Problem with Trillian or Problem with AIM?

[Lord Dragonus]

I do apologize if this has been covered in any topic, but a quick scan through the topics and the news didn't reveal anything on a potential problem, and so I'm not exactly sure if this is old news or not. Also, I didn't know whether or not to put this in the Trillian board or the AIM board, so I put it here as a sanity check for AIM users and since this forum has more traffic. With that said...

I'm currently under seige from a group of idiots presumably from Australia. They seem to have something out for me (probably because I blocked one of their names -- why someone would get overly upset about this, I have no idea? I mean, THEY were being idiots; I thought it perfectly justifiable). I'm right now using Trillian instead of AIM and I keep two AIM accounts active through Trillian, so this may be part of the problem.

Anyways, in the past 15 days (plus or minus 3) that I've had one of the accounts online, on average I've blocked about 5 to 10 screennames a night. They will either just flood me with IMs (thank goodness there is a limit to how many they can send at one time!), try to direct connect with me or send me a file, or the worst case IM me when I'm asleep (they are 13 hours off after all!) to get my away message and then warn me to oblivion with their seemingly endless IM accounts.

Before anyone suggests this, let me be the first to say that no, I'm not going to allow only people on my buddy list to contact me much for the reason that a few friends of mine like to change screennames quite often and it's a hassle when they do so. Besides, I shouldn't HAVE to be forced to take such a step to do this.

Anyways, the problems boil down to these:

(1) Previously blocked members can still contact you. The problem seems to be corrected after a disconnect and a reconnect, but not always. Granted, I'm running Trillian, so it could be that. But I'm wondering how someone can continue to contact me when they're clearly in my block list (and yes, the option is set correctly) when the names are invariably stored on the server and the AOL IM server should prevent that. (Yes, I have checked; on AIM, the block lists are identical.) What's the deal with this?

(2) They attempted a new type of attack tonight. Rather than repeated IMing of me in one window (which is halted after I get the chance to block them after their 10 or so IMs), I'm now getting spammed via muliple accounts. SPECIFICALLY, the accounts LupusCloneNo1, LupusCloneNo2, ..., LupusCloneNo14. Each one attmpts to direct connect with me (bound to fail as it's turned off for non-buddylist members) and send me a file. The question is did someone just create all these accounts and specify a macro to run and ping all these, or is there some sort of *cough* "tool" with which someone can fake IM names and send them through the AOL server, inevitably hacking the message sending protocol AOL uses? It doesn't seem likely, but I'm wondering what is going on?

Advice on this issue would be very much appreciated.

~ Lord Dragonus

If I were you I'd complain to the AOL company Anyways I have Trillian and I never use my block list so I'm not sure bout that part

[Lord Dragonus]

I have very little faith in the AOL company with being able to handle this. Once upon a time, a user threatened repeatedly to hack a website which I webmastered. (He was only able to "hack" a forum by the "hacked" members giving him their passwords.) I asked AOL to get involved in doing so (actually called them up) and they said there was very little they could do. Perhaps I'm just being overly suspicious, but I doubt that'll work, though I'm intrigued to know everyone else's thoughts on this as well.

~ Lord Dragonus

[Jeff]

I'd send an email to abuse@aol.com just to be safe. This situation is a little different because they are obviously abusing the AIM Terms of Service and damaging the integrity of their IM network.

To answer your questions, yes, there are techniques that these script kiddies use to mass-produce AIM accounts solely for the purpose of harassing other AIM members. I won't go into it here, but it can be done. I think AOL's next move should be to limit the number of screen names you can setup from a single IP within a certain time period, but that's out of my hands.

I haven't tested the problem with blocked users still able to send messages to you until you log out and in again (via Trillian), but I know that when I block a user while I'm running the actual AIM client, it takes effect immediately.

One other suggestion I'd offer: Consider logging out when you're sleeping, and have your friends email you when your offline (rather than leave replies to your away message). This would avoid the warnings they're giving you.

[Lord Dragonus]

Perhaps you're right. I just finished my E-mail to them. Hopefully something results from it. *sigh*

~ Lord Dragonus

[Nhyrvana]

if you get no fast response from abuse@ aol.com , opssec@aol.com works too.
1-703-265-4662 its the usa contact number......
i hear ya Lord D... i hear ya

[LittleBuddy99]

Thats weird cuz everyone on my blok list cant contact me. My buddy list makes it look like they are offline.