recent spam thread with inappropriate content

[antus]

Just want to let anyone know who saw it that the inappropriate thread in the general bellett chat section has been deleted. Thanks to the person who contacted Dave + Ross, who passed on word that something needed attention.

[P.R.90]

well done boys we don't need that
cheers ken

[rod]

thanks for deleting that off site , dont let happen again , rod

[PR91]

first off, and while it's plainly obvious that none of us true bellett-heads were responsible for the content that was posted in the matter at hand, i'd like to apologise to anyone in our bellett.net family that may have seen the item posted, and may have been offened by it.
(i actually didn't see it before it was removed, but i've been informed of it's content...................)

dont let happen again

honestly, we wish it was that simple.
unfortunately, most of those 'things' are done thru an automated sign-up type of deal, where some low life sets up a program to look far and wide around the net and post that garbage.
as a result, all site likes bellett.net are vulnerable to it, but with vigilance from us all, we can minimise what is posted by doing what you all did on the weekend. ie: notify us admins/mods ASAP, and we can see to it straight away.

to echo antus' comments too, many thanks to GTtoo (i'm told) for notifing dave, and the same thanks to P.R.90 for notifing myself. my apology's if i have missed any other user who let one of us know also.
these are the actions we all need to take to keep our forum with the "family" atmosphere we all enjoy.
a big thank you to antus as well for removing the thread and user, post-haste, when he was informed.

and u wouldn't read about it, but murphy must of really had his law in effect, because the one time this has happened in a serious way was the 1 weekend that dave, 2ldohc and myself (in other words, 3 of the 4 admins/mods of the site!) were all together, without any internet access!!

cheers all, and happy days!!

[dave]

Hi people,

Yeah per what PR91 said, the problem is this;

The site has inbuilt protection AGAINST this type of stuff and Antus regularly updates the software, however the problem is that people who build such insidious programs to spray vulgar content across forums and other private sites like this will always build another program that is better than the one built to stop it.... then a new update comes out... and then they build a better version again.

Essentially, when the good guys build a better mouse trap, the bad guys build a better mouse. And the cycle continues.

All we can do is be vigilant and take this stuff off the site as it comes up. Thankfully there are a few people with have our mobiles and two seperate people rang two seperate admins to get onto it within 5 minutes of each other.

We aim to be vigilant about these things, however there's only so much we can do (especially when we were all away at once!) but please do not let this sully your opinion of the site or prevent you from visiting it. Internet porn is, needless to say, MASSIVE and impossible to avoid sometimes on the web, no matter how hard we try.

Sorry about the smut.

Cheers,

Dave

[antus]

Yes, unfortunately all we can do is remove it as quickly as possible. The 'capcha' images that you need to enter when you sign up help against automated attacks, but im seeing more troubles with humans these days, and if its someone being paid for each site they hit, they are very difficult to filter out before they do the wrong thing...

I was just telling my mate this story and he said that those offended by it would probably support the conroy proposed internet censorship bill, so I thought I should point out the problem with that. It would not have worked in this case as the material was posted on bellett.net! Then bellett.net could be censored, and it might take us a month to explain the situation and demonstrate that this site is about belletts and is a properly maintained and administered site that does not accept that kind of material. In the mean time nobody can read about belletts here at all. Please dont think that mandatory internet censorship would in any way have helped.

So yes, please do the right thing and contact any of the mods/admin in the event that it happens again. We will remove it as soon as possible.

[GTtoo]

I know you guys do your best to deliver great content on B'net. Thanks for jumpi'n on it as soon as you could.

B.