Websites

fan no.1 · Post by **fan no.1** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:49 pm

What are your favourite websites to visit?
Tell me about them!
Fan no.1

Bearsland · Post by **Bearsland** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:09 pm

Hey kid,

You have this in your sig: "I live to compute there for I am a nerd."

You have just posted your Hotmail address and its password on an open internet forum. What on Earth made you want to do such a thing???

I'll bet you can't access your Hotmail account anymore.

PM me as soon as you read this reply.

Bear

btw. I posted this for all to see for the obvious reason.

Folks!!! Do not do this!!!!

jcvalcar2 · Post by **jcvalcar2** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:42 pm

I really enjoy your comments Bear. Are you Fan no. 1 father?

I hope I have a protector like you someday.

jcvalcar2 · Post by **jcvalcar2** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:42 pm

I really enjoy your comments Bear. Are you Fan no. 1 father?

I hope I have a protector like you someday.

Bearsland · Post by **Bearsland** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:07 am

jcvalcar2 wrote:I really enjoy your comments Bear. Are you Fan no. 1 father? I hope I have a protector like you someday.

It's interesting that you see the humour in this one, Cathy, but believe me when I say that this could have been very serious for this young man, his friends and maybe even his family.

The original post that Fan made contained not only his Hotmail address, but also the password for it. The action I took was not taken lightly; strictly speaking I should not have done what I did, but it was better that an honest person (me) did what they did than have a scammer or phisher get hold of his account details.

I saw what he had posted and my first thought was to PM him and tell him to edit his post. However, there was no guarantee that he would get the PM before some scumbag randomly browsing the net saw his post, so I took action. I logged into his Hotmail account and changed the password and posted the message above. The intention was for me to give him the new password (and some net security advice) which would allow him to log back in and change the password to something new that only he knew. Fortunately, Patrick appeared on the board just after and I asked him to remove the personal details from the original post which he said he would.

I had hoped that Fan would understand that what I did was for the right reasons, but his PM to me didn't quite come across that way. He was upset (perhaps understandably so). My reply to him is below:

fan no.1 wrote: Hey Please don't do things like that I know you were only worried about my well being but just please don't Sad I realy don't like it I am only ten gime a break! Sorry for being rude but I am just a bit anoyed.
Fan no.1
I replied:

I understand that you are angry, but what you did was extremely silly and could have been very dangerous. I stepped in to save you from losing your account.

If someone (a bad person) had accessed your account, they could have got the names and e-mail addresses of all your contacts. They could also have got access to any personal information you may have posted up to Hotmail.

If you used the account for MSN Messenger, they could have contacted your friends, got personal info from them and possibly sent them bad files, (viruses, etc..) and your friends would have thought they were safe and from you. They could then have lost their info.

If you want to be a computer nerd, you need to be a lot more careful with things like passwords.

Never ever, ever post your passwords on the Internet, it's a dumb thing to do.

Your friend.

Bear

btw. I never read any of your information. I promise.

Fan needs to realise that what Patrick (assuming he did edit the post) and I did was for all the right reasons. I'm sure his Mother and Father would agree what we did was right. I never looked at any of his information in his Hotmail account, but I can assure him and each and everyone of you that a scammer would have and would subsequently have used that info for their gain.

I'm sorry the young man is angry; I'm sorry I made him angry, but I'm also 100% sure that what I did was right. I would have done the same thing for anyone on this board and I would do it again to protect my friends here.

As for me being his father... if I was, he would have been grounded from the computer for a month.

Please be Net-Safe guys!!! There are bad people out there and they prey on mistakes like this. You have been warned!!!!!

Bear

jcvalcar2 · Post by **jcvalcar2** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:42 am

Please, Please, do not take offense I know that you were only protecting him and if the situation were reversed I would hope that you would do the same for me. I just loved the fact that SOMEBODY was watching out for him. I think you are a wonderful person who really cares for all of us and I am glad that you are on our team. I did not see his first post nor do I want too.

Cat · Post by **Cat** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:02 am

Bear, you did the right thing for Fan, even if he didn't appreciate your help!
Thanks for trying to help him, I appreciate you watching out the the people
here.

I love your new personality and your caring ways! Just wanted to say Thanks!

Cat

laura n. · Post by **laura n.** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:54 am

Bear, I'm very appreciative of what you did, I'm glad someones looking out for this kid. ( and the rest of us)
Emily is not of the age where she's allowed to play on my computer unattended, but when she does reach that age if she did something that stupid on my computer she'd no longer have access to it AT ALL without supervision. ( grounded for a month.... what a wimp

)

Fan no.1 , be kind to old Bearsland, he's only looking out for you & your parents, (if your using their computer) .

the cat · Post by **the cat** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:57 am

I too want to tell you Thank you.Your still a sweetie in my book.

Dee · Post by **Dee** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 3:49 am

I just have to add my 2 cents!!!!!

Thank God for Bear!!! He said it like it is!!!

There isn't anything else to say, except THANK YOU!!!

amy25 · Post by **amy25** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:09 am

Agreeing with everyone else. My husband is a computer tech and he does the same thing on the forum he's an admin for. I'm glad you caught it Bear and got it edited before anything happened. I hope that Fan realizes he has people watching out for him and that they are not there to annoy him.

Superterv · Post by **Superterv** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 8:47 am

Well done Bear, I'm sure that once Fan calms down (and maybe gets a little older and wiser as 10 is very young) he will understand what you did and why. Well done again in catching this early and taking action.

dylan1298 · Post by **dylan1298** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:29 pm

Well done Bear, I have a ten year old and I think that is too young to even be on a forum, but if he was to get on it, I"m glad your there to look out for us

Websites

Websites

Web sites

Web sites

Re: Web sites

Websights