Annies Attic Message Board

[beachlady]

Assume some of us have seen the announcment on Annie Attic, ref: the message board is closed down. Stated they had a "vitual assult". and closing down, due to this. Does any one know what happened, and could it happen here, what ever it was that caused them to close down. That would be horrilbe for us here.

[Natasha]

There's another post around here about what happened. I think a spammer sent out lots of very graphic p**n.

[Lisaizme]

http://www.crochetville.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32666&highlight=Annies+Attic

[Amy]

I'm not sure whether the porn spammer posted the nastiness on the Annie's Attic message board or whether it was sent to the members via email. So my answer is going to vary a bit.

 

First of all, yes, it's possible that a spammer could get on here and post with porn pics that appear in the post. But that would NOT cause us to shut Crochetville down. We'd just archive those threads (not delete in case we ever needed them for legal action), ban the person, and keep close watch for awhile to make sure that person didn't do it again. We might also contact that person's ISP and report the problem. (Some foreign ISPs there's no point to contacting them.) If it involved child porn, we'd get legal authorities involved.

 

If the person was somehow able to send an email en masse to all the members of the Annie's Attic message boards, well, you can't do that here. The person would have to email each person individually. In that case, I'm sure most members would forward me copies of what they had received. And since that would involve multiple instances of the person breaking their ISP's terms of service, we'd definitely make a report with their ISP (given that the ISP is one that would take appropriate action).

 

Annie's Attic message board was a completely different situation than here. It was a value-added service to their main business, which is selling patterns. They probably don't have the resources to devote to ensuring any future problems could be handled very quickly, so it was in their best interests to shut the boards down.

 

So while, yes, it's technically possible that porn pics could be posted to the 'Ville, that's nothing we would even consider closing the forum over. Unless the amount and type of porn spam posts were so severe we felt we had to close for 15-30 minutes for clean-up and mass bannings of the perpetrator(s).

 

Don't worry, the 'Ville isn't going anywhere!!

[birdlady1]

I received an email from "Bill Clinton" saying he had a message on Annie's Attic. I deleted the email, assuming I could see the message on Annie's if it was legitimate. My first thought was that it really was Bill Clinton asking for donations of crocheted items for Katrina victims, AIDS victims etc. So I opened the awful message containing porno....... :eek

 

I'm an "FOB" (friend of Bill) and I have Yahoo! alerts sent to my email whenever he's in the news.

 

In addition, I think I may have written one of the last messages on Annie's Attic before this awful event struck. I wonder if the creep used me as the catalyst to access Annie's Attic:( :angry ????!!!!

 

If anyone on this Board received the Bill Clinton email on their personal email, I highly recommend that you change your email password at your earliest convenience ... just in case.

[lhasaapsolady]

I received that bill clinton email and didn't even open it, just deleted it. thats generally what I do with annies, since I check their site everyday. Is that what it was in? I still think they could have found a way to keep the board up and running, oh well wishful thinking. As long as our ville doesn't take a walk on us.

[pinkroses]

I am glad that we are safe here.

I was one of those who got the porn. It was from men and it was filt.

I happened to not pay much attention to the first message. It was terrrible.

I deleted the others. I will pay more attention to the new messages I get.

Be careful when you open yours from other places.

One can't be to careful.

I enjoyed going to Annie's forums. I love Annie's Attic. It was to bad that because of that they had to close the message boards. PINKROSES

[Lisaizme]

I still maintain that it was likely a zombie computer compromised by the current worm that is on the web that was sending out the unwanted/unsolicited email containing links to pornographic sites. Someone didn't patch their computer when the critical updates were released earlier this month.. and they got owned by the worm.

 

And, I would still urge everyone who doesn't want to see the message board go to send Annie's an email urging them to reconsider. I know they don't have to keep the message board.. but if a lot of emails complaining about the spam made them decide to take it down.. another group of emails saying how much we love the message board and would they please reconsider.. might make them change their minds.

 

It's certainly worth a try.

[lizc]

not only was it sent via emails. it was on the board as well