Can there be a way to stop level 0 phishing accounts from adding or commenting on my Steam profile?

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Clear Vision Jan 20, 2015 @ 8:31am

I'm sick and tired of the obvious phishing attempts that I'm pretty sure everyone knows of, yet I still find it hard to believe that people actually fall for this ♥♥♥♥. Can it just be a requirement that you need to have a steam account level of at least 2 before you're able to add someone on Steam? I've been getting phishing attempts every day for the past two weeks so this is really pissing me off.

Last edited by Clear Vision; Jan 20, 2015 @ 8:31am

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Showing 1-15 of 16 comments

Kronenscheldt Jan 20, 2015 @ 9:08am

+1 Im tired of waking up to see like 10 green alerts and more then half of them being spambots.

Hungry Hank the toilet Jan 20, 2015 @ 9:16am

change your comments so only frs comment.

Zefar Jan 20, 2015 @ 9:19am

Private profiles are shown as rank 0. Fresh accounts can't send invites.

spoof Jan 20, 2015 @ 9:20am

I am getting invites from not private level 0 all the time from posting here.
I am clueless why but I get them.

I make screenies in the future.

Last edited by spoof; Jan 20, 2015 @ 9:21am

Clear Vision Jan 20, 2015 @ 10:38am

Originally posted by Zefar:
Private profiles are shown as rank 0. Fresh accounts can't send invites.

Well I'm pretty sure phishing bots aren't at level 2 regardless. It would stop a lot of spam and invites from spam or phishing bots. Valve, do something; we're all tired of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Last edited by Clear Vision; Jan 20, 2015 @ 10:38am

Satoru Jan 20, 2015 @ 10:53am

Originally posted by Clear Vision:
Originally posted by Zefar:
Private profiles are shown as rank 0. Fresh accounts can't send invites.
Well I'm pretty sure phishing bots aren't at level 2 regardless. It would stop a lot of spam and invites from spam or phishing bots. Valve, do something; we're all tired of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

When you can differentiate between a legit new user and a 'scammer' let Valve know what algorithm woudl distinguish between them.

Clear Vision Jan 20, 2015 @ 1:15pm

Originally posted by Satoru:
Originally posted by Clear Vision:
Well I'm pretty sure phishing bots aren't at level 2 regardless. It would stop a lot of spam and invites from spam or phishing bots. Valve, do something; we're all tired of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

When you can differentiate between a legit new user and a 'scammer' let Valve know what algorithm woudl distinguish between them.

Maybe a good suggestion would be until you've clocked 50 hours on a F2P game or 15 hours on a paid game that costs a certain amount, you are unable to add anyone on Steam. A lot of these phishers are robots with private profiles.

Ant_Shrew Apr 18, 2015 @ 3:39am

Hello
I have been getting annoyed with all these bots as well so I made this and it seems to be working.
Basically install and run it using something like TamperMonkey.

Basically will block all users in your steam friend requests:
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/9288-blocks-all-steam-invites

Going to try add blocking of just level 0 users or a specified level if I can.
Then later block have a block only private accounts

Hope this help for the time being

Clear Vision Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:19am

Originally posted by Ant_Shrew *Trading*:
Hello
I have been getting annoyed with all these bots as well so I made this and it seems to be working.
Basically install and run it using something like TamperMonkey.

Basically will block all users in your steam friend requests:
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/9288-blocks-all-steam-invites

Going to try add blocking of just level 0 users or a specified level if I can.
Then later block have a block only private accounts

Hope this help for the time being

Does this solution know the difference between a legit new steam user and a spambot?

Last edited by Clear Vision; Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:19am

TirithRR Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:23am

Originally posted by Clear Vision:
Does this solution know the difference between a legit new steam user and a spambot?

There's no real way to determine that, as you cannot see the person behind the account. Only the account.

The recent limited user account changes may help, but also may just push the spammers to start using their hijacked user accounts (random levels, random amount of games) to spam rather than a bunch of cheap new accounts.

Last edited by TirithRR; Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:23am

#10

frank-no wank Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:26am

There's a Chrome App called Steam Inventory Helper. Install it, go to settings of the app, click settings there and in the Friend requests (0 = off) section set the values to 1

#11

Clear Vision Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:32am

Originally posted by TirithRR:
Originally posted by Clear Vision:
Does this solution know the difference between a legit new steam user and a spambot?

There's no real way to determine that, as you cannot see the person behind the account. Only the account.

The recent limited user account changes may help, but also may just push the spammers to start using their hijacked user accounts (random levels, random amount of games) to spam rather than a bunch of cheap new accounts.

Surely there can be a way to determine the difference between new accounts and spam bots?
Maybe have a short captcha test when you add friends?

#12

TirithRR Apr 18, 2015 @ 4:33am

Originally posted by Clear Vision:
Originally posted by TirithRR:

There's no real way to determine that, as you cannot see the person behind the account. Only the account.

The recent limited user account changes may help, but also may just push the spammers to start using their hijacked user accounts (random levels, random amount of games) to spam rather than a bunch of cheap new accounts.
Surely there can be a way to determine the difference between new accounts and spam bots?
Maybe have a short captcha test when you add friends?

Captcha systems are a last ditch effort, and are not fool proof. They tried adding captchas to the trading system and it lasted all of... 24 hours?

#13