Hacker News with Generative AI: Spam

Those Stealthy Botnets (wildeboer.net)
It’s one of those days again where botnets are hammering my little e-mail server with brute force attacks to send spam.

Botnets, Security, Email, Spam

4 points by todsacerdoti 1 day ago | 0 comments

Reaction to the Dec Spam of 1978 (templetons.com)
Possibly the first spam ever was a message from a DEC marketing rep to every Arpanet address on the west coast, or at least the attempt at that.

Spam, Marketing, History, Technology, Computer Science

6 points by dustincoates 21 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: Is there hope for Microsoft 365 support? (ycombinator.com)
The company I work for (25friday.com) has been hit with what seems to be a keyword blacklist on Microsoft 365 email.

Microsoft 365, Email, Support, Spam

63 points by joaopbnogueira 25 days ago | 56 comments

I got rid of SMS loan spammers. (or "how I accidentally wrote sci-fi copypasta" (medium.com)
I just wanted to have a little fun writing a reply, but when I read it I realized I had made my own sort of rickroll (sally roll?) copypasta and I was going to send it to every sms loan spammer that pinged my phone.

Spam, Humor, Writing, Copypasta

19 points by ycombiredd 37 days ago | 9 comments

DigitalOcean blocks SMTP ports 465 and 587 since last month (digitalocean.com)
SMTP ports 25, 465, and 587 are blocked on Droplets to prevent spam and other abuses of our platform.

DigitalOcean, Security, Email, Spam

26 points by leni536 46 days ago | 17 comments

Spammers are better at SPF, DKIM, and DMARC than everyone else (toad.social)

Email Security, Spam, Technology, Security

429 points by pabs3 60 days ago | 253 comments

Who's this dick bschmidt711 that's spamming HN? (ycombinator.com)
Title says it all

Hacker News, Community, Spam

18 points by nevster 64 days ago | 13 comments

Ask HN: What's Your Opinion on MCP? (ycombinator.com)
Seems like the #1 up trending topic for slightly spammy blog posts (like the “hiring is broken” spam that Triplebyte funded for years) lately as well as people asking open-ended questions about.

Hiring, Opinion, Spam, Software

7 points by amrrs 64 days ago | 3 comments

Customer is accused of spamming for repeatedly replying STOP to political texts (phonearena.com)
A Visible customer was recently the victim of what seems to be a misunderstanding of the company's automated spam detection system.

Customer Service, Technology, Politics, Spam

6 points by josephcsible 68 days ago | 0 comments

Is GitHub Lying Here? (win-vector.com)
My partners and I keep getting this spam-like email.

GitHub, Spam, Email

17 points by jmount 72 days ago | 10 comments

Tell HN: Substack Is Spamming (ycombinator.com)
I subscribed to a (reputable) Substack and immediately found myself receiving unsolicited emails and other substacks I didn't subscribe for. I also found a shadow profile was created for me.

Privacy, Substack, Email Marketing, Spam

31 points by gone35 86 days ago | 7 comments

How robust against spam should side projects be? (ycombinator.com)
I am just getting into making my first project as a hobbyist, and it involves user image uploads.

Side Projects, Security, User Experience, Spam

11 points by cyjackx 94 days ago | 9 comments

Tell HN: I'm getting spam on an email address only ever used to sign up to HN (ycombinator.com)
I'm getting spam on an email address only ever used to sign up to HN

Spam, Hacker News, Email Security

54 points by mvdtnz 121 days ago | 37 comments

Show HN: Trolling SMS spammers with Ollama (widloski.com)
I occasionally get unsolicited texts from real estate brokers looking to buy specific properties in my hometown where I own no property and don't even live. I assume they scrape cell phone numbers from WhitePages and just spray-and-pray hoping to get a response.

Spam, SMS, Artificial Intelligence, Software

318 points by Evidlo 122 days ago | 126 comments

GitHub stars are not an invitation to send me spam (randomerrata.com)
Starring your repo on GitHub doesn’t mean that I ever want to receive your spammy emails.

GitHub, Spam, Open Source, Communication

6 points by k33l0r 127 days ago | 0 comments

Ad Spam in Slack (lingon.land)
When I recently logged out from my Slack account due to issues I've had with getting notifications for some instant messages people were sending me I was just flabbergasted to see that Slack nowadays is completely full of ads and other spammy messages.

Slack, Advertising, Spam

17 points by lingonland 142 days ago | 6 comments

Attacker Has Techdirt Reclassified as Phishing Site (techdirt.com)
Here on Techdirt, we write a lot about content moderation and even did a whole big series of content moderation case studies. However, here’s an interesting one that involves Techdirt itself from a couple weeks ago. It’s also a perfect example of Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem in action and a reminder of how the never-ending flood of spam and scams provides cover for bad actors to sneak through abusive reports.

Content Moderation, Online Security, Phishing, Case Studies, Spam

19 points by hn_acker 163 days ago | 3 comments

Monitoring Bluesky firehose to quickly detect spam accounts as they spawn (bsky.app)

Social Media, Spam, Monitoring, AI

17 points by donohoe 169 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: Is Gmail's unsubscribe feature safe? (ycombinator.com)
Got a spam email today. It had an unsubscribe link pointing to a random Azure blob. I click "Mark as Spam" and it offers me to unsubscribe instead?

Email, Spam, Security, Google

12 points by usbsea 181 days ago | 4 comments

Coordinated Community Response Mitigates Fediverse Spam Attack (iftas.org)
On October 8, 2024, an IFTAS Connect member observed one of the first spam posts from a network attack conducted by what appeared to be a reuse of the same “nuke” script we saw earlier this year in February, a simple but effective tool to create new accounts in bulk, and use those new accounts to deliver unsolicited messages in an infinite loop.

Cybersecurity, Fediverse, Spam, Community Response

42 points by jazmichaelking 202 days ago | 3 comments

Ask HN: Why are social media spam bots still a thing? (ycombinator.com)
Specifically Instagram. After many years, I still get regular messages from spam bots, usually pretending to be women that are romantically interested. It seems trivial to ban (or even prevent) those accounts, from a technical perspective. Reporting them also doesn't seem to do much. Why is this still a thing? This should have been a solved problem years ago no? Are there, besides technical reasons, other reasons to keep spam bots alive on their platforms?

Social Media, Spam, Bots, Instagram

6 points by Avalaxy 203 days ago | 5 comments

Ask HN: How to stop text spam during election season? (ycombinator.com)
I kept blocking and reporting individual text messages on my phone and I grew tired so I got annoyed. As I have learned this particular cycle, there are apps out there basically allowing people to reach out to people like me via that app but using their phone. Yay.

Spam, Elections, Technology, Mobile Devices

6 points by A4ET8a8uTh0 205 days ago | 5 comments

Ask HN: What's up with the spam waves lately? (ycombinator.com)
I just had a look through the "new" queue with showdead on, and out of the most recent 200 submissions, I counted 22 that were not dead. I wasn't seeing false positives, either.

Hacker News, Spam, Website Issues

11 points by zahlman 207 days ago | 4 comments

Show HN: A Secure, Local AI Solution for a Tidy Gmail Inbox (spamslaya.com)
Does your email inbox feel like you have opened the floodgates to spam? Are you missing important messages? Let's fix that.

AI, Gmail, Productivity, Email, Spam

12 points by skun 211 days ago | 7 comments

Ask HN: Why aren't we fighting email spam more effectively? (ycombinator.com)
I own a few businesses and receive daily emails from (a) hiring agencies, (b) investment firms, and (c) companies selling “user data” (e.g., Docker users, Apple users, etc.).

Email, Spam, Business, Technology

12 points by outcoldman 212 days ago | 9 comments

Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts? (ycombinator.com)
I have been advising people I know to block, then delete and report junk (iOS) to unwanted texts. Others have argued with me that you should reply STOP. I disagree, especially after checking a shortened link in a “campaign” text and finding the link was a phishing attempt. What do you think?

Mobile Communications, Spam, Privacy

290 points by yawn 236 days ago | 372 comments

Ask HN: How do you manage registration spam? (ycombinator.com)
I've been running digital marketing on a few projects and all seem to suffer from many "spam" signups.

Spam, Digital Marketing, Online Communities, Registration

23 points by kulor 253 days ago | 25 comments

A SpamAssassin Surprise (lwn.net)
Here is a piece of advice for anybody wanting an easy and frustration-free life: do not run your own email system.

Email, Security, Spam

85 points by rwmj 261 days ago | 88 comments

A SpamAssassin Surprise (lwn.net)

Spam, Email, Security, Open Source

9 points by chmaynard 267 days ago | 0 comments

What to Do with Unwanted Political Spam Texts (daringfireball.net)

Politics, Spam, Mobile Devices, Communication

13 points by JumpCrisscross 268 days ago | 16 comments