“social networking screwjob” or “early onset dementia”
I’m pretty sure my myspace account was phished.
This bothers me for two reasons.
Firstly, it means that I was stupid enough to get phished.
Secondly, since I’m a far more saavy user of the internet than most people, it means that it has to be extremely easy for people to get phished. I’m extremely paranoid about the internet, and now I’m even more paranoid.
(A third reason would be that I actually am not that sure that my account was phished. I think a database error of some sort occurred when I attempted to change my password yesterday, and the clowns who run myspace are too bogged down with their clown users’ moronic inquiries to deal with a legitimate inquiry like my own.)
So as I sat here brooding this evening, hopped up on lattes and bearing a toothache after a visit to the dentist early this morning (I know, what typical irony), I decided to forego waiting for what will likely never happen (i.e. getting into my account) and created a new page. The address is myspace.com slash inthewry. I typed that out because, like I said, I’m increasingly paranoid about bots and such. If I haven’t added you already on the new profile, please do me the courtesy off adding me yourself.
Your friend (at least on social networking websites),
Chris
February 1, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Wait a minute… MySpace e-mailed you what the actual password for your account was? My questions are:
(1.) Why would they even store account passwords unencrypted somewhere in their database? Most websites with passwords do not do this because there is a possibility of the database getting hacked or a disgruntled employee stealing the passwords. Instead, they scramble your password before they store it, and when you log in, they scramble what you type in the exact same way and see if it matches.
(2.) Why would they send you your password in an email, the least secure method of sending data over the Internet? Emails jump from server to server across the Internet, unencrypted, before arriving in your inbox, meaning that if any of those servers are compromised, your password can be seen.
I would recommend that as soon as you log in, you change the password on both of your accounts to something that you don’t use for any of your other accounts, especially bank logins.
February 1, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Travis’s advice is sound, and of course, the first thing I did when logging into my myspace was change my password to something not even remotely resembling what it was previously. I personally use different passwords for everything right down to my library PIN, and so should everyone else.
February 2, 2008 at 1:56 am
I have nothing tech-savy to add here. Good to know you got it figured out though.