More hanky panky... and another change to the forums.

[ixl]

Someone else just registered for the forum and posted a reply containing code in a URL that I believe was designed to cause problems for people who clicked on it. Fortunately, jabarnutcase reported it immediately and I was able to delete it and block the user before anything bad happened.

If you see anything suspicious posted by a new user, especially an odd-looking URL, please do not click it -- report the post ASAP. Thanks.

I have just implemented a hack to the vB software that causes the parsing of vB code to be suppressed for all users who have fewer than 32 posts. This means that a new user can sign up and enter a malicious URL, but when anyone displayes that post, the URL will not be automatically turned into a hyperlink; you would need to type it by hand into your browser, which hopefully will help avoid anyone being tricked. It also means that the incentive to spam the forums will be greatly reduced.

The unfortunate side-effect of this is inconvenience to new users. In a casual perusal of the site just now, I actually found that very few new users actually use vB code. If this is a problem I may try to find a different solution but this is the best one I can think of for now.

Comments welcomed of course. --c

[pave_spectre]

I'm dissapointed more by the fact that these changes were neccessary, rather than the changes themselves.

I certainly hope it has the desired effect.

[deddard]

I'd prefer to be safe than sorry - thanks for taking the necessary precautions. It's good to know that you have the ability to keep us relatively safe!

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Are these changes the reason when I go here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15179) appear as all code now instead of links as it used to be? Or is this just on my end? :confused:

Edit:
Never mind. Found the answer in one of the other forums here. HTML doesn't work but vB does. But I wonder if someone should fix mjc's post so members can still refer to it when needed.

[jabarnutcase]

Actually Fruss , THIS (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31954) is the reason for the change in mjc's post. (So it's not just you)

Since then, Charles has also had to make other changes concerning the use of the VB code for new users only. Sad but necessary.

This more recent change is what this thread is dealing with. (Although both have happened in the last day or so).

(Edit) OK....I see your edit. :p