Wikipedia talk:Long-term abuse/Universe Daily

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This page was nominated for deletion on 17 December 2006. The result of the discussion was keep due to a withdrawn nomination.

This page

As far as I understand, this is a single user. He is actively spam wikipedia, currently, with links that are now redirects to real webpages. Removal of his spam links could be questioned(as they appear almost legitimate unless you check the source). Please do not speedy this page under WP:DENY, as keeping track of his spam links is rather important to block his occasional sockpuppetry. Thanks. Kevin_b_er 19:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stop it before it happens.

I found this very helpful in dealing with persistant linkspammers. Agathoclea 19:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other sites attacked

Here are some other sites that were apparently victims of the same spammer. If anyone knows of others, please add to the list. -- Wmahan . 08:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Posting personal information

I'm not sure I agree with the recent posting of the spammer's name and contact information. Wikipedia:Harassment says, "Posting another person's personal information...is harassment.... This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor."

I don't want to make a big deal about this, and I realize that the spammer/vandal has gone out of his way to disrupt Wikipedia. But posting personal information seems unprofessional no matter what he has done to deserve it, and I don't see what it can accomplish aside from possibly provoking him further. Wmahan . 08:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that eventually, this may escalate to the point where we may need to contact the authorities if Wayne threatens physical harm towards any of our Australian editors. Or someone might get sick enough of him one day to write letters informing all the people whose domains he's squatting. I'd rather have his publicly available contact details accessible when the time comes in case he decides to obscure his WHOIS contact details in future. Anyway, Wayne has no qualms about publicly proclaiming "My interests include...Vandalising Wikipedia" on his MySpace profile, so I doubt he'd feel harassed by this long term abuse report. -- Netsnipe ► 14:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The phone number is clearly fake - it doesn't even fit the correct format for an Australian phone number. U-238 05:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reported for abuse

I took the liberty of contacting this spammer's domain registrar/DNS/forwarding company about a week ago. They said they would investigate and asked for more information, and I replied with some links to diffs showing the spam.

I haven't heard from the company since then, and I haven't pursued the issue in the hope that the problem would resolve itself without the need for further escalation.

But if the spam continues, this is a route to consider. Another possibility is contacting proboards.com, which hosts the site the spam domains redirect to. Spamming may be against their Terms of Service agreement. I still hope that the spam will stop without us needing to take such steps, though. Wmahan . 14:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Though I suspect that he'll just change registar if suspended with DomainSite.com. The best we can do is make it as costly as possible for him to continue buying new domains. -- Netsnipe ► 14:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

HEY!!!

Now who up and protected this page about 16 days after the last vandalization?! Now that's annoying! 68.39.174.238 13:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wayne Smith in the news

In the Sydney Morning Herald: Unauthorised Bindi site 'not unethical'. The article mentions also mentions philipruddock dot com and amandavanstone dot com as being registered by him. Andjam 17:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It also mentions that he signed his flagship domain bindiirwin.com over to the family of Steve Irwin. That's good news both from an anti-spam perspective, and from the perspective that it's really sleazy to take advantage of the death of an 8-year-old girl's father. ―Wmahan . 19:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All his sites redirected back to pre-bindiirwin states too. It just shows moreso that he's a spammer, tried and true. Kevin_b_er 22:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I love this little gem: "On other websites, such as Wikipedia and several science and space-based sites, user names linked to a Wayne Smith have been banned for cyber-vandalism and inappropriate comments." [1]. = ) -- Netsnipe ► 23:53, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that they wrote about him, I wonder if he'll send the Sydney Morning Herald as much hate mail as he sends us (750+ messages for me so far). Evil Zionist Scumbag 01:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2000+ for me before the flood filters got him, just before this page was set up. Kevin_b_er 01:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"banned for cyber-vandalism" indeed! THAT was something I'd never think I'd see in any mainstream/legit publication. Next thing I know they'll be citing arbitration cases! (Anyway, good to see he's not getting away easily with his noxious spams) 68.39.174.238 09:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is his response to the bindiirwin.com incident http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=603051&p=2#r37

Wayne Smith?

Why do you implicitily assume, Wayne Smith is the real name of the guy. WHOIS rarely provides such specific information as to identify the user. For example, this Smith could be just a representative of an ISP firm and had nothing to do with this. Until someone can convincingly prove Wayne Smith is truly the guy in question, I strongly suggest any references to his identity to be removed. Raja Lon Flattery 18:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

His identity was confirmed by the Sydney Morning Herald, his own MySpace profile, and headers on abusive emails and instant messages. -- Netsnipe ► 08:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. He makes no effort to hide it. He sends the filthiest hate-mail directly from his admin account on his main web address. Antandrus (talk) 14:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mailbomb

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7518 If they ever fix it. Anomo 12:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

News items

Wordsworth, Matthew (2008-08-12). "LNP calls in lawyers over rogue website". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2009-03-10.
Dunlevy, Gabrielle (2008-08-12). "Bogus politicial website probed". The Daily Telegraph (Sydney). Retrieved 2009-03-10.
Gibson, Jano (2006-10-06). "Unauthorised Bindi site 'not unethical'". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2009-03-10.
"Qld cybersquatter causes mayhem". Australian Associated Press. 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
Wordsworth, Matt (2008-08-11). "When volunteers turn bad". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
"Hoax website claims Qld Liberal National Party wants to legalise marijuana". Australian Associated Press. 2008-08-12. Retrieved 2009-03-11.

Still spamming as of March 2009. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a cross-wiki issue

Note that these links have been added to many Wikimedia Foundation projects:

Wikipedia:

Commons:

Meta-Wiki:

Wikinews:

n:en:Special:Contributions/203.56.233.122

Wikiquote:

Wiktionary:

wikt:en:Special:Contributions/Universe Today

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prior discussions

en.wikipedia

Meta

Links to this legal threat

Current blacklist discussion

meta:Talk:Spam blacklist#More Universe Daily links (permanent link)
meta:Talk:Spam blacklist#Additional Universe Daily information (permanent link)

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Johnpaullangbroek

Is this another sock? --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Must be. Given his previous form when it comes to Queensland politics. Digestible (talk) 22:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sites he has posted resolve to Wayne Smith. Seems pretty definite. --Ckatz^chat _spy 22:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to this, I have reverted the edits by IP 124.185.160.239 and blocked that IP and IP 124.186.133.204 for three months; their only edits were UD-related. The sites they added (in addition to the Jimmy Wales stuff) were "vickydarling.com", "jeffseeney.com", "nataliebassingthwaighte.net", and "andrewcripps.com", all of which use the UD trademarks. --Ckatz^chat _spy 23:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wayne Smith (cybersquatter)

I suggest watching this article; there have been some unusual edits lately by Australian IPs. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Based on contributions, edits to the talk page, and apparent IP range, I strongly suspect that the article's creator (User:Dervishdude) is yet another sockpuppet of UD. --Ckatz^chat _spy 18:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(This is a repost of my notes from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wayne Smith (cybersquatter):)

Furthermore, while I want to assume good faith, the article's creator (User:Dervishdude) appears suspicious. His/her first action was to post a complete article (with references) about Wayne Smith. Dervishdude's third contribution was to the article aquatic ape hypothesis, to restore an external link owned by Wayne Smith (yet another frame-redirect URLs). That URL had been added by an IP just over half an hour previously, and deleted shortly thereafter. The same IP (User:124.186.69.185, whose previous abusive behaviour indicates he is yet another Universe Daily IP sock) created a redlink to Wayne Smith (cybersquatter) 13 minutes before it was even created by Dervishdude. Dervishdude's only edits after that involved the Wayne Smith article, as well as adding a redirect at Wayne Robert Smith - a page addressed under this deletion debate a few years ago. Dervishdude has also identified as being from the same IP range as many of the UD IP sockpuppets. (Note the contribution history for Talk:Wayne Smith (cybersquatter), where Dervishdude signs comments posted by 124.186.78.43 and 121.223.8.38.)

--Ckatz^chat _spy 18:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think our friend enjoys messing with us. He may slip in spam links unobtrusively when wants them to stick but there are other times when he's almost showy about his presence here ( as in "finished for now. this wikiwork is hard"). I think this article is an example of this. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a clear WP:CSD#G5. Am I missing something? Antandrus (talk) 13:41, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

July 2009

In these edits user Intersys added some correct information, however, the edits need fixing and action. I think it's easier to follow the history if I do not clean it up myself because I can't blacklist the URLs.

The changes were:

Add link to Rod Beckstrom where spammer was active.
Add {{IPSummary}} for 124.185.79.154
Add {{LinkSummary}} for rodbeckstrom.net and rodbeckstrom.org (however I don't think they have been blacklisted).

The changes need to be fixed: In the Known IP addresses section, the address 124.185.79.154 was added twice: item 31 is an incorrect (missing a brace) duplicate of item 25. Item 31 should be deleted and item 25 needs to be moved so it is in the correct order. Done

Additional changes required are:

Add {{IPSummary}} for same spammer: 124.185.18.187 Done
Add {{LinkSummary}} for rodbeckstrom.info (I have not seen this used on WP, but I confirmed it is the spammer). Done

In addition, these three URLs need to be blacklisted: rodbeckstrom.info rodbeckstrom.org rodbeckstrom.net

For completeness, I'll mention that I asked here for Rodhullandemu to monitor Rod Beckstrom. Would an admin please clean up. Thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've corrected the entries on the "long-term abuse" page. Thnaks for noting this. --Ckatz^chat _spy 05:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]