Scammers

[Gary Bymers]

everyone beware. It seems whenever a parts wanted ad is placed there are scammers that have gotten into the group and they say something like - contact some email address and they have what you need. Who is the administrator that screens these membership applications? This is the latest member who is trying to scam us... 

thompsonrafael28 

[mooniac58]

We don't screen new member applications.  The forum software does check against some basic stuff but pretty much all new accounts are auto-approved.

Anyone buying stuff from people online needs to use great caution.  Don't send money via the mail - make sure to use something like PayPal with buyer protection or an escrow service for more valuable things.

[hammdo]

Same crap on Camaro5 too.. bastards...

-Don

[Gary Bymers]

Roger that

[Gary Bymers]

Now I get it, I thought there was a screening process

[Bolter]

How about 2 or 3 randomly selected Mooney or Aviation multiple choice trivia questions when submitting the new user form?  For example:

Q1) Which tail is better (and show image of Mooney tail and another tail)

Q2) Which airplane has retractable gear (this one is text list of Cirrus and Mooney and Cub Crafter)

Q3) LOP or ROP is better?  (no, maybe not this one...)

Enough to frustrate the lazier spammers, at least. 

[Gary Bymers]

Great idea, I vote yes!

[Ross Taylor]

I made a suggestion in another thread, based on another forum I used to frequent...that people were restricted from sending DMs until they had 10 posts or so.  It prevents someone from joining just to send a DM, like happened to me last week.  By the time someone's posted a few times, you can see if they're legit or not.

[gsxrpilot]

45 minutes ago, Bolter said:

How about 2 or 3 randomly selected Mooney or Aviation multiple choice trivia questions when submitting the new user form?  For example:

Q1) Which tail is better (and show image of Mooney tail and another tail)

Q2) Which airplane has retractable gear (this one is text list of Cirrus and Mooney and Cub Crafter)

Q3) LOP or ROP is better?  (no, maybe not this one...)

Enough to frustrate the lazier spammers, at least. 

I make my living in IT security and a fair amount of time investigating these nefarious types. 

I can assure you none of this would make any difference. Virtually all the scamming is now automated and questions like these are easily solved without even a human taking a look at it.

[ZuluZulu]

Wait, so Tensi is NOT ready to sell me my dream MSE with "everything I'm looking for"?  Damn it...

[Ross Taylor]

1 hour ago, gsxrpilot said:

I can assure you none of this would make any difference

Aw come on... the ROP/LOP question would certainly put the AI in a loop and it’d let the magic smoke out of the CPU. 

[Gary Bymers]

Roger

[Bolter]

2 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

I make my living in IT security and a fair amount of time investigating these nefarious types. 

I can assure you none of this would make any difference. Virtually all the scamming is now automated and questions like these are easily solved without even a human taking a look at it.

What does work best?  The "identify all the images with cars" test?  Anything feasible for us MS'ers?

[Gary Bymers]

Another excellent idea

[Alan Fox]

6 hours ago, Bolter said:

How about 2 or 3 randomly selected Mooney or Aviation multiple choice trivia questions when submitting the new user form?  For example:

Q1) Which tail is better (and show image of Mooney tail and another tail)

Q2) Which airplane has retractable gear (this one is text list of Cirrus and Mooney and Cub Crafter)

Q3) LOP or ROP is better?  (no, maybe not this one...)

Enough to frustrate the lazier spammers, at least. 

 

[mike_elliott]

8 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

I make my living in IT security and a fair amount of time investigating these nefarious types. 

I can assure you none of this would make any difference. Virtually all the scamming is now automated and questions like these are easily solved without even a human taking a look at it.

You have to love AI. We might as well get used to it, as it will become one of the dominate drivers of our lives in virtually every aspect in very short order. AI already plays a very large role under the surface or the obvious. It is being used in very nefarious ways on very large scales in 2020, being an election year. On the positive side, there are some excellent investment ops in AI, and it will probably be responsible for a lot of the good coming from Gene editing solutions to viruses, mass trans. solutions, supply chain and blockchain solutions and on and on.

Technology is cool but sure can be abused. Consider it a challenge and dont let the technology of the human thought process be duped by AI. Install your own Recaptcha processes screening for all online events that may involve you tapping into your financial war chest with verbal synchronous live questioning, and verification of the intelligence form you are dealing with. Paul can advise best and can recommend paths to consultancy if needed, as that is what his company does,

[gsxrpilot]

6 hours ago, Bolter said:

What does work best?  The "identify all the images with cars" test?  Anything feasible for us MS'ers?

Unfortunately there isn't any quick, cheap, or sure fix. The best approach is what our esteemed admin suggested below.

10 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

Anyone buying stuff from people online needs to use great caution.  Don't send money via the mail - make sure to use something like PayPal with buyer protection or an escrow service for more valuable things.

And if it's too good to be true... it probably is.

[gsxrpilot]

1 hour ago, mike_elliott said:

You have to love AI. We might as well get used to it, as it will become one of the dominate drivers of our lives in virtually every aspect in very short order. AI already plays a very large role under the surface or the obvious. It is being used in very nefarious ways on very large scales in 2020, being an election year. On the positive side, there are some excellent investment ops in AI, and it will probably be responsible for a lot of the good coming from Gene editing solutions to viruses, mass trans. solutions, supply chain and blockchain solutions and on and on.

Technology is cool but sure can be abused. Consider it a challenge and dont let the technology of the human thought process be duped by AI. Install your own Recaptcha processes screening for all online events that may involve you tapping into your financial war chest with verbal synchronous live questioning, and verification of the intelligence form you are dealing with. Paul can advise best and can recommend paths to consultancy if needed, as that is what his company does,

So true.

For some very interesting and somewhat disturbing reading about what we can expect...

https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History-Tomorrow/dp/0062464310/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1594210190&sr=8-2

[GDGR]

3 hours ago, Alan Fox said:

 

Every time I see these, it reminds me of the way my ex used to look like on her back. 

[Ross Taylor]

I think the issue isn't so much the approval of new members as it is their ability to DM immediately upon joining.  If someone wants to join, whether a real person or a bot, they really can't do much harm in the public forums.  If they're just posting dumb stuff, that's pretty obvious and easy to call out.  It seems like the nefarious stuff happens privately, when they DM a member.

[Gary Bymers]

Another good idea

[gsxrpilot]

Limiting new members to a certain number of posts before being able to PM another member is a good security measure. Another would be to limit PM's and number of posts to paid up Supporters.  Something that is also a possible small step would be to require full names instead of usernames or handles.

None of these steps would solve the problem, but might limit the frequency of the problem.

[Nick Pilotte]

The post limit is part of selling and messaging on another non-aviation forum I follow.  In fact it was kind of difficult to sign up/register on it because I typically use a gmail address and they didn’t allow the majority of the free email service addresses like yahoo and gmail.  Financial support is a slippery slope.  You may end up limiting your audience like COPA or MMOPA unless it’s chipping in a buck or two.  Or, like BT, require full names as user names.  Busts the anonymity factor out but it’s not all bad.  Unless you are ashamed you like Mooneys. 

[mooniac58]

The only issue I have with requiring full names for usernames is:

a) trying to get the thousands of existing accounts to change to this

b) I don't want to check photos of IDs for every new member registration.  I don't have the spare time for this.  So basically it would rest on the new member to be honest about their name and this obviously won't happen with scammers

I will look into what kind of settings the forum has to limit DMs on new members.  That sounds like the only realistic measure to try and reduce this.

[mooniac58]

I don't see any kind of setting for restricting DMs for members with x number of posts.  All I was able to do is change "Basic Members" to be limited to 3 DMs per day and 1 per minute max.  These changes don't affect Supporter members.  I don't see how this will help much with scammers though unless they are mass-messaging.