AFO

As mentioned, there is no privacy issue here to any members. All that happened was that a member spammed through Private Messages on AFO. No personal information, email addresses or data etc was accessed, it was just a one way communication from the spammer to other members on the AFO website. Any emails sent were just notifications from AFO to alert members they had a new message on AFO to read.
Measures have now been put in place to stop this from happening again. Thanks everyone for your understanding.

Thanks AFO,
I appreciate your work and your response. 

Please also note that as we remove these two offending members it will also remove their content and the spam personal messages from your inbox (although it might take a day or two). Apologies all for the inconvenience from these two members.

AFO has also increased our spam protection and also implemented further automatic content moderation of new members so that going forward there is less ability for spammers to post so hopefully this combats this so that it doesn't happen again. If there is a spam message, please click the Report function and it will ensure the spam and the offending members is dealt with.

One of the features of AFO is the ability of members to message each other. Generally there are no issues with this and it is a good way for members to interact outside of the public forum. However, the PM system does have the potential to be abused by a member (before they are swiftly banned) and so please report any spam messages through the reporting feature and we will ban them. Thanks

Hi All,
The site has not become corrupted and no details have been breached.
What has happened is that a member signed up and then sent multiple PM messages to quite a few members. This member has since been banned.
If you received an email, that was because you had notifications set to ON to email you when you receive a personal message on AFO. The banned member did not have access to your email address or other details, the email was generated by AFO because of your notification settings.
 
In response, we have made some changes to AFO to restrict new members (<30 days) to only be able to post posts and topics to 10 a day and also all members to only be able to send 15 PM's a day and this is restricted to 5 recipients to each PM. 
As well as this, we have restricted further IP's and also blocked more problematic (spamming) countries from accessing AFO.
We can adjust these limits down the track if members feel they are too restrictive, but for the time being we are clamping down so that members aren't spammed and everyone can enjoy AFO without these issues.

Please also note that as we remove these two offending members it will also remove their content and the spam personal messages from your inbox (although it might take a day or two). Apologies all for the inconvenience from these two members.

AFO has also increased our spam protection and also implemented further automatic content moderation of new members so that going forward there is less ability for spammers to post so hopefully this combats this so that it doesn't happen again. If there is a spam message, please click the Report function and it will ensure the spam and the offending members is dealt with.

One of the features of AFO is the ability of members to message each other. Generally there are no issues with this and it is a good way for members to interact outside of the public forum. However, the PM system does have the potential to be abused by a member (before they are swiftly banned) and so please report any spam messages through the reporting feature and we will ban them. Thanks

Hi All,
The site has not become corrupted and no details have been breached.
What has happened is that a member signed up and then sent multiple PM messages to quite a few members. This member has since been banned.
If you received an email, that was because you had notifications set to ON to email you when you receive a personal message on AFO. The banned member did not have access to your email address or other details, the email was generated by AFO because of your notification settings.
 
In response, we have made some changes to AFO to restrict new members (<30 days) to only be able to post posts and topics to 10 a day and also all members to only be able to send 15 PM's a day and this is restricted to 5 recipients to each PM. 
As well as this, we have restricted further IP's and also blocked more problematic (spamming) countries from accessing AFO.
We can adjust these limits down the track if members feel they are too restrictive, but for the time being we are clamping down so that members aren't spammed and everyone can enjoy AFO without these issues.

One of the features of AFO is the ability of members to message each other. Generally there are no issues with this and it is a good way for members to interact outside of the public forum. However, the PM system does have the potential to be abused by a member (before they are swiftly banned) and so please report any spam messages through the reporting feature and we will ban them. Thanks

AFO has also increased our spam protection and also implemented further automatic content moderation of new members so that going forward there is less ability for spammers to post so hopefully this combats this so that it doesn't happen again. If there is a spam message, please click the Report function and it will ensure the spam and the offending members is dealt with.

Please also note that as we remove these two offending members it will also remove their content and the spam personal messages from your inbox (although it might take a day or two). Apologies all for the inconvenience from these two members.

Hi All,
The site has not become corrupted and no details have been breached.
What has happened is that a member signed up and then sent multiple PM messages to quite a few members. This member has since been banned.
If you received an email, that was because you had notifications set to ON to email you when you receive a personal message on AFO. The banned member did not have access to your email address or other details, the email was generated by AFO because of your notification settings.
 
In response, we have made some changes to AFO to restrict new members (<30 days) to only be able to post posts and topics to 10 a day and also all members to only be able to send 15 PM's a day and this is restricted to 5 recipients to each PM. 
As well as this, we have restricted further IP's and also blocked more problematic (spamming) countries from accessing AFO.
We can adjust these limits down the track if members feel they are too restrictive, but for the time being we are clamping down so that members aren't spammed and everyone can enjoy AFO without these issues.

One of the features of AFO is the ability of members to message each other. Generally there are no issues with this and it is a good way for members to interact outside of the public forum. However, the PM system does have the potential to be abused by a member (before they are swiftly banned) and so please report any spam messages through the reporting feature and we will ban them. Thanks

AFO has also increased our spam protection and also implemented further automatic content moderation of new members so that going forward there is less ability for spammers to post so hopefully this combats this so that it doesn't happen again. If there is a spam message, please click the Report function and it will ensure the spam and the offending members is dealt with.

Please also note that as we remove these two offending members it will also remove their content and the spam personal messages from your inbox (although it might take a day or two). Apologies all for the inconvenience from these two members.

Hi All,
The site has not become corrupted and no details have been breached.
What has happened is that a member signed up and then sent multiple PM messages to quite a few members. This member has since been banned.
If you received an email, that was because you had notifications set to ON to email you when you receive a personal message on AFO. The banned member did not have access to your email address or other details, the email was generated by AFO because of your notification settings.
 
In response, we have made some changes to AFO to restrict new members (<30 days) to only be able to post posts and topics to 10 a day and also all members to only be able to send 15 PM's a day and this is restricted to 5 recipients to each PM. 
As well as this, we have restricted further IP's and also blocked more problematic (spamming) countries from accessing AFO.
We can adjust these limits down the track if members feel they are too restrictive, but for the time being we are clamping down so that members aren't spammed and everyone can enjoy AFO without these issues.

Admin is dealing with this spam attack.
Thanks for posting.
 

Hey @cloff yes obviously there is something going on but I don't think you should be so quick to blame AFO.  It is just a fact of life, whatever rules are in place someone will find a way to break them online or not.  Governments get hacked so the only way to stay completely safe is to chuck out all your devices.
Cheers Kat

Hi All,
The site has not become corrupted and no details have been breached.
What has happened is that a member signed up and then sent multiple PM messages to quite a few members. This member has since been banned.
If you received an email, that was because you had notifications set to ON to email you when you receive a personal message on AFO. The banned member did not have access to your email address or other details, the email was generated by AFO because of your notification settings.
 
In response, we have made some changes to AFO to restrict new members (<30 days) to only be able to post posts and topics to 10 a day and also all members to only be able to send 15 PM's a day and this is restricted to 5 recipients to each PM. 
As well as this, we have restricted further IP's and also blocked more problematic (spamming) countries from accessing AFO.
We can adjust these limits down the track if members feel they are too restrictive, but for the time being we are clamping down so that members aren't spammed and everyone can enjoy AFO without these issues.

Hi AFO,
You may have noticed we have recently had a lot of 'friends' from a range of African countries want to join the discussions on AFO 🤨 
As a result AFO has had to block quite a few African countries from registering as members on AFO. We will continue to monitor and see if that addresses the issue.

Hi AFO,
You may have noticed we have recently had a lot of 'friends' from a range of African countries want to join the discussions on AFO 🤨 
As a result AFO has had to block quite a few African countries from registering as members on AFO. We will continue to monitor and see if that addresses the issue.

Hi AFO,
You may have noticed we have recently had a lot of 'friends' from a range of African countries want to join the discussions on AFO 🤨 
As a result AFO has had to block quite a few African countries from registering as members on AFO. We will continue to monitor and see if that addresses the issue.

Hi AFO,
You may have noticed we have recently had a lot of 'friends' from a range of African countries want to join the discussions on AFO 🤨 
As a result AFO has had to block quite a few African countries from registering as members on AFO. We will continue to monitor and see if that addresses the issue.