mod from my steam application without me doing anything

I did not get a virus, but I am scanning for spyware now.

Thanks for the virus heads up.

No virus or spyware for me, but I am not using IE. I urge people not to go there, still. Simply giving him page hits means that the spammer wins. If the spammer wins, more will try to spam.

[EDIT: Oh, and I was just checking my TGs and all of my puppets also got the spam. My puppets are inactive. I can understand Great Freedom getting it, but Nomas Stellarum (which is a Latin phrase for Nomads of the Stars)? How did he (or she) do it?]

The telegram would have been from a nation who's name was a random combination of two words [name][name]; earlier incarnations have a three-figure number at the end. The telegram was advertising a site with 'iwalton' in the name.

That is incorrect for my message:


hey, the_great_sixth_reich. How are you? Take a look at the watch I bought for someone:
www.iwalton.com

What do you think?

I was going to send him a telegram saying "the watch you bought sucks!" But his nation got deleted. :)

There's also a major glitch in the "language filter".

Everytime I post this:

"hey, the_great_sixth_reich. How are you? Take a look at the watch I bought for someone:
www.iwalton.com

What do you think?"

Do not follow the link if you get that message everybody

on my regional board, it will not post because it contains "bad language"!

Are these only being sent out to newly created puppets or to established nations? I've yet to get one and am curious.

Yes! Nation creation is back, which means problem solved.

Dude, no one go to that ste. I just did a quick...slightly contreversial check and the virus' on there are really bad ones.
oops. what do i do to disinfect?

Hey, a permanent solution that might work would be to use an open source spam filter. I can't remember the name(I think POPFile) of the best one, but there are several. It won't be easy to plug into NS, but, it still could work.

Cheers,
The Dictator of Afslavistakistania

Okay, once again, if the nation that sent you the telegram no longer exists, please don't tell us about it. Only tell us if the nation is still active.

Are these only being sent out to newly created puppets or to established nations? I've yet to get one and am curious.
Established nations in private and inactive regions get them too.

Myabe it's trying to get through every one or something?

Hey, a permanent solution that might work would be to use an open source spam filter. I can't remember the name(I think POPFile) of the best one, but there are several. It won't be easy to plug into NS, but, it still could work.

Cheers,
The Dictator of Afslavistakistania
I always thought that SpamAssassin was the best filter--meh.

-Def

I received one two days ago - only recently checked my TG's. It was from a Nation called vrostock - but there is no record of him/her on the game.

The message was (bah - deleted it, so it's from memory)

'Hi there Aligned Planets. When was the last time you had a new watch? Take a look at the watch I bought for someone:
www.iwalton.com

What do you think?'

Just thought I'd let you know

Intresting, I googled 'iwalton', apparently Izaak Walton was an English biographer.
Plus there seem to be alot of iwalton(dot)com/stuff sites, things like 'personal prayers', one link is 'Themed prayers menu' with the desc as "Prayer menu: Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer Prayer "
There seem to be lots of Emails with Iwalton@ addressess.
ITS A CONSPIRACY!

ITS A CONSPIRACY!

Drink less coffee - they'll go away then ;)

Anyone heard of the Nation vrostock? The one I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

yep, I got two from different nations, rapidly behind each other. advertising same site/link. so they are not targetting new nations.
Simplest solution to everyone is, if you do not recognise nation that tgs you an address then dont go there. If nation is still active report it, but dont tg back.
I know we can be curious at times but no need to be to curious.

btw, noneof my puppets received any tgs. perhaps it is only UN nations being targetted?

Chris

Aligned planets, sorry I was typing my previous reply and didnt notice yours,
Vrrostock, I recognise from a while back, (though my memory may be playing tricks) it was definitely similar but had to v.s in it. Anyway he/she were advertising a game zone at time. Which turned out to be an actual one. Heck everyone in NS must have received a similar tg from some nut :)

ps WHAT IS WRONG WITH COFFEE aaaarghhhh! LOL

Chris

btw, noneof my puppets received any tgs. perhaps it is only UN nations being targetted?

my puppet was inactive for 57 (!) days and received one :confused: my UN puppet and my main nations received no telegrams.

my UN nation received one, two of my established non UN puppets got one and one of my newly established Puppets got one, I hadn't evn used it yet, it'd only been created like an hour before when I got the TG

btw, noneof my puppets received any tgs. perhaps it is only UN nations being targetted?

Chris

One of my puppets got the telegram from another person, a deleted person though.

One nation, Nominor, and one telegram. Weird. So why do people do this again?

Yes, lots of people got them.
Please only use this thread to report new ones, or ones from nations that haven't been deleted yet.

I always thought that SpamAssassin was the best filter--meh.

-Def

Yeah, I wonder which is easier to integrate into the system. Maybe even SpamBayes? I think that could be adapted relatively easily. It all depends how it's done though.

Cheers,
The Dictator of Afslavistakistania

Two nations in my region complained of such telegrams. I have infromed them to report it if it happens again.

Ooooooooo!!! This is bad I was suspicous and asked somebody in my old region to look at it for me and Im pretty sure they don't know it contained viruses. They did actually look at it!!!

Okay, this shouldn't be an issue anymore, so destickified.

You know, as I have a Mac and Safari, if there are any spam links that anyone gets, I would be happy to open them and see what's on the site, as I am 100% immune to viruses.
There have been zero viruses for Mac OS X ever. Also, ad-ware and spy-ware are at a 0% rate.

Actually there are Mac viruses, they just don't get the same amount of coverage since most people own a Windows OS computer.

Can you name one.
Even, feel free to email me one or give me a link to one. Or, for that matter, a link to coverage of one.
I am absolutely 100% positive that there are zero mac viruses.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-virus/macintosh-faq/

Plus any windows virus can attack a mac running a windows emulator.

I am absolutely 100% positive that there are zero mac viruses.

I am absolutely 100% positive that there are many mac viruses. As to whether any of them can actual infect OS X is a different matter.

OK. Let me clarify.
There have indeed been numerous Mac OS X viruses.
However: zero computers running Mac OS X have ever been infected. Every virus made has either been purely theoretical, created by a virus protection company, or made and then the loophole was closed before a single computer was infected.

Zero Mac OS X systems have ever been infected with a virus.
Also, there is a rare case where a windows emulator on a mac was infected, but in would only damage the windows system, and would not harm the mac system.

In effect: I can still visit any website and be 100% certain that I will not be infected.

And thus: The offer stands: I will visit any website or open any email or email attachment or any program that you send me.

This is not the place to discuss the merits of different operating systems.

OK, true.
I'll stop posting about Mac v. PC here.