SU forum overrun
THE YUSU forum website, designed to give prospective students an idea of life at the University of York, has been inundated with links to pornographic websites. The website is moderated by the six sabbatical officers of the YUSU Executive.
The spam posts, including links to such sites as ‘Black Snake Moan (2007)™’ and ‘Come chat with me (naked Pics)’, started to appear on February 4, with as many as fifteen being posted every day.
Nouse alerted YUSU officers of the content of the website late last week, and the forums were restarted over the weekend. The forum thread ‘Information’, the page most affected by spammers, has been taken down and replaced with a thread named ‘Student Life’. Within hours of being set up the page already contained links to a number of spam links, including a site titled ‘Topless’.
YUSU President Rich Croker said he was aware of the problem and that Communications Officer Colin Hindson has moved to wipe the forum website of all offensive material. Croker said that “whilst we try to maintain the content of the site on a regular basis, unfortunately spam is something that occurs.”
He added that YUSU officers are taking action to correct the problem and are seeking advice from technical experts to try and secure the website against unwanted posters.
However, by Sunday evening all nine posts on the forum contained links unrelated to York students, mostly for pharmaceuticals and gambling websites.
Kate Douglas, a first year Social Policy and Social Work student in Derwent said, “I reckon it’s pretty sad that YUSU can’t even keep its websites in order. I know it’s not the sabbs’ [sabbatical officers] fault but it still makes the entire Student Union look pretty stupid. While I’m sure there are some people who will enjoy it, it can’t look great for prospective students who want to find out about York.”
