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42% of Web Users Sneak Onto Others' Online Accounts
An anonymous reader writes "In an online survey, 42 percent of Internet users admitted to logging into other people's email and social networking accounts without their knowledge. The poll doesn't ask if passwords were found, granted, or stolen — which would make for further interesting results. The write-up summarizing the results defines the respondents as part of an "educated tech-readership" and questions the ethics of logging onto someone else's account, and whether those differ depending on the person and relationship."
or "auto-saved" in their web browser.
but it did take me some time so this is not Frist Post.
Heck, I'm "sneaking" on this account right now!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I'm actually the one who posted this story.
wwrmn molests kittens and has been known to punch puppies.
until ( $win ) { &cheat }
It just seems bizarre to me how many people think it's normal to give out their password to family/friends/partners/whatever. I've never revealed a password to anyone in my life and never will, and my really important ones get changed regularly. Is that really so terribly unusual?
is significantly different than "without their permission." One might be given account/password info for good cause, but the account holder may not be aware of every access. That would constitute "without their knowledge," but implies no impropriety.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'd sneak into her accounts .. Mmm...
I guarantee that a good percent of those are the partners of the account owner. Poking around online in their account for whatever reason or another, like keeping tab of their exes.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Did the folks conducting the survey really believe beforehand that "Educated Tech Readership" and "Band of Merry Thieves" were somehow mutually exclusive? "How could these people be capable of such things?! They use the Internet and read blogs, for goodness sake!"
I knew this chick who got her boyfriend's password by looking over his shoulder. She used it well after their relationship ended, out of some mix of jealousy, spite, and hope that they'd be together again. She would make letters from other girls disappear, know when to make inconvenient calls/appearances, and whatever else it is that a manipulative, batshit insane, ex-girlfriend does. It was pretty funny. Point is, I suspect most breaches of passwords are of this sort of nature rather than really sensitive commercial stuff, so it's all lulz and it's all good.
I'm the family support guy, and already had them all with shortcuts specifying https, but I just logged into each of their accounts and configured them to always use https (now the option is available).
My ex used to get mad because I absolutely refused to give her any of my passwords besides my WPA password. She didn't understand security at all. Later I found out she had been reading her boss' private email -- I"m glad I don't trust anyone. Always log out of public computers, never allow them to store private information. It's a good idea to clear private data or reset the browser on public computers as well. If you live with other people or have guest over you should password protect your computer.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
I'm calling bullshit on this one. 42%? yeah right. Maybe parents checking up on their kid's habits but even then I can't see almost _half_ of the world's internet users using another person's account.
But that's the thing, the poll doesn't infer that it's all web users, just people that visit that website. The write up is incorrect.
This is so lame I'm having a hard time not laughing. Is this the best we can get? How does this tripe pass the test to be posted on slashdot, and not in the idle section?
Had a girlfriend who turned out to be promiscuous. She used the same password for everything, or a very small variation. (1-2 characters)
I helped her out with her bills from time to time, and upon returning to Afghanistan (after a horrible R&R due to her promiscuity) I mass-messaged everyone on her Yahoo Messenger with a message that accurately portrayed her character resulting in some fun phone calls for her.
I believe that this was very ethical and appropriate for the relationship. The other option of over-drafting her checking account by paying her credit card would have been extreme.
does bugmenot count?
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Four out of five /. users know the passwords for eighty percent of their friends or family and probably could hack the rest if the other twenty percent didn't use a master password to protect their other passwords.
Sig this!
Like all surveys that want to portray a 'shocking' result, it all comes down to the wording of the questions. It is very easy to get a respondent to tick yes on a question that asks "do you log in to other people's accounts" by first baiting them with a whole bunch of rubbish like "do you help others with their IT issues" and so on.
Without the actual survey, the results are, in my opinion, just as good as made up.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
I once logged onto a friend's dating site account by guessing what her password would be (her dog's name -- my first guess) just to teach her a lesson about choosing passwords wisely.
In retrospect, that was a pretty dicky thing to do, even though I did nothing other than log in and then tell her about it. (Of course, she promptly changed her password to one I didn't even try to guess. Her cat's name, probably.)
because the story doesn't really tell how many of 42% of users were granted the passwords earlier. I mean if husbands and wives go into each others accounts or if someone has given her password earlier to someone and this person logs into her account later on without her knowledge, this action can't really be constituted as invasion of privacy, because the password was granted. IMHO anyways...
I did it only once on my ex's mail account after her casual mentioning of "that guy" became more than casual. It turned out she had sent her nude pics to him and was enjoying pleasuring herself naked in chatrooms. She saw it as just harmless attention whoring which she enjoyed but it was over between us. Ethical? No. Effective? Fuck yes.
to always check her account and delete mail from other guys before she reads them.
Fortunately for me, all of them are such jerks!
Blame the retarded submitter and the EDITARDOR that passed this one to the FRONT PAGE. Man this is awful, the summary doesn't even come near the actual topic; some web site's poll results of 300 people. THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW GUYS! I'M GOING TO CONFRONT MY FRIENDS RIGHT NOW! It's fair to say that the rest of the "Web Users" and "Internet users" aren't doing what is being reported here as "news".
Is it just me or is Slashdot *changing*?
I once had to do this. Some idiot on MySpace set their account to use one of my email addresses. Repeated requests to Myspace went unanswered, so I just used the password recovery tool to change it and promptly deleted his account. Problem solved.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
How many of survey respondents were logged into someone else's account and answering that way to make them look bad?
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Seriously, besides by local logins (and keepass password), all my other passwords are random hashes stored in keepass.
Of course, I'm tied to keepass, but I figure since it's ported to all my systems up to and including my cell phone, I'm not too worried.
42%?
Please. Delete this right away. did you mean 4.2%?
Online surveys should NEVER be taken seriously. At BEST they can only be taken as an interesting side note. Drawing conclusions from an entirely self-selecting group is one of the worst statistical methods possible.
Which one of you got hold of CmdrTaco's password and posted all these lame stories?
Have gnu, will travel.
Hey please check my email for me. If I have any new mail, please copy/paste the contents here. My password is 'iamalazybum'. Thank you very much kind sirs.
slashdot rocks
I read my girlfriend's e-mail and facebook messages without her knowledge. I'm not making any excuses, I know it's completely wrong.
I wish people would stop using Anonymous Coward's account. He doesn't even have a password!
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
I have sex with two new women every day.
I can't believe this. They say that 42% of the people that they asked had used another person's password or account. And the people asked are all internet users.
It is a logical fault to assume from these two statements that 42% of all internet users have used another person's password or account for unethical purposes.
What was the sample audience? Were they all students simply using each other's common passwords to peek into each other's love notes? The article gives that impression and then posts a headline that implies that 42% of ALL INTERNET USERS are dangerous highly-advanced techno-crackers who can and would empty your bank account at any time that they would choose.
Another example of deliberate media exaggeration and fear-mongering over an activity that, when examined, turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. Is Fox News behind this? Or just some schmuck desperate for a story to file?
Crying wolf destroys the perception of journalistic integrity for everyone.
I consider myself quite an expert on this... first I phished some orkut accounts back when they were separeted from gmail. then used said accounts to harass my ex-girlfriend by telling her how much I love her.. (see, harass, irony...). then I created several different hotmail and orkut accounts to keep her from blocking me while digging information on her. then I found where she worked, and thru sheer l33t skills I discovered her email address at work. her home address I already had. using the orkut information I also uncovered lots of pics of here with the other dude (who isn't with she anymore). using this work to spread my love was not very welcomed, and she threatened to go to the police... the worst part is that even then she wouldn't talk directly to me ! she threatened me thru my family ! the nerve... .. mwhwahahahahaha
and now I promised to let her be.. for now
also, with another chick I pwned her hotmail account using nothing but l33t skills and information found on her orkut page. I logged into her messenger and spread lies about her. then I changed the password and to top it all I confessed ! and she liked that I had the balls to do that!
ah, and don't worry, my psychiatrist already knows all of this and after my treatment I am much better now
I disagree. Reading someone else's diary is on the order of friendship treason. If I kept a diary and someone read it without permission, I'd never speak to that person ever again. Ok, well I might yell a few expletives, but that's about it.
Of those 42%, how many are aware that technically they could be prosecuted under various laws regarding hacking and system intrusion? They could go to jail. It's highly unlikely, of course, but if they get caught in the wrong situation by the wrong prosecutor, it could happen.
A friend of mine and I have shared passwords for years (we used to just log in to each other's email to read sets of messages (stupid, I know)). The thing is just that we never record the passwords and mine have become really complex over the years so he never bothers to remember them. The end result is that I know all of his passwords and he knows none of mine. :-D
I wonder what percentage of that 42% use BugMeNot.Com or gave their answer based on their usage of that site.
I do this several times a day - I have nice spammers / scammers that join my community site and they stupidly use the same password as their webmail.
I very nicely go in, leave one of my standard vacation messages telling they've been the victim of a scam, change the password recovery information and password. They I usually report them to their ISP, with Yahoo and Hotmail it normally goes unanswered, so at least I know if I've protected 1 person from getting scammed, it's worth my time - it's amazing that people, despite all the publicity are STILL scammed, some would argue they deserve it, but now I have a young daughter, naivety is sometimes a nice thing!
Oh and for those that think it's naughty for me to login via their account details - it's in my terms of membership - if you're a scammer/spammer, then you permit me to login and do the stuff I do...
Since 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, wouldn't it also follow that 42% is the universal statistic?
.. many people in the polls are simply show offs, hoping to be labelled as hackers, not that hacking is a good thing, but you know... "Have you ever access someone else's email without their knowledge?" "(with a proud smirk) sure!!"
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I just hacked into the Anonymous Coward account
At my job, we have a secure database where each person has their own credentials to get in. As a troubleshooter for my work site, I have an administrative set of credentials that allows me to access everyone's records in case they run into problems that they want me to fix. The system logs changes to the records, so if they change something it tracks to them, and if I change something in their records it tracks to me.
My administrative credentials are not under my control, i.e. I can't set my own password. The people at the next level up can do this, but I cannot.
This seems wrong to me, but when I try and explain this to people they don't see the same issue that I do. Namely, a password is pointless if someone else knows it. Whatever my superiors can do with my login, they can just as well do with theirs. I've known them for a while and have no reason to suspect any malfeasance, but that's not how you design security.
My sister is in a similar situation at her work where the IT department determines everyone's passwords. I was trying to convince her that this was less than ideal, and she just boggled at me. She works in politics and there's a lot of potential for spying from a rival party. If IT sets and can retrieve anyone's password (which they can in this instance), they could easily frame someone else for this kind of espionage by impersonating them. That's not to mention that if passwords are stored someplace on the system in an easily readable format, that's certainly a flaw in the security design.
Maybe I'm alarmed over nothing, but I don't think so.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
It's times like this when I'm glad I don't have any friends.
Am I the only one who has noticed the 42. 42 is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is identity fraud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything
So THAT's the question to the ultimate answer!
was this done to watch what the girlfriend is doing in their room while not there???
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these two things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
I think those numbers are high, but I can understand it if they aren't. They mirror the divorce rate numbers.
Here's my tale of woe:
I feel horrible. I broke my own morals during my divorce. My ex threatened to have a PI follow me and just having that possibility hanging over my head ate away at me. I can justify it, but it still wasn't right...I gained access to her emails just to see if she was spying on me...it sucked.
All it did for me was make me feel worse about myself.
To anyone thinking about doing the same, I strongly recommend not doing it. Even if it wasn't against the law, nothing good is going to come from it. It won't make breaking up easier.
Over the years I've had many people come up to me and ask me how to do such things, I've always told them not to try....for one thing it isn't admissible in court and another it won't make you feel any better.
I know...I've been there and done it...I regret it and wish I could undo it. Now I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life. A divorce is a major life event and emotions run high.
My one advice for anyone going through a divorce is to not do anything that you will feel bad about years later and by that I mean don't break any moral codes that you would have had during the good years.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
42% of responses to a online poll on internetevolution.com clicked in the affirmative.
If CowbowNeal was an option it would have only been 15%.
I do it for my kids. I am the one that can fix settings for them in their web mail accounts from school. I can manage their school lunch money better than they can. I can manage their bank accounts online. I do it for my parents. They live with me a few months out of the year but I pay their bills when they are away the other 10 months a year. I log on to their bank account and pay their bills. I think it is all in the context. My parents don't know I logged into their bank account (and my son's for that matter) and paid bills and transferred funds around. So technically I did it without their knowledge but not without their permission. The question was asked, without their knowledge. I know a lot of spouses that check their hubby's or wifey's email for them.
username: username
password: password
how many websites can be gotten into with this simple combination is astounding....
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
I know most of my family members' passwords. I've also logged into someone's facebook account because the browser remembered their password and poked all 300~ of their friends. It was kind of funny... next time they logged in they had a few hundred return pokes, IIRC. Fun harmless stuff for the most part, but yeah, I'm part of that 42%.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
are saved quiet often. It reminds me of my sister who being the bright one she is left her facebook open at the Apple store. For several days people kept changing her status, some of them quiet humerous I have to add. Eventually someone kind enough changed her status to state that she shouldn't leave facebook open at the Apple store. Apparently she merely closed the browser thinking somehow that would fix the issue. I had to explain to here she needed to clear the cookies and temp files is she was doing this on a public machine. Then I scolded her for even logging into an app like that on a public machine. Yeesh.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
Agreed that this is bullshit, but the wording and context were not misleading. FWIW, here's the original poll in its entirety.
Of course, this is some shitty little website doing a poll of it's own readership, with less than 400 total replies. Given the sample size, I'd say these results are even more useless than a Slashdot Poll... which I suppose would require some negative amount of usefulness.
Some Jackhole was using my account to make some pretty vile remarks. The odd thing is, I don't know who, or how they got my password.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If other workplaces are like mine, I suspect it's more likely most of them are stupid people forgetting to log out and stupider people not bothering to log in under their own accounts. "Gee, I wonder why aunt Mary never replied to my eMail?" while elsewhere, "Who IS this aunt Mary and why would I want more of her chicken soup?" Sorry if I seem misanthropic, but I work with stupid people. Sadly, these days a degree no longer guarantees intelligence on the part of the holder.
...they are called WIVES!!!
Joe Investor
This story clearly wasn't posted because an intelligent person decided other intelligent people would find it worthwhile. I like how "An anonymous reader writes" it. If samzenpus is trying to bone Nicole Ferraro, he's a snake, and I hope Nicole Ferraro finds out how inappropriately he acted. Is it hard to find good slashdot editors? They are the foundation of the site. They keep the worthwhile members around.