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."

Comments

(no subject)

[woodchip]

or "auto-saved" in their web browser.

Re:(no subject)

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone consider the method, someone is logged into the internet, yahoo, msn, etc and simply walked away?

then here i come and am surfing away.....
responding like everyone else.

Sharing passwords

[geekgirlandrea]

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?

Re:Sharing passwords

[ceoyoyo]

As a little kid the first thing I did when I learned to program was write some code to ask for passwords.

Apparently I've mellowed. I had a girlfriend who used the key I'd given her to invite herself in and look over my e-mail when I wasn't home. She got dumped. But now I'm thinking it's an excellent test. I have a couple of friends who volunteered to send a couple of... interesting messages as plants.

Re:Sharing passwords

[gregbot9000]

Why not? I give out my passwords to crap like e-bay all the time, to friends who want to sell and to other sites that require membership. It's no big deal.

Honestly, checking someones email is about as morally wrong as reading their diary. Sure it's incredibly rude if you get caught but hardly in the realm of some evil raping of personal space.

Re:Sharing passwords

[Darkness404]

Yes, but it leads to insecurity further down the road. For example, you give your girlfriend (yes I know most /.ers probably don't have one) your password to a social networking site either through an auto log-in browser, or by telling her it. Anyways, 3 months down the road you and your girlfriend break up, so, knowing your password she goes onto your social networking site account and vandalizes it with random crap and perhaps changes the password. Your reputation is ruined.

Re:Sharing passwords

[geekgirlandrea]

You seem to have been interested enough to bother replying.

Re:Sharing passwords

[corbettw]

If your reputation is dependent on a social networking site, you have bigger problems than a vengeful ex.

Re:Sharing passwords

[gnick]

I don't know your dating status and don't care, but those sound like the words of someone who has been and will remain alone. Loss of privacy is at the very core of becoming unsingle. Read his/her emails too.

I feel sorry for you. I've been married eighteen years as of this month and I've never read my husband's email. I also never read his mail unless he tells me to go ahead and open it over the phone. I expect the same the respect for my privacy from him.

That's a great policy, but we play it a little differently. If my e-mail's up on screen, I wouldn't at all be bothered if my wife (11 years) read it. If she snooped and logged in, that might be different. One oddity is that we both use my e-mail for our online accounts (I order more). If she orders something that she doesn't want me to know about, she gives me a heads-up. I forward the receipt without ever reading it and delete my copy. Every once in a while, it's a gift for me =). Other times, I never know what it is or how much it cost us.

No biggie. I love her and I trust her. She trusts me too. She has my passwords and I trust her to use them within the (implied & mutually assumed) limits that we live in. And vice versa.

It's nice. I can't say I've never been burned, but living with somebody you trust is worth the risk of being burned as long as you make good choices.

And snooping is almost strictly detrimental. If you feel the need to snoop, you have another concern to address. I tell the truth so that I can trust. I refrain from snooping so that I can trust that others will respect my privacy. I don't steal so that I don't feel the need to protect my property. Sometimes I get burned, but it's definitely worth it.

Re:Sharing passwords

[Eivind]

There's also the possibility that you actually trust someone. My wife knows the passwords for some of my stuff, simply out of convenience. It -does- happen that she needs some stuff (say pictures) from my laptop and I'm out. The home-partition is encrypted, she knows the password.

I don't see the big deal. I didn't encrypt it to protect it from HER. I encrypted it so that stuff on there stays private even if say a burglar steals the laptop.

Yeah, this means if she likes she can dig around in my firefox-history or whatever. So what ? I trust her. Certainly, it's possible that she'll betray that trust at some point. That's always a risk when trusting people. If that happens though, the privacy of my emails will be the least of my worries.

"Lost my wife, and my gmail-password" -- somehow I don't think the gmail-password is going to be the biggest deal in that context.

Re:Sharing passwords

[blahplusplus]

"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?"

Yes, most people are ignorant and convenience trumps security.

Re:Sharing passwords

[naich]

"...things went all wonky (no sex, she started crying all the time, etc.)"

I was sitting here thinking "that's normal, isn't it?" You wait until you have kids.

Re:Sharing passwords

[Spatial]

Then many people have 'bigger problems'.

Your reputation is dependent on every medium you communicate through. Lots of people have real-life relationships with friends and family mirrored on social networking sites. If someone gets your password and makes fake posts about you coming out as a paedophile, your reputation will be harmed.

Re:Sharing passwords

[4D6963]

I was living with her and things went all wonky (no sex, she started crying all the time, etc.)

Regular boyfriend asks her what's wrong and tries to figure out how she's feeling by talking to her.

Nerdy boyfriend waits till the situation degrades further and sniffs her IM packets to eavesdrop her conversations with her best friend to find out what was going on once it's already too late.

"Without their knowledge..."

[msauve]

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.

Re:"Without their knowledge..."

[srjh]

It may not even be intentional. If I want to check my account on someone else's computer and get auto-logged in to their account, I'll just log them out first and not bother wasting their time by telling them (after changing their status to something mildly embarrassing, of course).

Re:"Without their knowledge..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree with your interpretation. If they grant you permission to access it, then they have general knowledge that you're accessing it even if they're unaware of exactly when. I think that's still sufficient enough to be considered "with knowledge".

girlfriends

[edalytical]

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.

Re:girlfriends

[geekgirlandrea]

So put /home on an encrypted partition and pay attention to your system logs so you know if the machine got shut down while you were away. I think if you're living with a partner who is willing to physically mess with your machines just to read your e-mail, you have bigger problems than keeping your passwords safe anyway.

Re:girlfriends

[houghi]

OTOH if you live with a partner and you do not trust them in so far as that you have to do all those steps, you also have bigger problems.

Re:Insane girlfriends

[Anonymous Coward]

'I knew this chick' = I DID THIS!

Complete nonsense

[e2d2]

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?

Re:Statistically speaking...

[snl2587]

Well, they also say that 75% of all statistics are made up...

Joking aside, there's something to be said for ethics. Sure, I know tons of passwords. But I would never use them without permission or for a reason other than what they were given to me for.

Re:I don't even know my own passwords

[urcreepyneighbor]

Backup your database. Often.

I cry "BS!"

[Simonetta]

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.

relationship issues?

[sckeener]

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.