if you need a bump

We have just had an email to say that the Dell IT company database of customers has been hacked. DH and I, both have Dell PCs. If a hi tech company like Dell can be hacked, what chance has GN got!

Why do the threads need reporting anyway?

GNHQ know there is a problem, and shouldn’t need to be told each time surely if they are moderating properly 🤷🏼‍♀️ ?

In the past, night time SPAM posts were missed and often daytime ones stayed for hours.

However, I would hope that GNHQ are being more vigilant in the light of recent events and are monitoring.

Reporting keeps them on their toes. I think they divide their attention between GN and MN. Gransnet has less overall traffic than MN so they could be busy there, and so don't always take any action about a few sales/marketing posts.

If they get a lot of reports THEY are overloaded with rubbish, as well as the posters, so we get more priority. Yesterday I reported over 50 posts in one session - some had posts to say they been reported already but they were still there, with others it wasn't obvious, but I reported them anyway. They had all vanished the next time I looked.

I find all this beyond maddening. Sometimes ordinary threads are bumped up barely a minute after the previous post. What is the point.

Thing is, Notagran, I don't think we have full-time moderation any more, even in daytime, and they rely on reports to show them problems.

I've just reported another - without giving the poster the pleasure of knowing it.

what is 'bump' supposed to mean

It is a post to keep the thread from slipping down the list of recent posts. In this case it is probably to keep it high so as to push the spam threads down and out of the limelight.

I haven't joined in the bumping, but I've done my best this morning to add a comment to existing threads to push them up. Trouble is, the blighters keep coming. Anyway, I'm off out now for the day. Good luck!

Marydoll

We have just had an email to say that the Dell IT company database of customers has been hacked. DH and I, both have Dell PCs. If a hi tech company like Dell can be hacked, what chance has GN got!

Marydoll I don't think these are the result of hacking - that would interfere with the workings of the files that run the site, or harvest our real names and email addresses to send the rubbish direct to us all.

This is bulk marketing, like the piles of flyers that get put through the letterbox and go straight into the recycling bin. Anyone can join GN and immediately post something, even if they are not a real person but an artificial intelligence creation - a bot. That identity and email address can be banned, but it is very easy to set up another identity and get another email address.

Plus, lists of possible suckers sites which could be profitable to send marketing stuff to are sold to would-be millionaires who hope to make money without actually working for it. The lists are sold on and circulate for years. A few days ago, I had an unsolicited marketing call from someone who asked to speak to my husband, by name - he died twelve years ago!

From Dell: Dell Technologies takes the privacy and confidentiality of your information seriously. We are currently investigating an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database with limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell.

It does go onto clarify what has been accessed.

I hope your security hasn't been compromised, Marydoll but my point was that the flood of spam messages on Gransnet is NOT due to a hacker getting into internal site files illegally as you describe, but to some sales/marketing organisation (or individuals) using an automatic system that sends posts to the addresses on a list that they have acquired.

There is probably no-one actually controlling sending the posts BUT they may be monitoring the new threads they started to see whether they have caught any fish. That is why it is better to just report them WITHOUT adding any posts , which just confirms to them that it was successful in getting attention.

Bump other posts or not, as you please, to push the threads down the page, but remember that if they are unanswered they go down the page anyway, and answering just keeps them at the top.

Report and ignore.

A misunderstanding Elegran. I wasn't suggesting GN had been hacked, far from it, but trying to demonstrate that even companies with high levels of security like Dell, are having problems. It is not just GN. The Ministery of Defence was hacked the other day.
It's happening everywhere, whether it is bots flooding sites with SPAM or hacking. It is very concerning.

Note to self: Re and re-read before posting to avoid any confusion.

Thank you for the clarification, Marydoll.

I have some knowledge of the internet, and if even I thought that you were linking hacking to the flood of spam posts on GN, then many of those who have no idea what goes on "under the bonnet" could think that GN has indeed been hacked, and be afraid for their own devices.

(They arrived at a rate of about one a minute - quite long enough in between, in fact, for them to have been individually posted by a real person typing really fast and cutting and pasting a lot of the text. Bots can be programmed to send messages much faster than that.)

In case anyone is worried - as far as we know, these spam posts are just an online version of the piles of unsolicited advertising that we move daily from behind our fronts doors and put straight into the recycling., and our real names and email addresses are safe. No-one will invade our security through the spam posts - unless we are daft enough to contact the posters direct and tell them private details.