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.

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

[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

[corbettw]

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

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.

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: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.

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.

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.