42% of Web Users Sneak Onto Others' Online Accounts 313
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."
(no subject) (Score:5, Insightful)
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I am the real woodchip and that dangerous hacker has stolen my password.
I am going to call the cops.
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Wait... nevermind.
I'm not going to call the cops anymore. I'm not entirely sure my livestock porn is legal in this state.
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or "auto-saved" in their web browser.
Yea, auto-forwarding someone's gmail is easy as pie.
Gmail should require you to re-enter the account password before allowing an auto-forward address to be saved.
Re:(no subject) (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget to look under the keyboard.
Stolen AC's password... (Score:5, Funny)
but it did take me some time so this is not Frist Post.
Re:Stolen AC's password... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn it. And I worked so hard building up a solid reputation for honesty and rational thought.
Only 42%? (Score:2)
Heck, I'm "sneaking" on this account right now!
Re:Only 42%? (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! take that Vogons..
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It's not really 42% -- 50% of the ones who answered the survey was actually the same person logging into 21% of the accounts.
And it works, too (Score:5, Funny)
I'm actually the one who posted this story.
Re:And it works, too (Score:5, Funny)
-Das Modell
reference [bash.org] in case people think I'm trolling.
That's so true! (Score:5, Informative)
wwrmn molests kittens and has been known to punch puppies.
Sharing passwords (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah right. Just try finding one of those. Of the correct sex.
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And orientation
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:4, Funny)
That part is negotiable. At least partially so.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Funny)
Especially if you're a cunning linguist.
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Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I suppose I shouldn't be assuming which sex is the correct one for you, but from the implication of scarcity I'll go ahead and assume you're a straight male.
Anyway, we *do* exist. Including myself, I know of at least two women who know how to use a packet sniffer. Now, we're both gay, so that doesn't help you very much, but I'm sure there have to be straight geeky women out there.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Funny)
Now, we're both gay
<obligatory>Pics or it didn't happen!</obligatory>
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I actually found pics of this particular Slashdotter after like 3 seconds of Google.
But I'm too scared to post in case she hacks my account. Oooooooooooooh, irony.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Funny)
Confucius say "A gay girl with packet sniffer? Hmmm, something fishy here."
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Anyway, we *do* exist. Including myself, I know of at least two women who know how to use a packet sniffer. Now, we're both gay
Ah, so maybe you do exist, but you're not one of them (geek girls with correct sexual orientation). So it's quite possible that they don't exist after all, if you don't actually know any either...
Oh well, a significant other being able to do the same stuff you are able to do isn't really that nice. Far better if he/she can do different stuff.
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I'm pretty sure all packet sniffers are female.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually caught a previous girlfriend cheating once by using a packet sniffer!
I was living with her and things went all wonky (no sex, she started crying all the time, etc.). One day she went to visit her 'friend' who was flying in, he'd only be on a six hour layover and she was going to keep him company. This is no big deal to me, since I would be expected to be able to do the same.
Long story short, I was learning Wireshark at the time, and was already logging all sorts of traffic from common protocols (DHCP, WINS, AIM, etc.) at the gateway just for fun. A week later when I was going over the logs, now with a bit of curiosity since she was acting very -odd- after her return from the airport, I saw that she started an IM session with her best friend as soon as she got back from her visit. The contents included details on some kissing, and a plan to 'stick with this guy until the other guy is heading out again in six months, then leave with him'.
That relationship ended that night.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh. I've never caught anyone cheating on *me* that way, but I did once use the ULOG target of iptables to help a former roommate catch her boyfriend in adult chatrooms on Yahoo. He was impersonating a black man with an 18-inch penis, and fantasizing about simultaneous penetrating pregnant woman and her unborn fetus, with lethal results for the fetus.
I needed to wash my brain out with bleach after that one. Amazingly, she stayed with him two more years.
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That's disgusting. And I'm not speaking of his very private sexual fantasies, but using packet sniffing intending to "catch" your partner in adult chatrooms. I'm glad that your friend seems more sensible than you.
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"That relationship ended that night."
The look on her face must have been classic. Good for you man!
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"...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.
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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.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:4, Funny)
What are you? Some kind of mutant?
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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.
Well, I have given out my bs password to friends, but I consider the "giving out of password" to be "permission to use it anyplace that I used said password at any time, without having to ask me." I'm not counting on their restraint other than their restraint to not give out passwords to others. If they do, I'll just change the password and not tell them the new one (since it only opens up stuff I don't care about anyway, it wouldn't be that big of a deal). The question is does that study count, "they di
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:5, Insightful)
If your reputation is dependent on a social networking site, you have bigger problems than a vengeful ex.
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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.
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Here's a ker-razy idea;
How about changing the password before you dump her? Since it's the work of 30s or less.
I went one step beyond that. I have an ex who still knows the password to my MSN account, but who assumed that I'd change it so thinks she doesn't. Ultimately, I couldn't care less if she hacks the account, it will be pretty painfully obvious.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:4, Interesting)
According to YOU . I don't give my passwords out to anyone. I catch anyone using one of my accounts I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.
You may not value your privacy, but it is a little bit arrogant and presumptive to assign the same value to everyone else's privacy.
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Moron. One irate girlfriend with access to your password means no more money earning interest in your paypal account, and no more money in your bank account, because she transferred it all to your paypal before she shifted it somewhere else.
Click I forgot my password... and it is emailed to your email account, which she has access to. SO now, she has access to any other account you signed up with, that you used the original email to sign up with.
Sure, in a relationship, there is always a certain amount of
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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.
Re:Sharing passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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If I caught you reading my hypothetical diary, I would inflict considerable bodily harm upon you.
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Sure it's incredibly rude if you get caught but hardly in the realm of some evil raping of personal space.
It is incredibly rude, not to mention unethical, even if you don't get caught. Your comment is rather telling about your own personal sense of ethics though since you seem to think it's not wrong unless someone catches you.
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I would consider breaking into my account to look around worse than just breaking into my appartment to look around.
Exactly. Same here. Breaking into my account and snooping through my files (including 60M of IM logs, e-mail archives going back almost a decade, and probably one or two naughty pics of an ex-girlfriend) would be *much* worse than snooping around my apartment, and probably only a notch or two better than breaking into my *mind* and snooping around.
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BOSCO
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"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.
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"Without their knowledge..." (Score:4, Insightful)
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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).
Coming from an "Educated Tech Readership" (Score:2)
Insane girlfriends (Score:5, Interesting)
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Get real, this is /., no female posts here. Except, um, me. And the woman earlier who claimed to be a lesbian. But other than us, everyone knows that there are no women on /.!
Just did this with family members' GMail accounts (Score:2)
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).
girlfriends (Score:4, Insightful)
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Physical access your local files, yes without a doubt. But your account passwords should be stored in some kind of encrypted file. So even if they remove your drive they'd still need a password to get your saved passwords.
The computer password is really for not allowing someone to use your computer without your permission. Like sitting down at your computer and navigating to Facebook. Not for protecting physical access.
Re:girlfriends (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Um, lots of public computers are likely storing information about your access whether you "allow" it or not. No?
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My ex used to get mad because I absolutely refused to give her any of my passwords besides my WPA password.
Those people annoy. A lot.
She didn't understand security at all. Later I found out she had been reading her boss' private email
That kind of thing lands people in actual jail with actual bars.
I"m glad I don't trust anyone.
I have people I'd trust with every bit of credentials I have, yet I don't give it up to them either. There is simply no need. If it arises, I can reconsider -- or SIMPLY give them their own login.
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.
I don't consider public computers safe, at all. You have no idea what their security policies are, you have no idea who has been tampering with it, you have no idea whether there is a physical keylogger attached somewhere, you
Complete nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Slashdot have a test?
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Slashdot have a test?
Ugh. . . apparently not.
Re:Complete nonsense (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe he are British.
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But, but, but, Slashdot is one big idle section! People have been wasting their time here for ten years!
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I would say only if those 42% use easy to guess passwords or are stupid enough to save the passwords in their web browsers and email programs. Then again if a majority of computer users aren't smart enough to use a hard to guess password and aren't paranoid enough to avoid saving passwords in web browsers and email programs, they deserve to have their significant others snooping around their web and email accounts.
Makes sense to me... (Score:2, Funny)
Since 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, wouldn't it also follow that 42% is the universal statistic?
Good payback (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Bugmenot (Score:5, Interesting)
does bugmenot [bugmenot.com] count?
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Posting to undo accidental moderation (hit 'Overrated' instead of 'Underrated').
What were the survey questions? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Did it to nuke a MySpace account (Score:5, Funny)
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I had to do it repeatedly on Friendster, since a group of friends (no doubt drawn together by their shared interest in being clueless) decided to repeatedly set up accounts using made-up local-parts in a domain I owned... and I had a catch-all on email.
Being given the chance to modify someone's profile on a social networking site, and send any kind of messages to their friends, certainly is good exercise for the ol' creativity.
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A student I failed on a course did that to me once, using my email address to set up a sale on ebay that they then screwed buyers over with, to try and cause me trouble.
I didn't think to use password recovery, but I did send ebay an email detailing the account, and the fraud.
No idea what happened after that, but the emails from 'customers' stopped.
Recursive statistics (Score:2)
How many of survey respondents were logged into someone else's account and answering that way to make them look bad?
I don't even know my own passwords (Score:2)
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.
Re:I don't even know my own passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
Backup your database. Often.
Ok, fess up. (Score:5, Funny)
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who stole Taco's password and posted that one awesome story back in 2002?
And why the hell haven't they done it since?
I keed, I keed. Taco's a very good eidtor.
AC (Score:4, Funny)
I cry "BS!" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Crying wolf destroys the perception of journalistic integrity for everyone.
There's a site for that. [fark.com]
The Law (Score:2)
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.
I have a question then (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
relationship issues? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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4 out of 5 /. ers with high IDs are though.
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