who is...., concerning the recent private spam messages Options

[JackSteel]

Anyone know a muzrinkl ? i got a weird email from this forums from this person but don't even see the name listed in the membership.

[Robert]

Sorry for the inconvenience, I've turned off the PM system for normal members as a temporary fix until I can install a more permanent solution.
I've gone in an deleted all the PM's for everyone else.

Rocket Dog is correct about this being the newest spam approach. What's interesting is while it's a nuisance for everyone, it actually a pretty lame an amateurish attempt. A real person signs up, then runs a script which creates a list of all forum members. Then it sends the spam private message to the 1st 10 people on the list ( 10 people/message is the limit ) Then sends it to the next 10 on the list. etc etc.
I call it lame an amateurish because it takes longer for the script to run then it takes an admin to remove all the offending messages. I guess the spammers are getting desperate.

Something interesting I found while investigating the problem. All 3 of the big commercial forums ( VBulletin, IPB and Ultra ) are susceptible to this kind of script. While some of the most popular free open source forums are not. So much for getting what you pay for.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience.