Postimage spam links

Blog Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Todd, Sep 17, 2021.

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  1. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Heads up for those of you who use Postimage for hosting and sharing your beer images.

    It's been brought to my attention that in some cases spam links are being injected when users embed beer pics in threads like, but not limited to, What beer are you drinking now? and New Beer Weekend when using Postimage.

    As such, the service is currently blocked to help protect the site.

    Additionally, I might be forced to purge past posts that contain embeds from Postimage. If so, this will impact the number of posts and likes for some users.

    Thanks for your understanding.
     
    #1 Todd, Sep 17, 2021
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  2. BigIronH

    BigIronH Grand Pooh-Bah (3,762) Oct 31, 2019 Michigan
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    For those of you who might not be aware of where to go next, IMGUR is a perfectly acceptable alternative and it works nearly the same way to my understanding. Add your photos, post them; either public or private which you will be given the option of, and then copy image link and paste into the image url box. Easy as pie. Cheers all.
     
    #2 BigIronH, Sep 17, 2021
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  3. DrStiffington

    DrStiffington Grand Pooh-Bah (3,740) Oct 27, 2010 New Jersey
    Society Pooh-Bah

    That’s too bad. I started using post images because Imgur stopped working for me. No more pics I guess.
     
    #3 DrStiffington, Sep 17, 2021
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  4. Brugesman

    Brugesman Devotee (380) Apr 22, 2020 Oregon
    Trader

    Thanks for letting us know. That is the only way I have learned to post images. Perhaps other Advocates can suggest alternatives.
     
    #4 Brugesman, Sep 17, 2021
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  5. DavetotheB

    DavetotheB Grand Pooh-Bah (4,241) Sep 30, 2017 Pennsylvania
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Sorry to hear this. I had actually been manually deleting the spam links in the postimage link before posting. There did seem to be an uptick in the number of spam links over the past week or so. Guess I get to learn something new! Thanks and Cheers!
     
    #5 DavetotheB, Sep 17, 2021
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  6. beergoot

    beergoot Grand High Pooh-Bah (9,310) Oct 11, 2010 Colorado
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Perhaps too early to call, but will this be a permanent block?
     
    #6 beergoot, Sep 17, 2021
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  7. DIM

    DIM Grand Pooh-Bah (4,788) Sep 28, 2006 Pennsylvania
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Same here
     
    #7 DIM, Sep 17, 2021
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  8. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    @DIM: Thanks for letting me know about imgbb. I've blocked them too.
     
    #8 Todd, Sep 17, 2021
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  9. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    As of right now, yes.
     
    #9 Todd, Sep 17, 2021
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  10. BBThunderbolt

    BBThunderbolt Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,846) Sep 24, 2007 Kiribati
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Whelp, I started using post images because Imgur got too cranky. I'm not even gonna bother any more.
     
    #10 BBThunderbolt, Sep 17, 2021
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  11. ChicagoJ

    ChicagoJ Grand Pooh-Bah (5,247) Feb 2, 2015 Illinois
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Will Beer Advocate join Untappd in the 21st century and allow users to upload photos directly, or is this a pipe dream?
     
    #11 ChicagoJ, Sep 17, 2021
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  12. DrStiffington

    DrStiffington Grand Pooh-Bah (3,740) Oct 27, 2010 New Jersey
    Society Pooh-Bah

    Would be really cool if BA had a feature where we could just upload or paste pics from our own photos on our phones.
     
    #12 DrStiffington, Sep 17, 2021
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  13. BigIronH

    BigIronH Grand Pooh-Bah (3,762) Oct 31, 2019 Michigan
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I’ve seen a couple complaints about Imgur. What exactly is happening, fellas?
     
    #13 BigIronH, Sep 17, 2021
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  14. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Allowing users to attach pics to forum posts directly from their devices should be an option with the next major forum upgrade.
     
    #14 Todd, Sep 17, 2021
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  15. Roguer

    Roguer Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,811) Mar 25, 2013 Connecticut
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    @Todd I'm not sure which image hosting sites are going to be immune to this - and stay around. Various sites over the last few years have gone dead, or behind a user wall (if you're not logged into their service, you can't see someone else's photos).

    But the spam link, if I understand this correctly, is an additional link below the photo, kind of like:

    [Picture]
    [Seven great recipes that turtles love!]

    In the case of both postimages and imbb (the most reliable hosts I've used in a long time now), that link - when it shows up - can very easily be deleted from the user's post.

    Might it be a better approach to delete posts that don't appropriately "trim" those spam links, instead of banning the entire host? I worry that we will soon have no photo hosts, at the rate things are going.

    Or perhaps I'm not understanding how the spam is getting embedded in the links. I'm not programming-savvy. :slight_smile:
     
    #15 Roguer, Sep 17, 2021
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  16. BillAfromSoCal

    BillAfromSoCal Pooh-Bah (2,415) Aug 24, 2020 California
    Society Pooh-Bah

    IMGUR will, on occasion, get wonky and fail to process images in a way that successfully saves them or it fails to allow a valid link to the picture to be copied so that it can be pasted elsewhere (like here at BA). I'm sure there are more technically correct descriptions of the issue, but I am a beer drinker and not an IT guy. I don't expect to have to troubleshoot IT systems or understand this stuff just to post a picture like I do very easily on other social media platforms every day. In my experience, the problems at IMGUR seldom last more than a couple hours. However, I agree with others....at some point the effort to post pictures is not worth it. My activity related to anything that benefits from posting pictures here is rapidly declining.
     
    #16 BillAfromSoCal, Sep 17, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2021
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  17. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    @Roguer: I would need to investigate things a bit more, but we're talking hundreds, maybe even thousands, of posts that would need to be manually edited. (Some of the spam is also hidden.) Or we'd need to develop a script to scan the entire forum and remove the spam without damaging the posts.
     
    #17 Todd, Sep 17, 2021
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  18. zid

    zid Grand Pooh-Bah (3,132) Feb 15, 2010 New York
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    If things get to a point where past posts are deleted, BA will lose a ton of content and thread coherency will be lost. I really hope there is an alternative if steps need to be taken with old posts.
     
    #18 zid, Sep 17, 2021
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  19. woodchipper

    woodchipper Grand Pooh-Bah (3,735) Oct 25, 2005 Connecticut
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    @Todd -Thanks for keeping the site "clean".
     
    #19 woodchipper, Sep 17, 2021
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  20. Roguer

    Roguer Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,811) Mar 25, 2013 Connecticut
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader


    Yeah I get that. I just fear that we are about to run out of image hosts. Once embedding images is integrated into the site, that won't matter - except for past content, as @zid mentioned.

    I don't think people are frequently revisiting images from years-old threads, so perhaps the script could remove the links, but not the posts themselves - which would spare users the loss of likes, karma, contributions, etc. Things that shouldn't really matter, but of course, they do. :slight_smile:
     
    #20 Roguer, Sep 17, 2021
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