Strange telegram I received

[nashy19]

I didn't find anything saying you need to give them your ingame password, just a quick registration like most sites.

It might be one of the people who go around setting up fansites/helpsites hoping that some will catch on and they'll make money, I don't know much about that though and the promotion is a bit too shameless.

That still is alot of effort to send out mass telegrams, unless they have a program to do it for them.

I think it's just a matter of list names, clicking though the rankings and copy and pasting a telegram. It's not that much effort to do, but they'd be pretty foolish not to make a program for it. The task is so repetitive, couldn't a desktop macro do it?

I've got a few telegrams for them, as well as other sites, most of the spam comes from big alliances trying to recruit me (they are copy/paste jobs too).

[spoil]Oh and Charlie I've been told the telegrams you send aren't exactly normal [/spoil]

 

[DeletedUser]

I think the site is getting all the publicity it needs right in this topic.
I'm pretty satisfied with the west stats and use the west insider and saloon bar for job calculator so I'm not going to waste my time registering to try yet another west tool.

 

[DeletedUser]

Where is everyone seeing that? You have to register, just like you do at West Stats to use a lot of the features, but I don't see anywhere it asks for your game user/pass. As I said, it specifically says not to use it. I'm not endorsing the site or anything. The spam has cost them any shred of credibility they may have had, but I don't see any evidence of phishing.

I see some evidence of phishing, while not entirely concrete, the how to use this website, and the actual page are very different.

Also there is a code at the bottom wich seems HIGHLY suspicious. To view the script file, save as, webpage, html only, and add .txt on the save as slot for the file name so you can open it with notepad or wordpad.

script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-10429416-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

 

[DeletedUser]

Also there is a code at the bottom wich seems HIGHLY suspicious. To view the script file, save as, webpage, html only, and add .txt on the save as slot for the file name so you can open it with notepad or wordpad.

Wow, here it is again!

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5663999-2");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

That's on http://www.the-west.net/index.php.

See http://www.google.com/analytics/ for more information.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think it is definetly a phising scam, I got it from a guy who's username was a switched around version of another account who was sending those out. It was hopsuip and they are ust switched it around like suiphop, suippoh hoppius, etc

 

[DeletedUser]

I signed up using my in game user name and a different password (just to check out the site). If they're trying to get my password, why did I never get the message in game that someone tried to access the account with the wrong pass?

 

[DeletedUser]

The site isn't phishing. It doesn't even ask for your character name (just your town name) so even if you use the same password, they'd have to check the residents of the town and then try the password with each in turn. It wouldn't make sense not to ask for the account name if you were phishing.

The site's terrible though, in my opinion:

• Contrary to what TitusMaximus said, the page is pretty cluttered - with Google Ads all over the place.
• There's a far smaller number of towns registered than in West Stats
• The majority of shops don't even have any location information registered (although it is there for some)
• The search facility doesn't tell you which shop is the closest even when location information is present
• The interface to manage shops is abysmal

That last one is the killer blow. Whereas West Stats provides a handy JavaScript snippet to allow people to upload their town information easily, this place expects people to register each item that their shop contains manually. This makes providing your town details a real chore - so it's unlikely that any decent number of towns will ever register.

Even worse, because the interface is manual, it's a lot easier to abuse it than it is with West Stats. There's nothing to stop people claiming to have any item they choose in their shop to try to attract shoppers. You mightn't think that this would be a big problem but this is the first town I checked out. When a town starts claiming to have all four types of bowler hat, every variety of chequered shirt, all set items plus the sharp tomahawk...and the normal one...and the rusty one....well - if alarm bells aren't ringing yet...

I honestly don't believe that it's a phishing site. I do, however, believe that they'd be a lot better off spending more time in creating a useable interface and less time creating automatic spam bots.

 

[DeletedUser]

You mightn't think that this would be a big problem but this is the first town I checked out. When a town starts claiming to have all four types of bowler hat, every variety of chequered shirt, all set items plus the sharp tomahawk...and the normal one...and the rusty one....well - if alarm bells aren't ringing yet...

I think this happened because some people interpreted the contents of the mail incorrectly and they thought that by adding items in this website, it will allow them to add those items in their towns in the game itself - although I think its pretty dumb to think that any external site could do that!

I too, do not believe, that the site is phishing. Its just some guy(s) who're trying to increase the TRP for their website to that they can earn some bucks from the ads. Although I find that their method is wrong and they should've earned it the hard way instead.

 

[DeletedUser]

I got this message today. Now this site has turned to click fraud.

*********

yaluh Today at 2:16 AM
Hello!

Check this website:
http://www.shops-the-west.net/

The purpose of this website is to simplify the managing process of your shops in The West. Here you can log on, add goods to your shop, search for items in other towns, make use of the blacklist of dishonest players and check how much money deposited your residents (to do it use payments calculator).

I hope this website will be useful to you.

PS: If this website will be useful to you, please click the adsense promotion link (all profits from adsense will be used to preservation and build up this website.

*************

 

[DeletedUser]

I got the same telegram.
It's in-game spam as far as I'm concerned and the sender should be (temp) banned.

If the site is any good, the owner can start a thread about it like westcalc.info and it'll live or die on its merits.

 

[DeletedUser]

There's not a great deal of point in banning the sender. I've received the same telegram from about 4 different 1st level players...so far.

 

[DeletedUser14280]

If I get a telegram like this, should I report the sender always?

 

[DeletedUser]

If I get a telegram like this, should I report the sender always?

Until Morthy tells us to stop. Use the Affronts system.

 

[DeletedUser]

Oh THAT website.
Have you seen the ratings maxed on 2147483647?
Got troubled by visiting some towns on that website?
That website contains a lot of bugs

 

[DeletedUser]

Should we continue to report spammers?
I received two spam telegrams (17 minutes apart), from two different players, in two different worlds, promoting [another game].

I think it's not worth it banning those accounts, because those are throw-away accounts anyway.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm getting those too.

Although I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of linking to whatever they're advertising... :dry:

 

[DeletedUser]

I received the message too.
Personally I feel whoever is sending the spam should be BANNED, especially since it asks for game password info.
Could be mistaken, but don't believe the other sites ask for your GAME password info.
If somehow, that kind of message is NOT against site rules, it should be.
Just like that message awhile back regarding some site that pays you to watch ads & gives you money should be banned too.

The problem is, most of the characters who send those spam mails are also 'spam characters'.. mostly low level characters created for the main purpose of spamming those mails...

 

[DeletedUser]

But presumable they come from specific IP addresses, can an IP address not be blocked?

 

[DeletedUser]

Sure - but IP addresses can be spoofed.

A better alternative would be to add a Captcha style input to the registration form to prevent automated spam bots from signing up to the game. Prevention, after all, is better than cure.

 

[DeletedUser]

That would probably be a good idea. I got spam messages on 2 seperate worlds today advertising the same alternative browser game. They came from different player ID's and the toons were both level 1 with nothing equipped.