Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   FunHouse Radio (funhouseradio@mastodon.world)'s status on Sunday, 18-Feb-2024 09:07:51 JST FunHouse Radio

   Somebody is running a scam or malware on mastodon involving a photo of a spam can with a discord link. There are also Chinese characters. They keep putting account names on the toot, including to us. They come from multiple random accounts names that you won't recognize. BLOCK THOSE ACCOUNTS. Forward this to whoever needs to know.

   • Embed this notice
     Polychrome :blabcat: (polychrome@poly.cybre.city)'s status on Sunday, 18-Feb-2024 09:07:49 JST Polychrome :blabcat:

     in reply to

     • Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇
     @HCBunny @funhouseradio the trolls are Japanese, not Chinese.
     
     It's a network-wide troll campaign, not a scam. The goal is simply harassment and it's working.
     
     The Discord link is their DDoS group. They're self-promoting themselves as part of the trolling campaign.
     
     Blocking the accounts won't help because each account messages people only once. Their bots keep generating new accounts on open registration instances.
     
     They switched to embedding the link in an image after enough instances started filtering their spam via keywords.
   • Embed this notice
     Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇 (hcbunny@mstdn.party)'s status on Sunday, 18-Feb-2024 09:31:36 JST Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇

     in reply to

     • Polychrome :blabcat:

     @Polychrome @funhouseradio

     What's the answer then? Is there one?

   • Embed this notice
     Polychrome :blabcat: (polychrome@poly.cybre.city)'s status on Sunday, 18-Feb-2024 09:31:36 JST Polychrome :blabcat:

     in reply to

     • Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇
     @HCBunny @funhouseradio they are actively adapting so it'll require vigilance for the duration. It's going to be hard because despite repeated warnings most Fedi instances aren't equipped to deal with this sort of a campaign (especially Mastodon).
     
     Pleroma and Akkoma are able to handle this for now thanks to their MRF (Message Rewrite Facility) which is a powerful tool that lets them enable policies on incoming messages.
     
     Enabling the Account Age policy will filter out the entire thing for now, at least until the trolls catch on.