Questionable Feedback

[BobbyBrandt]

Over the past week, I have received a half-dozen feedback e-mails, all from different readers, but containing the exact same message:

This message contains feedback for: BobbyBrandt This feedback was sent by: XXXXXXXX@yahoo.com

Comments:

I like your stories. Ever use ideas from readers?

*DO NOT hit the REPLY button to respond to this email.*

Has anyone else been seeing similar messages? As I said, other than the name of the sender, they are all identical.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Don't reply, that's clearly spam or phishing.

But no, to answer your question.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Delete them - if Lit has a mechanism for reporting such things, let the admins know. (Or is someone knows who to let know, if they could provide it here, that would be helpful).

This type of email represents a crude DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. The bad actors are using a fairly common (easily findable, easily downloadable, easily created) piece of software.

They purchase, or download from any of the sites where such things are available, a list of valid email addresses to use as the from email. Then, they find a portal (in this case the feedback portal) on a website and point the software at it and hit it with repeated messages. By using different (but valid) email addresses they try to slip by the normal spam filters. If the service under attack has an automated response, they're also hoping to get that into play and use it's load to overwhelm the service as well.

Somewhere out there is a bot pointed at the portal for feedback on your profile (the network admins can identify it and kill the IP address). Might be a personal attack (aimed at you) but most likely just an open vector they thought they'd probe. If the probe is successful and they've got access to a bot net, they'll start attacking the other vectors from multiple IP's to see if they can bring the servers down.

The hope is they can "overwhelm" the receiving server and grind the website to a stop.

This isn't a particularly effective DDOS attack vector, but it's common.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It can also be a harassment tactic, people using somebody else's email address to invite unwanted "replies". I'm surprised Literotica still allows unvalidated email addresses to be used in feedback.

For that reason, when one does reply to email addresses given in feedback, I'd suggest having the first reply be some bland "hi, I received a request from this address, just confirming that you sent it".

 

[Seadog777]

I haven't gotten one like you have or at least not yet

I did receive 3 emails today, praising my new story though.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Folks, I know what these emails are (or appear to be).

My question was, and is, has anyone else been seeing these? Are these targeted to specific writers or is it more widespread?

 

[Rustyoznail]

I think it's random. I had a similar pm a few months ago.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I got some when I joined Lit.