To all our wonderful members!

Jeanette and I have been noticing that a "guest" is posting a bunch of posts with links to unrelated sites. We seem to be deleting them fairly quickly, but if anyone sees any of these that get past us, please hit the "REPORT" button.

Several members have reported these types of posts over the past few weeks and I am very appreciative of your help! This is our drawspace, and we are 21,000 strong!!! Yeah members! Let's keep this stuff out of our forum!

Thank you in advance!

Brenda

Kim was wonderfully diligent in pointing out this one to me and I'd encourage anyone to report suspicious posts and not to click on links to external sites unless they are from a reputable source - i.e., someone you know and trust on this site.

Yea, its a shame that this sort of stuff attempts to ruin good sites like this one. I turned in a few sightings to admin myself and they readily cleaned them up. Good idea with the Report button to simplify things now.

I just cant get why people would do that .. I mean if you want to look at that stuff fine .. but putting links to where kids could get to them ..thats just wrong ...if nobody clicks on them maybe they will feel we are a deadbeat site and go away lol ...probably not .

I posted a detailed explanation of the rationale for this in the Technical Support area.

http://www.drawspace.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=500

Eric

Eric..Well I posted a question in the tech support area but i will ask here to .. can this site get a code box thing so you have to fill it out with all the right letters and numbers or you cant get in ?

Yes Kim, its something that the Admin will have to research and locate in the future as this site gains popularity and continues to increase in membership. These tools and utilities are set up as plug-ins and either purchased outright or licensed to sites like this. Its usually used as a one time thing when you first establish your membership to the site. After you are verified of being a living breathing object, then you get access permanently to the site.

Of course, there are always things being broken and then improved and depending on the amount of security and protection desired by a site, the price also begins to escelate. All in all, it still comes down to money either way you look at it. Either how much the plug-in will cost, or how much the site is willing to pay for security, or a vigilant watch force and cleaning team. Even the best laid plans don't stop a person from physically gaining access, then placing out these things once inside, but it is a little easier to track and monitor when someone must access using a controlled login.

I am a member at an online Watercolor course where they send the access to the next lesson every two weeks in an email. Well, using the address (URL) that my browser linked to for my lesson, I erased the last coded portion of that URL back to the first slash I encountered. When I hit the Enter key, it presented me with the catalog of links to every lesson in the course. Well, you can imagine the compensation I received when I told the Artist/Teacher about this. Since he was taking payments every three months for lessons, someone could have easily paid only for the first month, then able to copy down the lessons for the entire year long course. He had no idea it was that simple.

Computer Security and Information Awareness are very hot topics in the computer field right now. Again, maybe too much information, but "Enquiring minds, need to know"!

Eric