Your E-mail address security.

Len · 31-05-2006, 17:12

E-mail address security.

For those of you whom may wish to keep your e-mail address hidden from public view, then please go into your User CP and edit Options. In the Option section you’ll find an option to Allow vCard Download, make sure that the box is not ticked. Otherwise the whole world and his dog will be able to view your e-mail address, that is, if they have registered.

Most people won’t be bothered but some have a full name in their e-mail address, such as..... John.smith @ ***********.... and by allowing others to view, you wont be anonymous anymore....... will you.

In my view and I’m not sure about this but, if the whole world can view you e-mail address then you could possibly be targeted by spammers. I believe that there are people out there that do nothing all day but collect e-mail addresses so that they can pass them on to others for spamming purposes. So think on.

Cheers

I will change any of the above if it's not correct.

Neal · 01-06-2006, 23:50

tis true, people get paid for searching for e-mail addresses and then using them for spam purposes.

People also get paid to post spam on forums and things, what a great job that would be!

Madhatter · 03-06-2006, 12:15

yes well, look up atherstone town cricket clubs forum, I've told them, but they don't seem to care.

jambutty · 02-07-2006, 15:51

When registering for an ISP most people will select a user name that is their own name and they end up with an email address like [email protected] If their own name is not available then it will end up as name1 or 15 or 45. The same applies when registering for a web mail address.

So once a spammer knows the email address domain name - that is isp.co.uk - all he has to do is put any real name at the beginning and that person will get the spam. Of course there will be some spam emails that don’t hit on a person’s email account but that won’t bother the spammer because it won’t be returned to the spammer but end up with someone else. I get plenty of emails returned to me that I didn’t send.

The way to defeat that method of spamming is to select a username that is not a real name but a selection of random lower case alphabet characters with maybe a number thrown in. Now lets see the spammer guess that. With a user name made up of 9 random characters the possible combinations would be over 100,000,000,000,000. As PC’s get faster and better it is only a matter of time before someone produces a programme that will take into account random characters but until then I enjoy a spam free life except for those where someone has sold on my email address. But there aren’t many of them. Barely one a day.

However you can reduce the likelihood of receiving spam still further. Most if not all ISP’s will allow you to have up to 5 email addresses and with web mail you can have as many as you want. I have one random character email address just for on-line payment processors and on-line banking. I have another for friends and family and a third for when I join various sites and forums. This last one is the most likely to be sold on by admins but I can delete that email account and replace it with another with my ISP when it starts to attract lots of spam.

You can arrange your email client (Outlook Express) to filter the emails to their respective folders with the general purpose (the third one) going to my In Box.

Whilst you are in the mood for random characters, you do have random characters of upper and lower case alphabet and numbers as you password, don’t you? In fact some sites also have a secret question and answer for when you want to recover your password. The answer does not have to be a truthful answer. Random characters will do here as well. In fact some sites give you the option of posing your own question. I use random characters for the question too.

But people are lazy and use real words for passwords and often use the same one over and over. That’s just asking to have an account somewhere being got at.

For me random characters rule.

WillowTheWhisp · 03-07-2006, 08:26

I totally agree with the logic of random numbers. My only problem is that I forget what I've chosen and then have to make numerous wild guesses of my own! I do that with passwords too. There's a message board I am a member of which insists on the passwords having a mix of alpha and numeric content and can I remember the numeric ones? Can I flippin heck! I end up having to write things down! How secure is that? Even my online banking baffles me because I have to count through the written password to find "character 5", "character 13" etc!

jambutty · 03-07-2006, 12:04

The way to remember random character passwords WillowTheWisp is to make yourself a document listing all your passwords and who they are for and copy and paste from it when logging in anywhere. There is a tiny glitch in this strategy in that there are web sites and Trojans that can read your Windows clipboard and send the data to their head office. Have a look at http://www.sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard.asp for proof. Copy something to your Windows clipboard first.

You need to do the following to prevent someone from reading your clipboard.
Open Internet Explorer
Go to Menu Tools>Internet Options>Security>Select a security zone (Internet)>Custom Level>Scripting>Allow paste operations via script – set this to prompt.
If something tries to read your clipboard it will be blocked and you will receive a prompt asking you whether to allow it or not.

Better still get hold of RoboForm Pro with a free version available from http://www.roboform.com/ The free version will only hold 12 passwords but 12 is better than none. The Pro version, with more features, costs about $40, has unlimited storage capacity and has free updates for life. Umpteen million users can’t be wrong.

My on-line bank is similar to yours WTW, yet once my details have been accepted I get taken to a page that asks me to confirm that my street address is as is stated. I mean if someone had managed to steal my logging in details the next bit isn’t going to do anything to stop them from entering my account, is it?

The best and most secure logging in system that I have ever come across is one used by Asian Pay. You can opt to receive a secure card and use that to log in instead of the more normal user name, password and ubiquitous Turing type number.

The secure card is delivered from Thailand (because that is where Asian Pay is based) by Registered Post and mine took just 3 days. It is also displayed when you register to receive the card so that you can print it out if you want to.

It is a grid of 6 letters A to F across the top and bottom and numbers 1 to 5 down each side with a variety of unique to you mixture of letters and numbers in the grid. They ask you to input 4 lots. E.g. B5 – A2 – F3 – D1 and you input what ever corresponds to those indicators.

With 30 ‘boxes’ each containing any one of 36 characters that is 36 ^ 30 different combinations. That is 48,873,677,980,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000 so no one will have a secure card that is identical to anyone else.

KIPAX · 03-07-2006, 12:17

On the internet there is no such thing as secure.. only varying levels of security. Saying that.. better to give credit card details to an encrypted online system that no human ever sees as apposed to over the phone to a thick 16 yr old on work experience...

Internet isn't secure and theres no secure system... but its not as bad as people make out .

jambutty · 03-07-2006, 13:08

I agree that there is no such thing as 100% secure on the Internet KIPAX because it all starts with your own computer. If it leaks information like a sieve then no amount of security on a site will compensate.

Hackers will always have the upper hand if only for a while until yet another loophole is closed. Then there is the human element at the other end.

I have always taken the view that surfing the Internet is akin to swimming in shark-infested waters but you can protect yourself with repellents.

WillowTheWhisp · 21-09-2006, 14:34

When you wish to report spam to the moderators just click on the red triangle in the top right hand corner of the relevant post.

cashman · 22-09-2006, 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by KIPAX

On the internet there is no such thing as secure.. only varying levels of security. Saying that.. better to give credit card details to an encrypted online system that no human ever sees as apposed to over the phone to a thick 16 yr old on work experience...

Internet isn't secure and theres no secure system... but its not as bad as people make out .

i know a guy in chicago that would dispute that kipax, hes just had a 5 figure sum hacked from his e-gold account this week.

Neal · 22-09-2006, 10:32

And it will all be insured being an e-gold account ;-)

Time to buy a new car.....

Madhatter · 22-09-2006, 15:39

Signed up to the knowhere site the other day and within seconds started getting spammed on an address that only they had. if you get your own domain and set up mail forwarding you can put any name @ your domain in and it still gets sent to your forwarding box, any spammers can be blocked.

cashman · 27-09-2006, 00:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neal

And it will all be insured being an e-gold account ;-)

Time to buy a new car.....

don't think so neil, but just spoke to him tonight and hes managed to get it back, no idea how but its good news.

grannyclaret · 27-09-2006, 14:07

just had a look at my user cp,, and took out the tick...THANKS