Private message spam

I don't know how many people got it, but there was some PM spam today containing offensive material, the spammer and offending host /name/email have been blocked, but that's really not much of a remedy. Short of making it more difficult to join (and you'd be surprised how many folks can't seem to get it right now) there's not a good way to avoid some of this stuff.

I'll follow up with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, as I have all the addresses/e-mails logged though it's likely a compromised user's system. At least that way if they get any leads on the site, they'll be able to add to the case and they do a really good job of collaborating on cases and keeping information long enough to get to a warrant.

If you get one of the messages, please delete it, I don't have the ability to go through private messages easily as an administrator.

I've notified the abuse desks at the offending ISP and the offending free e-mail provider used to activate the account. I've also cut the number of private message recipients down from 10 to 2 at a time- since this seems to have slowed them down somewhat. I'll disable private messages for anyone with less than some arbitrary number of postings if necessary- and I'll entertain discussion of that possibility in the "Over the Garden Fence" board. In the meantime, newbies have been limited to 10 total private messages- if you're sending lots of PMs, you'll either have to post more, or contact me at 9.

[update]

The banned user seems to have done this before from the same address based on a Google search, so
perhaps this is something the ICCC can deal with, I'll touch base with my FBI contacts and see if there's a specific law I can file a complaint under.

Thanks for your patience and understanding,

Paul