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Advice to members using Photobucket
Topic Started: Jul 2 2017, 11:30 PM (567 Views)
ColinM
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Hi Folks

As some will be aware Photobucket have changed their terms of use so that users of their free service can no longer link images stored on Photobucket to forums such as ours unless the user pays $400 per year which in the opinion of many is extortionate and poor value for money.

Not all users of the free service have been affected so far as it will take PB a while to work their way through their millions of users but it is only a matter of time. Some users pay a small subscription so they don't get bombarded by adverts which may mean that they will get 30 days notice before their images stop appearing on this forum. Under the new T&Cs the only subscription that works with forums such as ours will cost $400.

Your images are still on Photobucket so if you don't have them elsewhere you can download them to your computer or other storage device. Be aware once you have taken them off PB all links will be broken and your images won't be displayed here, they will be replaced by a PB advert instead.

Ideally it would be great if all of the images that used to be on the AMSIG forum could be put back but realistically that would be days of work for many members and frankly life is too short.

If anyone wishes to put back every image they have ever posted you are of course welcome to do so but please don't feel you have to. Images we would like to see are your gallery photos of finished models and pictures taken at shows and other events you have attended. If you have a thread where you don't want to put an image back please edit it to remove the [img] [/img] link, that will get rid of the Photobucket nag image. If you are not sure how to do that please PM me.

Apologies for the inconvenience, none of it was of our making.

Colin
Edited by ColinM, Jul 2 2017, 11:40 PM.
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IanW

As Colin said, if you do not have backup copies elsewhere then download them as a precaution.
Looks like they provide the facility to download them an album at a time, unless of course they decide you have to pay for that as well.

I would however suggest leaving them on PB rather than removing them, at least for now. It is possible that this might turn into a 'Ratner' moment for Photobucket and there is a chance they might change the policy.

Even if they stick with the policy, I am leaving my photos there, if only for the annoyance value, as while they are there they will be taking up drive space on their system. If they want to eventually delete them it will involve effort on their part as well.
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Johni044

Cheers guys, I only use Photobucket for my modeling images and as I tend to reduce the image size to ease loading on forums I have kept the originals on my laptop hard drive anyway.

I am not taking action with my Photobukets accounts just in cases common sense prevails (not holding much hope though) and if there are any gaps I can download the image direct to my hard drive direct from PB.

IT's more an issue for me on the ATF and Revellattions as I have been more active in there, particularly the history section of RevellAtions, it may take me some time to feel re-energized to sort the mess out.
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IanW

All they appear to have done so far is modify their system so that when it detects a '3rd party hosted' image request it tags the users account and send the ransomware image instead.
In addition they have then sent a ransom email to the user.

Not sure how many image links it takes to trigger that block/email, so it could be that those who have not hit the problem have hit that threshold, or maybe it is taking a lot of time as Colin said.

It will be interesting as to what they do next if very few people pay the ransom.

I guess they could delete the accounts of users that have been tagged, but

1 - it would hack even more people off and not contribute to their income - less users -> less hits on their site -> less attraction fo advertisers -> lower rates.

2 - and this one could potentially really put the final nail in the coffin - What if the image owner was not the person who added the link to a forum. There appears to be nothing to prevent this, as if you login to you PB account you get bombarded by invitations to navigate round categories of images. If you eventually click on an image, the image link conveniently appears in a box.

If I was a cruel person I could have added that tag to this post and possibly put them on the black list, but for the present I will try and resist that urge.


Edit - Additional thought whilst awaiting further delivery of 'aggregate' at the dentists!

By leaving the image links in the posts it means that PB still have to use server time to process those requests from the forum each time a post/thread page is loaded, decide it is from a illegal source, check whether or not the account allows it and if not if has been blacklisted and send the ransom image instead of the photo image. I wonder how much processing time they will really save.


Edited by IanW, Jul 3 2017, 03:31 PM.
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fred

IanW
Jul 3 2017, 11:59 AM
All they appear to have done so far is modify their system so that when it detects a '3rd party hosted' image request it tags the users account and send the ransomware image instead.
In addition they have then sent a ransom email to the user.

Not sure how many image links it takes to trigger that block/email, so it could be that those who have not hit the problem have hit that threshold, or maybe it is taking a lot of time as Colin said.
...
That seems to be the way of it.
I'd not used my PB account for a couple of weeks until last Thursday a.m. Literally, less than five minutes after placing some pictures on ATF and UAMF they got blocked. AFAIR I didn't get any email, unless it went direct to the spam box and was deleted
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IanW

Looks like a bit of a climb down might have begun.

Just opened my Red Box builds thread and instead of getting the ransomware image I now get a 'Posted Image' icon which when clicked takes me to the photo in Photobucket - you have to look at the adverts but I guess it is a bit of an improvement.

Will see what tomorrow brings.

Edit - Or maybe not - just tried the same thread and now gets the ransomware image. Makes you wonder what is going on at PB.
Maybe they have been hit by a virus - possible, given that when I looked at the PB website earlier today something on their web site triggered a scam virus warning popup (allegedly from Microsoft) to appear on my screen. I guess things must be getting pretty bad for PB if they are having to resort to be taking adverts from scammers...

Also found that when I tried to reset my password they do not allow you to user a 'strong' one as they do not allow the use of punctuation characters.

Somehow I think I will definitely not be paying any money to a company whose security is so bad.
Edited by IanW, Jul 3 2017, 06:36 PM.
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fred

I've started to replace photos.
The N.I. shows are done.
Doing the others as I find the original photos
I'd like to leave the PB ransom note on them until I get replacing them; the details help me identify which photo it is
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ColinM
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No problem Fred

Colin
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thomasweir
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Administrator
Amazon, eBay and etsy are now being affected by photobuckets T & C.
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roadhousedisco
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From the BBC news webby thing http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40492668
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