Email De-Activated / Russian Users Booted

[Frank Hagan]

Seems one of our eagle eyed users noted a few suspicious websites and user names among the new members here. Looks like some of the recent members may have been trying to hack into the email addresses here. Most of them seem to be from Russia, with a ".ru" domain name. I've banned them all :cry:

I have also disabled email sending among users to prevent them from using messing-about.com as a "spam server". If that happens, the site will get shut down sooner than you can say "friendship sloop" by my host. We have a zero tolerance for spam. If it cools off a bit, I'll re-enable it.

Any message you would have gotten from the forum would be prefaced with a note saying it was sent to you by the forum, in this format:

Hello Frank Hagan,

The following is an email sent to you by User NameHere via your account on messing-about.com. If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the following address:

myemailgivenhere@ev1.net

Include this full email (particularly the headers). Please note that the reply address to this email has been set to that of User NameHere.

Message sent to you follows

So I don't think they had actually gotten to the point where they had hacked into anything (I hope).

Anyway, any of you who I have "banned" unfairly (who won't be seeing this message, of course) can email me for re-entry into the site. I hate to blanket-ban an entire country of people, but most of the abuse seems to be coming from those domains. I can allow access to any Russian boat builder who wants to join us, but I'll need to set him up manually.

[Mike Pennington]

Thanks Frank,

None of us need any of that.

We have been getting a lot of smoke lately, so thick you can't see a hundred yards out. I thought it was from a new forrest fire from a lighting strike. But my Wife tells me the smoke is from Russia, the whole tundra of Sieberia must be on fire. Mike

[Frank Hagan]

I did NOT start that fire! No sir! I may be mad at the Russians for trying to hack into messing-about.com, but I did NOT start that fire! :wink:

[Steve Tarry]

Man, Russians... First there was that whole communism thing and now they're hacking into the Messing About website. Next thing you know they'll be putting flouride in the vodka to sap our precious bodily fluids!

[Frank Hagan]

Flouride! We put up with it in our drinking water (rotten commies!), but in our vodka, NEVER!

(Actually, I guess my scotch and water drinks do indeed have a bit of flouride. That's it, no more water in the scotch!)

[Steve Tarry]

That's it, Frank; preserve your purity of essence at all cost.

[Mike Pennington]

Here in Alaska, I have run in to many Russians. Not the Russian Orthadox who have been here forever. But fresh off the boat/plane. Small russian Mafia thing going on, generally they get their behineys kicked. But they do exist, moving in to prostitution and drugs. They even have the young ones out selling small items on the street. Things you can by at the local Fred Myers or gift stores, but they will try to tell you it is a genuin hand crafted Russian folk art bla bla. At twice the price you can buy the item at the local store. One lady about forty knocked on my door about 2130 one night. She was selling wind chimes, $25, I almost bought one. But when she went to hand me one it was only one chime, nothing to ring against :roll: If I wanted it to chime I would have to buy another.

I know there is a bad guy sitting in the white van that drives these folks around. I feel for them, but I am a working stiff myself. I am sure some of them are trying to get by as best they can. Not a pretty world out there.