Vacation Wild Card — 5.20.09

90 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

• 

  Cindy_H on May 20 at 11:33 a.m.

  Just got to my mailbox and found 300 Re: Hey messages in my inbox. I’m seriously annoyed.

• 

  KevinTaylor on May 20 at 11:44 a.m.

  Same here, Dave.

• 

  Arpie on May 20 at 11:45 a.m.

  I had 90 Heys.

• 

  Lynne on May 20 at 11:46 a.m.

  None yet today, but yesterday they didn’t hit my box until late afternoon.

• 

  KeithErickson on May 20 at 11:49 a.m.

  Same with me. None yet, but mid afternoon yesterday I got bunches.

• 

  florined on May 20 at 11:55 a.m.

  OK, I’m asking for some input here from those with expertise in logger lingo. I know we have at least one pro logger in our midst and probably a number of “auxilliary” folk.

  The sad news item about the person injured, perhaps fatally, in the Burma Road area reminds us of how dangerous work “in the woods” can be.

  The headline also got me to wondering about current word usage among those who are part of the timber industry, in whatever capacity. The story used the phrase “tree-falling.” Since the verb FELL (present tense) is the one that means “to cut down,” as opposed to FALL, I’m wondering if the word choice is due to a newspaper person who needs to pay more attention or is it indeed reflective of what real loggers would say. Regardless of what a dictionary (and linguistic history) might dictate, would people actually doing the work say they felled a tree? Would they refer to the act of tree-felling? Or has the language inside the working group morphed and the dictionary crowd, and florined, just haven’t caught up?

• 

  Cis on May 20 at 11:57 a.m.

  I open my hotmail to 523 and slowly got them deleted… then I contacted msn about it… after I hit the submit, I saw I had 467 more…but as i was getting ready to delete them… they disappeared in front of my eyes… hopefully that means msn is on top of it… and got it done..

• 

  JeanC on May 20 at 12:06 p.m.

  I’m back to my regular level and types of spam hitting my spam folder.

• 

  Dogwalkmusings on May 20 at 12:07 p.m.

  I too have been hit two days running. I’ve been bouncing them back.

• 

  tarynahecker on May 20 at 12:13 p.m.

  Coming into the inbox faster than I can delete them. Bah.

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 12:15 p.m.

  I found out last night that I was getting these spam messages at an old email address that I don’t check very often. Got over 700 last night…

  Spam Spam Spam Spam
  Spam Spam Spam Spam
  Lovely SPAAAAAAM!!! Glorious SPAM!!

• 

  Token on May 20 at 12:21 p.m.

  Yes, I got another 300 or so this morning. I may have more by now.

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 20 at 12:22 p.m.

  I fell a big Doug Fir in Oregon a year and a half ago and the tree didn’t quite fall exactly as I wanted it and I literally got steamrolled in a freak accident.My knee was twice its regular size and I had scrape marks from my belly, all the way to my head.My hard hat prolly saved my me.I went to dinner at the nearest Burger King that evening and people were staring at me, because I had blood squirting from my forehead.

• 

  Shannon on May 20 at 12:26 p.m.

  I got spammed again today, 150 each day.

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 20 at 12:28 p.m.

  My post is in reference to the logger, who may have died today and florined mentioned logging.Anyway, people who work in the woods are brothers to me and I wish them well.

• 

  Sisyphus on May 20 at 12:32 p.m.

  “I had blood squirting from my forehead”—yeah, seeing that always puts me off my feed.

• 

  mike_s on May 20 at 12:36 p.m.

  Florine, the headline writer probably hasn’t spent much time in the woods or around chainsaws.

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 12:37 p.m.

  It looks like Hotmail was the target of the monster spam effort from yesterday. One of the tech-savvy Hucksters sent this:

  “Since that same series of messages appears on several other networks, I do not believe this is necessarily someone attempting to create havoc on the Spokesman mail system, nor, for that matter, any one individual person.
  What I do know is that most of the messages, which came from Hotmail, were apparently done in a non-sequential order based upon an unknown criteria, but perhaps by DNS number.

  “Those of us that are fortunate enough to run MailScanner or other mail scanning software, never saw the messages, after the first three or four appeared, because by then MailScanner had identified the pattern, or because the messages were not in English, it simply began rejecting them into a special spool set up for that purpose.

  “What I do know is that as of this morning, Hotmail canceled the accounts of everyone who sent the messages out yesterday. It is believed that the accounts perpetrated this fiasco as a Denial of Service (DOS) against Hotmail, and not any individual user. The rationale is that the attack will result in lots of traffic coming back to Hotmail, thus overloading their mail servers. For a short time yesterday, that seemed to be working as planned, because mail sent to a Hotmail address was deferred, rather than immediately delivered. In short, they were able to overload Hotmail and their HUGE mail servers.

  “However, on the other negative side, I also see a high volume of junk e-mail from different sources hitting almost every major domain in the US this morning, and as before, I am seeing lots of rejections from various MailScanner installations I maintain.”

• 

  danofthecommunity on May 20 at 12:38 p.m.

  ERR. Took the day off today for some work I had to do around the place but had hundreds of the same spam this a.m., mass deleted them but just had hundreds more come in about 15 minutes ago. At least my spam catcher is moving them to a junk folder for “easy” removal.

  Haven’t they had some guys do some serious time in recent years for being big spammers?

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 12:47 p.m.

  “.. the U.S. Senate has blocked the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to this country..”

  I don’t understand this…but…whatever. How, exactly, are they any more dangerous than the murderers and rapists we already have in our prisons? If you ask me, I think people are letting fear get the better of their rationality.

  But hey.. I suppose I’m just an idiot about that sort of thing.

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 12:49 p.m.

  More from tech insider re: Spam Attack:

  “this entire scheme was designed for maximum saturation, hitting as many different domain names at the same time as possible. I don’t think the folks behind this scheme thought that Hotmail would figure out their user name forgeries as quickly as they did.

  “I do promise you though, we haven’t seen the last of this type of mail bomb runs yet. Each time they are getting smarter, with better provisioning and more raw horsepower. I already saw a post in one of the hacker headquarters today bragging about yesterday, so it appears most of it was sheer vanity. What a flippin’ waste of time and talent!”

• 

  Cabbage Boy on May 20 at 1:15 p.m.

  So Dave, from your tech insider, how was the spammer able to get the addresses from your email account.

  And no, this isn’t a “coincidence” that we are all getting them. I get them on the account I used for signing up here on the old site. Seeing some of the old guard email addresses and repeatedly directed to some old regulars tells me exactly where they got the addresses.

  So spill the beans. Was the whole server compromised, or just your email account? Trojan? Or weak password?

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 1:30 p.m.

  Cabbage, I’ve been thinking the same thing.. sounds like either someone’s desktop, or a server at the SR was infected.

• 

  Bree on May 20 at 1:33 p.m.

  I was hit again too.

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 1:35 p.m.

  @ Cabbage Boy; my tech insider wasn’t someone from the paper. So I sent your question to one of our techs for an answer. I’m fairly computer illiterate when it comes to the software stuff.

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 1:49 p.m.

  @ Cabbage Boy; Blogmeister Ryan is about to post a further explanation re: what has happened on the spam front. Basically, the spammer got ahold of some old page that contained e-mail addresses from bygones days (before they were protected) and had a field day as part of a massive spam attack on Hotmail. The new blogware has not been compromised. Or anything else. Bottom line. We’ve all been nailed as part of a major spam attack.

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 1:52 p.m.

  “the spammer got ahold of some old page that contained e-mail addresses from bygones days”

  Ah yes.. mistakes were made, lessons were learned, and nobody was injured (being inconvenienced is to petty to mention)…nothing left to see here folks, carry on.

• 

  OfCoffee on May 20 at 1:56 p.m.

  this info is helpful. I thought it was just me! Our tech guys will be happy to know that our system didn’t get breached.

• 

  Cabbage Boy on May 20 at 1:57 p.m.

  Okay, seems reasonable to me since the old site had our email address on each comment. Seems hotmail has got it shut down for now.

• 

  lew2nl on May 20 at 2:00 p.m.

  I had 86 new Spam messages again today .. I’m on AOL.

• 

  Sisyphus on May 20 at 2:02 p.m.

  I certainly am glad that I didn’t use my actual email address at the old site.

• 

  Cabbage Boy on May 20 at 2:10 p.m.

  Yeah Sis, having a “spam” address is a good idea when you sign up or post your email on the web.

• 

  OrangeTV on May 20 at 2:13 p.m.

  Just checked my spam folder and sure enough, there they were, at least 400 of them from between 8-9 a.m. today. Buggers!

• 

  nic on May 20 at 2:14 p.m.

  I asked this in the morning election results thread - but I’ll repeat it here in case Dan doesn’t see it there.

  Are the polling places required to have voters point out their residence on a map to prove they are voting at the correct location?

• 

  marmitetoasty on May 20 at 2:22 p.m.

  GULP!!!!

  My 15 year old son Jacob is off to a landbased college in September to learn all the trades of forestry which includes much up trees with chainsaws and the felling of all sorts using some of the biggest saws and machinery I have ever seen……. all very dangerous stuff……

  But he has such a passion…. and his dream is to one day go to the states and do ‘logging’ for a while… before he goes into forest management…..

  so again…. GULP !!!!!

  X

• 

  raymond_pert on May 20 at 2:22 p.m.

  I got a ton of Spanish languaged spam around noon today and yesterday. They all went to my gmail spam box and I was able to quickly get rid of them.

  The subject for these spams were all a variation of Have a Blessed Day or Have a Good Day….no Hey! for me.

• 

  marmitetoasty on May 20 at 2:22 p.m.

  Maybe KageMan can take him under his wing LOL

  x

• 

  marmitetoasty on May 20 at 2:24 p.m.

  ps……… I actually got 347 of them Spams today….so maybe Im liked afterall lol - but i much prefer corned beef….

  x

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 2:28 p.m.

  Marmie, what.. you don’t like spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam for breakfast?

  heh…

  Monty Python rules..

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 2:30 p.m.

  Oh.. what the hell.. I’ll go ahead and post it…

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

  ;-)

• 

  Ryan Pitts on May 20 at 2:47 p.m.

  @Cabbage Boy, etc. - There has been no security compromise here.

  When Dave first described the problem to me yesterday, it was over the phone as I was driving into work. It sounded to me like he might have picked up a virus that was abusing his email address book, and resending itself to the people in it. Clearly that wasn’t the case, however, as *many* people that are in Dave’s email address book are not getting spammed, from HBO readers to his coworkers at the Spokesman-Review. So Dave’s email was not compromised.

  My second concern was that the old blog database had been broken into. But we would have seen signs of that in our server logs, and again, MANY more readers here would be getting these emails. There are thousands of email addresses in that database table. A couple of my email addresses are in there, for example, and I haven’t gotten even one spam message.

  My best guess as to why a small group of people here are receiving the messages is this: Years ago, when HBO first started back on the old website, we used to allow commenters to include their email addresses with their comment signatures. This was entirely optional, and provided so that commenters could offer a way for other commenters to contact them if they wanted to.

  Several years ago, we removed that option, and entirely quit displaying commenters’ email address. We collected them for verification purposes, and so Dave would have a way to contact people, but we did not display email addresses anywhere. We didn’t want anyone to inadvertently give the wrong people — be it a spammer or anyone else — their personal email address.

  When we made this switch, I changed all the blog templates so that even old pages, with comments entered under the previous system, would stop displaying email addresses. However, it is *possible* (and even probable) that somewhere in the backwaters of the internet, there’s a cached version of some of those old pages. Stored by Google or someone else, there’s a snapshot of an old page with those email addresses embedded in it.

  I suspect that’s exactly what’s happened here - a spammer has harvested email addresses from an old, old, cached HBO page that’s not even on our server. That would explain why only a limited number of people here have been affected, and why it’s old email addresses being hit.

  There’s not a security issue with Dave’s email, and our database wasn’t hacked. This is just spam. And yes, it sucks! But this isn’t targeting just HBO, it’s part of a widespread attack that involved multiple servers and IP addresses, affecting thousands and thousands of users whose email addresses were harvested from who knows where. I understand the people responsible were even bragging about it this morning on a hack site, and that the target was actually Hotmail, by routing such a flood of email through its servers at once.

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 3:02 p.m.

  Well said, Ryan.

• 

  Ryan Pitts on May 20 at 3:13 p.m.

  @toadman - I *definitely* feel terrible for anyone who’s been inconvenienced by this. I’m only trying to assure people that there’s not a security issue, or some sort of conspiracy that’s targeting HBO readers specifically. It sounded like there were concerns on both counts.

  Just to say it again: When we did embed email addresses with comments on the old site, it was never a required field. It was only there if you *wanted* to give out your email — rather than your site URL — so other people could contact you. We got rid of that years ago, and fixed the blog template so the changes affected even previous comments; our intent was to avoid situations just like this. When we began to require email addresses for verification purposes, we were NOT displaying them anywhere. Same way as on this site.

  But if there’s an old cached version out there somewhere that shows HBO pages as they originally appeared back then, and *that* is how readers’ addresses got harvested … trust me, I feel terrible. Wouldn’t wish a torrent of spam on anyone, and that’s precisely the thing we were trying to avoid.

• 

  Dennis on May 20 at 3:28 p.m.

  Ryan,

  Any idea where this came from???

• 

  Ryan Pitts on May 20 at 3:32 p.m.

  Not really, it was a pretty widespread attack, affecting an awful lot of users all over the place. Some of the IP addresses I’ve seen trace back to China, but really it could have originated anywhere and just been routed through there. I’ve been told that most of the IP addresses that were being abused this way have already been shut down, though.

• 

  Dennis on May 20 at 3:35 p.m.

  Thanks Ryan….. I was just curious.

• 

  Cabbage Boy on May 20 at 4:06 p.m.

  Thanks for the update Ryan. That make sense. And a word to the wise, what is posted on the tubes, stays in the tubes. There is no guaranteed flush on this toilet.

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 4:10 p.m.

  @Ryan - I understand felling sorry for those who are inconvenienced, but if the only thing they have to worry about is deleting a few thousand emails…then it seems pretty benign to me.. it’s not like they were run over by a semi or anything. What I’m saying is…there’s bigger things in life to worry about, right?

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 4:12 p.m.

  “Any idea where this came from???”

  From the internets. Thems evil.

  I’ll go home tonight and delete the 500 or so I’m sure I got in my other email address. No worries.

• 

  Dennis on May 20 at 4:18 p.m.

  From the internets. Thems evil.

  Maybe Lowes has one of dem dar Stickity Traps for those dang internets?????

• 

  toadman on May 20 at 4:24 p.m.

  “Maybe Lowes has one of dem dar Stickity Traps for those dang internets?????”

  If they do, maybe PETA will get naked on the internet to protest…

  …wait…that may have already happened…

  ;-)

• 

  Dennis on May 20 at 4:28 p.m.

  Just tryin’ to help you out there Toad!!!

  ;-)

• 

  Bent on May 20 at 4:34 p.m.

  Man, DFO you ought to spam us more often. This is a huge thread…(think hits)

• 

  danofthecommunity on May 20 at 4:35 p.m.

  “Are the polling places required to have voters point out their residence on a map to prove they are voting at the correct location?”

  First I’m only speaking for our elections, not school elections. For people to vote they must be registered and therefore they are already printed in a poll book for each precinct. However people can register and vote on election day under Idaho same day registration laws. They must show a photo ID and have proof of where they have lived for 30 days. In that case, a poll worker may have them show where they live on a map to identify their proper precinct.

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 4:43 p.m.

  Hey, Bent; Staci’s the one who got gassed, right? Not you. By gassed, I mean doused in gas at the pumps the other day. Not snookered.

• 

  sibulsky on May 20 at 4:49 p.m.

  another 95 today…repeated messages to about 5 addresses

• 

  Bent on May 20 at 6:22 p.m.

  Yes, you got it right, DFO. But truth be told, I think she’s done a little of both…

• 

  DFO on May 20 at 6:43 p.m.

  Well, I thought I was on vacation. Trish tells me that the U.S. Bank in Sandpoint may have been robbed around 5 o’clock tonight. I called the City Desk to check that out. Now, I’m back on vacation. And I really mean it this time.

• 

  hmoffsuite on May 20 at 6:50 p.m.

  Enjoy your time off, DFO. You deserve it.

• 

  Cindy_H on May 20 at 7:08 p.m.

  Make. It. Stop.
  Who said the problem had been fixed? Who?
  Just got back to my desk and was greeted with 300 more special spams.
  Am I just special, or what?

• 

  Dennis on May 20 at 7:18 p.m.

  Didn’t you say you wanted to know what you would win Cindy????????

  Well……………………. :-)

• 

  poolman on May 20 at 7:24 p.m.

  Does anyone know where I can order some Viagra pills or something that might spice up my…. Just kidding - sorry spamaholics - I’m spam free and loving it.

• 

  Cindy_H on May 20 at 7:51 p.m.

  Poolman: Tell me your spam-free secret, pleeeeaassse!

• 

  hhuseland on May 20 at 7:58 p.m.

  Knock on wood, but I have received not one of these critters.I haven’t checked my spam file yet though. I use AVG for all of my protection issues, and I don’t use hot mail, though I have an inactive acct with them. Hopefully I have dodged the electronic bullet.

• 

  hhuseland on May 20 at 8:04 p.m.

  Scratch that last post. I checked my spam files, and I have 2921 in aol, 39 in Gmail and 164 in roadrunner, for a grand total of 3124, none of which battered their way through AVG.

• 

  Stickman on May 20 at 8:34 p.m.

  My wife has blockers on this crazy machine. If you are not on our address list, nothing comes through. I never got a single message other than ones from people I know. I guess we are lucky.

• 

  Stickman on May 20 at 8:51 p.m.

  Why do people leave themselves open to such things? I only want messages from people I know, the rest can kiss my you know what.

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 20 at 9:27 p.m.

  I hope tommorrow will be a spam-free day. ;-)

• 

  Bent on May 20 at 9:31 p.m.

  Wow, I just deleted 952, for a total of over 2,000 on AOL, and my work email.

• 

  Stickman on May 20 at 9:31 p.m.

  Kage: I think it’s all up to you. You invite people to your house because you know them, otherwise, why bother?

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 20 at 9:35 p.m.

  Stickman, I agree. BTW- don’t pick all the huckleberries this summer, I may need to make a few bucks this August.

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 20 at 9:38 p.m.

  I forgot a ‘smiley face’ for my post.

• 

  poolman on May 20 at 9:44 p.m.

  Cindy - I have back ups to my back ups for e-mail. It’s like Dick Cheney and the CIA. My spam mail goes directly to Gitmo for interrogation. That’s why they know not to f with me…

• 

  spokelooneh on May 20 at 10:33 p.m.

  “poolman on May 20 at 9:44 p.m.

  Cindy - I have back ups to my back ups for e-mail. It’s like Dick Cheney and the CIA. My spam mail goes directly to Gitmo for interrogation. That’s why they know not to f with me…”

  That’s helpful, Dude. Not.

• 

  BayviewBob on May 21 at 7:43 a.m.

  Do the people that are getting all the spam have anything to do with the website called fark.com?

• 

  poolman on May 21 at 8:49 a.m.

  spokelooney - Yo Dude - lighten up dude - I mean like dude chill out, I mean like that kind of comment is so like serious, like dude, take a chill, NOT.
  
  I see you can cut and paste my post and write Dude and NOT – what’s your take? Now if you’re referencing my Avatar – which is Dude from the movie “The Big Lebowski” then I’m half way OK with your short pointless post. In fact it might even have a llittle comical value. So what is it - are you a Bush/Cheney homer or fan of the Coen brother’s brilliance in film making.

• 

  Lynne on May 21 at 9:33 a.m.

  I had another 80 in my box from late yesterday afternoon. I’ve never heard of the fark site…

• 

  mike_s on May 21 at 9:40 a.m.

  400 more.

• 

  Cabbage Boy on May 21 at 9:45 a.m.

  poolman on May 21 at 8:49 a.m.

  “spokelooney - …
  So what is it - are you a Bush/Cheney homer …”

  hahah! Not quite Poolman. Not quite.

• 

  poolman on May 21 at 10:18 a.m.

  CB - thank god for that – the fewer the better :)

  I’ve been in a very Liberal mood lately. Not sure why.

• 

  Kage_Mann on May 21 at 10:29 a.m.

  I’ve been in a very Liberal mood lately. Not sure why.poolman on May 21 at 10:18 a.m.

  Maybe, it’s because his ‘eminence’ gave a speech last night. ;-)

• 

  Sisyphus on May 21 at 10:32 a.m.

  Man am I glad you explained your avatar Poolman. I thought it was really you. It doesn’t look like the Dude to me. I am a huge Coen Brothers fan and the first time I saw the movie I put it in their “B” category. I’ve probably watched it about 50 times since then and it keeps getting better. In fact when Spoke and I started exchanging quotes on it the other day I had yet another desire to watch it again.

• 

  poolman on May 21 at 10:47 a.m.

  Sys - You explained my experience with the film to a T. Like a good bottle of Chianti – it just keeps getting better with age.

• 

  spokelooneh on May 21 at 11:45 a.m.

  Yeah Poolman, I was riffin’ on your “The Dude” avatar. Had been watching clips of the movie, and reading some websites and came across the pic you’re using.

  It’s one of my favorite movies.

  http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=8931
  (F-bombs)

• 

  toadman on May 21 at 11:50 a.m.

  poolman’s avatar really ties the room together, man.

• 

  poolman on May 21 at 3:03 p.m.

  spokelooneh - sorry if my reply came off as a little chippy. We’re cool - I need to find some way to relax, maybe I’ll have a White Russian tonight after work :)

• 

  Cindy_H on May 21 at 3:14 p.m.

  Best of luck to you and Nadia, Poolman. But what if your wife finds out?
  Just saying.

• 

  poolman on May 21 at 3:48 p.m.

  Oh we could go on and on - the scene that really makes my stomach hurt is the first bowling sequence with Jesus.

  Great job running the show today!

• 

  spokelooneh on May 21 at 4:47 p.m.

  Cindy, LOL!

  “No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there’s nothing to be afraid of. ”

• 

  Stickman on May 21 at 9:51 p.m.

  Kage: I promise not to hog all of the berries this coming season. If anyone wants to pick the elusive Purple Gold this coming season, let me know, and I will reveal my secret spot as I do every year, You will never be disappointed.

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