Talking Allergies

I just got a "personal message" that said it was from olga and she was new to the forum. When I opened the message, there was a picture of a woman and her breasts were exposed. It was some sort of invitation to a pornographic web site. My children were in the room when I opened the message. This is very upsetting to me. Because it came from your website, the message was able to bypass my junk mail filter. It is making me very wary of using this site at all.

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Batrice

Homeschooling mom to:
Gabriel- 11-25-00 (allergic to peanuts, treenuts, and shellfish)
Michael- 6-16-03

Step mom to:
Isaiah- 6-18-96
Rebekah- 9-13-97

Batrice, I just received the same email from Olga and have alerted Karen of the problem. I was so surprised to see this was able to make it through. I sure hope it wasn't sent to the entire membership.

As careful as this forum's administrators are, there are people out there that are so knowledgeable about how to get in and out without being detected, they are hard to track.

This is the first time this has happened to me since I joined the forum. If this became a common practice - then yes I would probably want to leave also. But for the time being, I myself, will give them ample time to discover how it happened and to upgrade their screening, membership, firewalls or whatever to prevent this in the future.

I enjoy this forum and hope they can alleviate the problem.

Batrice, I hope you give them another chance as we'd hate to see you leave.

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Sue
Adult on-set anaphylaxis - penicillin, shellfish, crustaceans

I too got the same message. Please don't give up on this wonderful site, just because there are sick individuals out there. The rest of us hopefully compensate for that.

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15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

I sent a message to the moderator, too. I may have been a little rash in saying I wanted to cancel my registration, but I was very upset. I belong to another group and never had this happen to me before. You just figure that places like this would be safer.

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Batrice

Homeschooling mom to:
Gabriel- 11-25-00 (allergic to peanuts, treenuts, and shellfish)
Michael- 6-16-03

Step mom to:
Isaiah- 6-18-96
Rebekah- 9-13-97

Aye, I got it, too.

Spam has taken over the 'net. You're just lucky if you've managed to avoid pornographic pics thus far. ;) Spammers do occasionally target message boards. The mods usually take care of it pretty quickly and I'm sure the mods here will be no different.

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~*~*~ That which does not kill me only gives me hives. ~*~*~

I got the same message; I guess it attacked all the members of the site.

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ds 6: ana to peanuts and fish, cats, dogs, horses, rabbits, many environmental
dd 12: reacted to pork rinds
dh: brazil nuts
me: shrimp, mangos, environmental

I received the same message and i do not blame the admin of the site as hackers and people who do this know how to manage to circumvent the safety protocols of these sites. I was very disturbed to see this message on my message but I for one will give them a chance to fix it before i judge them on the safety of the site. Especially since this site is very helpful to me. I just don't think anyone should act to rash on this and rush to judgment on the site and the administrators

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Daughter Ana to Cashews, Pistachios

Hi all,

Apologies, this is the one problem with the Internet - hacker and spammers who spend their days (while the rest of us work or take care of families) figuring out ways to mess up good things on the Net (such as this terrific forum community) with their bile.

The webmaster has been alerted; he's trying to figure out how they "mass-mailed" to our membership. This has never happened before. I hope you don't give up on the forum because of one such stupid, awful message - that means the bad guys win.

If we could have known about and prevented this mailing - trust me, we certainly would have.

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Allergic to soy, peanut, shellfish, penicillin

Gee, I kinda feel left out as I didn't get the e-mail.
Not that I wanted the picture or the info on the website, I just wonder why I didn't get it.

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: allergies to some tree that flowers in May
Cat: allergic to beef, pork and lamb

Hi all -

Sorry I've been so quiet - I've been on the road. I managed to get some internet access and have been responding to all the PMs you've been sending.

Susan - I didn't see it either - I think our webmaster has managed to remove it from the inboxes of those who didn't open their PMs in time.

Along with Gwen and the rest of the team, I apologize for this. We do our best to keep the idiots out, but there is always someone with too much time on their hands...

bigreys5 - I realize this was a rude introduction to our forum, but it really is the worst thing I've seen since I started moderating last February. Quite unusual.

I hope you'll give us a chance - we do a lot of good here and it would be a shame to let the hackers win...

K.

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Karen, proud Mom of
- DS1 (12 yrs): allergic to cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts, potatoes, some legumes, some fish, pumpkin seeds; OAS
- DS2 (1o yrs): ana. to dairy, eggs, peanuts; asthma