gentoo forum private message

squirrelsoup · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 29 Dec 2016 Posts: 98

i just received an email from forum-mods gentoo that i received a private message on the gentoo forum, and the email provided me a link.
when i logged into the gentoo forum it said i have no new messages in my inbox.
is this a fishing email or is it legit forum-mod gentoo message?

augustin · Guru Joined: 23 Feb 2015 Posts: 318

My guess is that it was a private message from a user who was flagged/banned as a spammer between the time the private message notification was sent and the time you logged in. The private messages sent by that user would have been deleted at the same time as he was banned.

Chiitoo · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 9:10 am Post subject:

Moved from Networking & Security to Gentoo Forums Feedback, as I feel it's a better fit.

As for the issue itself, my guess is that augustin's guess is quite spot-on. :]

(That is as long as the mail actually had the legitimate links. If not, well then it obviously would not have been from us.)
_________________
Kindest of regardses.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21586

There was a report recently about a user who was spending spam PMs. That user has been banned. According to the administrator who implemented the ban, the offending user had messaged >150 users with an obviously spam PM (presumably the message went to someone who provided it to the administrator in full). While 150 users is a tiny portion of the total userbase, it's quite possible that the OP in this thread was one of the recipients, particularly since OP's user account is currently within the window of "150 most recently registered accounts".

desultory · Bodhisattva Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 9410

Actually, I had peeked in the database, given the mass sending of messages with identical (spammy) titles and the only message they had received having been from their own account; and yes, I can confirm from the uids that they had sent it to that squirrelsoup was one of the lucky recipients of their advertising. We cannot read any private messages, not sent to us, through the web UI, and only read them via the database when we are certain of the messages being nothing more than spam, so far we have been right every time.

fcl · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Dec 2016 Posts: 77

I can confirm that I was sent a spam message by that banned user and it later disappeared from my inbox automatically. I guess the spambot spammed newly registered users like me and OP.