Some interesting facts about cyber security since several of you asked.

Spam is done thru hacking or thru legitimate entry into your system that you allow.  Our system is on our own servers and is difficult to hack so the spammers simply register and post as new members.  

We screened and blocked for registrations from China and Russia and a number of other countries a number of years ago.  That stopped alot of spamming on our boards.  Then the spammers started registering with IP addresses and email extensions from the U.S.  So we started flaging new posts that contained keywords, like "gold", "viagra", etc.

That helped a BUNCH!  

The most recent rise in spam on BHW indicates a large spike in our numbers.  Spammers don't spam sites with little or no traffic.  (It's all about numbers).  It was suggested by one of our own board members to filter the first several posts of a new member so they don't go public till approved.  We did this before with keywords we suspected were spam.  Now we will look at and approve ANY post from new members.  Thanks for the suggestion. 

Also thanks for the large increase of traffic at BHW.  We know you have many other options like Facebook etc. so we continue to work harder and do things for you that "they" don't do and we appreciate your business.

Dave