vulgar message

I received a message with foul language and offering services through pictures...... Can anything be done to stop this? I am a public library! I obviously didn"t click on any links.

Was it through the website's private messaging system ? If so you can report the member responsible.

If it was some extraneous link/tab/window shenanigan you might want to look at unwanted browser extensions that might have creeped in.

How do you report a user? I got one of these messages too.

It looks like it came from this member:
https://www.librarything.com/profile/Sara33.
offering porn site
reported for spam

>3 foxlady99: go to the sender's profile page and click report for spam in the lower right corner

You can contact staff by email using the contact link at the bottom of the page. You can also leave a message on any staff's profile page. @lorrannen is the person I would recommend.

she's suspended now

For staff reference, another instance (same member responsible): http://www.librarything.com/topic/309439

Huh. I got a Sara33 message too.

>9 2wonderY:

And me, as well -- but only after I visited this thread and the other linked in >8 elenchus:. Coincidence?

It feels like a virus, but I don't see how that would work.

>9 2wonderY:, >10 elenchus: At 7:16 I went to the profile to report it for spam and four minutes later sara33 was suspended. I received a message at 10:27—three hours after the suspension. That message has now been removed. Not sure what is going on.

I got a comment from her at 9:58 (CDT), just 15 minutes ago. But all it says is "Message removed".

I too got the same message from Sara33. For it to come from LibraryThing was quite surprising.

My daughter received the same email. I sent an email to Tim@librarything.com and also info@librarything.com. I read Tim is the founder of librarything.

>13 lichre:

The message doesn't "come from LibraryThing". Any member can leave a comment on your profile, unless you disable that feature. Assuming your account settings allow it, LT will email you to let you know that a comment has been left.

The oddity here is that the comments are appearing after the member was suspended.

Same here, from Sara33. On comment, it says message removed. But the full message came to my email. I guess that was before it got removed.

I have not been on LT in weeks but got the message via my e-mail this evening. Beware your information has been hacked and stolen.

I received similar message from same sender.

>17 marlenejackson: Nothing needs to have been hacked, just a LT account created by the spammer then used (most likely with some automated tool) to crawl people's walls and message them, also resulting in an email being sent if that user had the option on.

>17 marlenejackson: "Beware your information has been hacked and stolen."
Rubbish. No reason to think that. Anyone can register an account and post comments on other members' profiles. Those comments will, depending on one's settings, cause email to be sent to one's inbox. (If you don't want profile comments to cause email to be sent to you, change your settings). This looks like a garden variety spammer with a script. A major reason this doesn't happen more often is that spam accounts that bring any notice to themselves are usually terminated within minutes, and LT is known as a hostile environment for spammers. Looks like somebody didn't get the message. Staff will have been notified massively by now, IP blocks will be done, everything will go back to normal, and maybe in another few years there'll be another unusual spam attack like this that gets everyone's feathers in a bunch.

FTR, I also received the message from a later sockpuppet account.

I'm also wondering how I could have gotten the message at 10:42 if she was suspended by 7:20.

Still, I didn't see the content, as I don't get emails. I just saw 'message removed' this morning.

I received the same email and also noticed that in LT the message had been removed already.
For those of you who do not receive emails of messages: please believe me, you have not missed anything.
For safety, I did change my password but I agree with marlenejackson that this looks like a spammer.

I also received unsolicited obscene mail from this user. It would appear that Librarything site has been hacked and all our email addresses harvested and then bulk mail sent to everyone.

I got one too from the same person . On the bottom it does say how to change preferences so Ill try that, looks like she/he was spamming everyone

I received the email at 10:56 PM EST yesterday. It had been many months, possibly well over a year, since I had visited this site.

I also received it

I received the same vulgar email on my school email, which is appalling on several levels. How can I block comments, yet still receive important emails from Library Thing?

>23 JohnFlannery:

Nonsense.

See >20 davidgn:.

You got the email from LT because your profile settings allow for notifications when someone makes a comment on your profile. No hacking involved.

>27 ACABibliophile:, you could go to your LT account settings and keep the box checked that says "email comments and notifications to you", but down below that next to Comments select "disallow comments from members". It sounds like you would still get LT admin messages.

Thanks for the heads-up, people. We are working on the problem. The comment system has an automatic throttle when someone tries to do something like this, but that throttle failed. We are working on it.

Yeah, but nude cosplay. Maybe someone should make friends with this interesting young woman. (I'm kidding! My way of saying, I got one, too)

Note: It's possible for you to receive messages now AFTER we have stopped it, because email systems are not instant. At present, however, no new comment emails are being generated or sent from our servers. Any that were queued up on our side were stopped. But emails may be in transit.

>32 timspalding: Why were profile comments still being added after the member was suspended?

>32 timspalding: See https://www.librarything.com/topic/309454#

This is a private member. The spammer should not have been able to send her a profile comment.

I just got an email from Sara33 last night. Ew. Hopefully the spammer didn't get to send many more before they were caught.

>33 MarthaJeanne:

Of that I am uncertain. I need to dig into the timeline. If so, my guess is that the preliminary suspension status didn't do it, but only actual suspension. We are working the problem.

I also received a message from https://www.librarything.com/profile/Sara33 offering to join a open site to see nude photos. Disgusting

Hi all - notice about this spam and how we've dealt with it is here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/309462

I received same email this morning at 7:11 so she is still sending these.

>39 Larry.Edman:, some of them are still trickling through the system, but that account has been closed/blocked.

The "she" we're talking about is a Russian bot. More information provided by >38 ablachly:, above you.

yes, got the same spam from Sara33. It looks like member is suspended on this site.

Hang on, nude cosplay? Isn't that rather a contradiction in terms?

>42 mart1n: While strictly accurate, that comment betrays a certain lack of imagination, mart1n .

I got one too.

Nude people are disgusting!