Another EBay spoof -- watch out for this one.

[OkeeDon]

I just received an Email from "EBay@reply.ebay.com" (don't send anything there), all dressed up to look like an anniversary card, saying, "Congratulations! It's your Ebay anniverary, OkeeDon!" They wanted me to click through to see what EBay was going to do for me for my anniversary. They even had a link at the bottom, supposedly to explain Ebay's spoof policy!

The problem is, they had a different Email address than the one I use at Ebay, and they used OkeeDon as a salutation, and that's not my Ebay user name -- it's my user name here at TBN, and nowhere else! The Email they used was the one I use here (and several other places, but nowhere else do I use OkeeDon). Obviously, they've done some data mining here at TBN (which is not TBN's fault or problem -- they data mine pretty much anywhere they want), and I would expect many of you to receive the same fake. Watch out!

I forwarded it to "spoof@ebay.com" per the instructions at EBay's securty center.

 

[Junkman]

Just did a Google search for "OkeeDon" and you have 10 pages. I don't dare see what they have on me!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[DaveNay]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Just did a Google search for "OkeeDon" and you have 10 pages)</font>

Odd......I did the same search "okeedon" on Google, and I got 100 pages, but 97 of them were "omitted" by Google. The other three were for TBN and CBN.

Dave

 

[OkeeDon]

Wow. I did check Junkman. Because your name is used for so many references, it took going to page 6 to find your TBN profile. Then, a couple of pages later, a reference from a TBN post. That one offered "more results from TBN", so I clicked that, and there were 14 pages with typical results. I clicked on "no pages omitted" (paraphrase), and there were 342 pages of references from TBN that mention Junkman! At 10 per page, that's 3,420! Scary. Of course, you don't have your email in your profile...

 

[rozett]

Don, they may have mined it from the LA Classic Chevy website's guestbook. AltaVista shows that you've signed in there on 6/17/02.

 

[OkeeDon]

Gotta be another OkeeDon, then -- I've never been there, never sign a guestbook anywhere (except my own on my home site), and hate Chevy's.

Just checked, found it! Another guy from Okeechobee named Don (different last name) uses OkeeDon@(a popular microsoft webmail site).com as his email.

Besides, that guestbook plays music in the background, and that would have been reason enough to chase me away... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Ack!!! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I did a Google search on TerryinMD and the first thing that popped up was my profile on TractorByNet. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Hmmmm..... Is there anyway of preventing profiles from being mined? Okay, braintrust and gurus.... what to do?

Kinda scary... but then again, I put the stuff out there and the Web is a source of information easily accessed by anyone with a 'puter.

Terry

 

[Junkman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Gotta be another OkeeDon, then -- I've never been there, never sign a guestbook anywhere (except my own on my home site), and hate Chevy's.....................
... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif )</font>

I used to think that you were an OK kinda guy, being from MA and such, but this comment just can't be ignored! /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Muhammad]

<font color="blue">Hmmmm..... Is there anyway of preventing profiles from being mined? Okay, braintrust and gurus.... what to do?</font>

Yes. We can restrict profiles to registered users only---this will take a little time, but it's the only fail-safe method since spiders won't be able to login to the forum and gain access to profiles.

That said, the current method we use should prevent most profiles from being spidered by bots searching for addresses. However, when it comes to harvesting e-mail addresses, they are pretty clever.

In response to OkeeDon, I just did a search on Google for your e-mail address, and got these results.

While your e-mail address may have been spidered from TBN, it is more likely that it was picked up from the www.hornerfamily.com site, where it's listed twice. The reason it's more likely that it was harvested from there is that those two pages are static HTML, whereas ours are dynamic php pages, which are generally ignored by most search engines (with obvious exceptions).

In the end, the only way to completely prevent e-mail address harvesting is to never give your address out. All it takes is getting on one list and after that it's a chain reaction.

 

[Hambone]

WOW.

 

[OkeeDon]

<font color="blue"> and hate Chevy's..................... </font>

I knew I'd get a rise out of someone...

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[OkeeDon]

What made me sure they got it from TBN is because of the OkeeDon reference -- I don't use that anywhere but TBN, and I once mentioned it on CBN, where I use a different user name, to tie it in. I agree they could have gotten that email address (and any of the 4 or 5 others I use) from many locations, but the OkeeDon reference could only have come from here.

 

[TerryinMD]

Thank you Muhammad!!

When it comes to all the spammers, phishers, etc, I wish I had the intestinal fortitude, time, and technical wherewithal to do what they do. Just think if they could use all that talent in a useful manner to make an honest living..... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Terry

 

[Junkman]

I just did a Google search for my current e mail address and had 2 pages of hits. Then I tried my old e mail address and it found nothing. Don't know why the old address came up blank, because I had used it for 5 years up till 5 years ago and it was posted in many places like the new one. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[thcri]

This is just a bit scary. I just did my email address and my ID here on TBN. My ID on TBN, CBN and Geocaching web pages is the same and my search on google brought them all up. I had 4 pages of which only one was mine. I did a search by my name and it even brought up some of my donations to one of the parties I supported. Scary Scary Scary.

murph

 

[California]

I think we are in a new era where a higher level of personal internet security has become necessary. Until now I've always posted on Usenet and various groups using 'myreallastname@my ISP'. That was also my ebay id for six years. I never worried much about security.

But I had a real bad experience just before I arrived here on TBN. Someone used my ebay ID that I've used since spring 1998 (mylastname@ local ISP) for the 'from' and 'reply-to' fields in a month-long run of viagra spam. I was flooded with over 2,000 bounce messages from nearly that many separate ISP's. Each bounce described non-delivery to an average of six to eight of their subscribers. I estimate my email address was used to bother 10's of thousands of people.

In the bounce messages, my email address appeared next to random first and last names, (no duplicates, and none were my real name). Unique different routing appeared in every message that the ISP's bounced. (And none of the routing included my real ISP). This indicates sophisticated software for entering unique data in every field.

I think it also indicates a huge number of 'zombie' mailservers under control of the spammers, that mindlessly forward spam sent through them for relay.

We have probably all received spams with mysterious attachments. I suspect some of these attachments are scripts to capture the recipient computer and convert it unknowingly into a mail relay. I can't imagine any other way the thousands of spams were each delivered through unique routing.

For the moment I'd say the spammers are winning.

Therefor ... 'California' is the first time I've used a screen name on the Internet. I wish it weren't necessary.

 

[Junkman]

I don't post my real name on any site unless it is absolutely necessary. A couple of weeks ago, another TBN member decided that he would use his ability to find information on the WEB and posted my REAL name onto one of the threads that I was mentioned in along with my birth date. This really got me Teed Off to say the least. I was tempted to post that persons personal information that I would have been able to get from public information records, since I knew enough about him from his profile just to get back at him. I decided that even though this person went over the line in my opinion, I wouldn't stoop that low in the end. I asked that the thread be deleted and it was. People should think twice before they post anything personal that concerns another without that persons permission. Once it makes it onto the WEB, you have no idea where it will go from there. There is enough identity theft happening without helping the crooks with information.

 

[GerardC]

Junkman

I saw that post. Honestly didn't think that was cool to do what they did.

What can we do to "erase" any personal information that may have already been given? Is it in cyber world forever? I think about this often and wonder. Any answers?

 

[Junkman]

If you know where it is and it is a problem, then you can contact the webmaster of the site and ask to have it deleted. If it is just an e mail address, I don't worry about that very much because if the spam and **** get to be too much, I will just change my email address and the old one will go dead. If you want to be shocked, do a Google search for your telephone number and see what comes up! Now, I put spaces and characters between the numbers so it messes up the web crawlers that gather this information. Live and learn how to defeat the creaps..... /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

UPDATE:
I just ran my home number through Google and after clicking on it, there is a form that you can use to remove the number from the Google search results. This is new to my knowledge. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Muhammad]

You can remove any information from your TBN profile that you don't want the public to see. All of that information is completely voluntary---we don't require anything but a display name.

If you don't want people to find your TBN posts when they search for your name, then take your name off of your profile---the same goes for your e-mail address and location, etc. It's that simple. Of course you can find it in search engines. The main business of search engines is finding as much information online as they possibly can, and making it available to searchers.

Internet privacy is a concern for a lot of people, but you really have to understand that regardless of where or when you publish your name, e-mail address and any other personal information online, it could (and probably will) be indexed by search engines.