My technical assessment so far: A bug in the substack platform software may have recently been introduced, accidentally (when the substack engineering team, say, recently rolled out a new feature) -- that certain spammers are now exploiting (the spammers seem to be using automated bots).
It currently seems like posts with comments set to "both free and paid readers can comment" are more vulnerable to this spam issue than posts with comments set to "only paid readers can comment".
The Engineers at Substack HQ will need to address this issue. I've been on the platform nearly daily for the last 10 months -- reading many various substacks per day. 'First time I've seen this type of issue.
yup, weirdo cross-pollination hacking shenanigans going on. I commented on a Reinette Senum post. And I got a notification that Sasha Latypova replied to my comment. And the comment was presented as "Text me at (such and such a number), I have something to share with you". It happened to several substackers throughout yesterday and today.
It's happening at Sasha Latypovas substack too.
Likewise Jessica Rose.
Charles Eisenstein sent me one regarding it also...
I got one from El Gato Malo as well. I sent to junk mail.
Mark Crispin Milked and Tessa Lena
I got one purporting to be from Chris Bray.
From what I see, you've eradicated it.
My technical assessment so far: A bug in the substack platform software may have recently been introduced, accidentally (when the substack engineering team, say, recently rolled out a new feature) -- that certain spammers are now exploiting (the spammers seem to be using automated bots).
It currently seems like posts with comments set to "both free and paid readers can comment" are more vulnerable to this spam issue than posts with comments set to "only paid readers can comment".
The Engineers at Substack HQ will need to address this issue. I've been on the platform nearly daily for the last 10 months -- reading many various substacks per day. 'First time I've seen this type of issue.
All subsacks are hacked by this phone number bot
Also happened to CJ Hopkins and Good Citizen as well.
It is happening to a bunch of us.
Today is the third time I supposedly got a reply from the "author" of a post on Substack like this:
"Sasha Latypova’s replied to your comment on My Talk from Lakaruppropet Conference, Stockholm, January 21, 2023.
Leave a text I’ve got something beneficial to share with you ㈩𝟏𝟑𝟏𝟒𝟒𝟎𝟎𝟖𝟏𝟕𝟑"
I got the same thing supposedly from Mark Crispin Miller and CJ Hopkins. I could not find any info about who owns that number.
I'm sure none of those authors really wrote me. Someone seems to be hacking Substack in an attempt to get phone numbers of readers.
Why?
I made a post about it:
https://patrick.net/post/1378504/2023-02-09-getting-creepy-requests-to-give-up-my
You are not the only one https://peterhalligan.substack.com/p/housekeeping-i-received-a-gibberish
Looks like you successfully eradicated the bot (I don't see it anymore)
happening to many
I don't see anything, so it must have been successfully deleted.
You, Chris Bray, 2nd Smartest Guy, el gato malo, ....
Curious, why are they putting whether you're a paid subscriber or free subscriber next to your name in comments now?
yup, weirdo cross-pollination hacking shenanigans going on. I commented on a Reinette Senum post. And I got a notification that Sasha Latypova replied to my comment. And the comment was presented as "Text me at (such and such a number), I have something to share with you". It happened to several substackers throughout yesterday and today.
Happened to me as well. Seems to be only the stacks I've made a comment on recently. CJ Hopkins came to me spelled Hopkin's.
Got it at two other Substacks also (so far).
That’s happened to two other substacks like yours. I got one of them from theirs.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tessa/p/impersonator-alert-dont-text-that?r=ykqw5&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
No problem here.