Private or Public Forum? The dangers of scams

[Melvin England]

I agree, Maurice. I also think Tom has made a very valid point about revealing names and locations to none members. Although I think restricting it to administrators isn't the road to go down, possibly only the name and location to be revealed to JUST signed up members only?

Just a thought.

(Don't forget, though, that at the end of the day it is our own decision to reveal location as I don't think it is mandatory)?????

[Tom Photiou]

Graham had good valid points as does Melvin, thank you, i do get that there probably isn't such a thing as privacy on the net, however, we dont need to hand information to scammers and scum via lists of everyone together with being able to go in and look closer, the less information you leave the harder it is. you wouldn't leave your house unlocked would you?
As you said Melvin, it is our own decisions to go onto the forums, whatever they may be, however, all those years ago when we joined perhaps we wernt quite so aware as we are now, not to mention how much more advance the scammers are these days. Again, i would agree, a complete listing of names is not a good thing in any format.
There will always be a split between what we all think, private or public, but i know from what I've been told that private is always more secure, it's open to members only and not the millions who can look in. At the end of the day, when someone in an IT company talks to me and tells me his views and why, i know who i would trust as far as internet security is concerned.

[Osi Osgood]

Though I don't agree with private forums, I do think that each and every person should self educate as to scammers and how they work, and they do tend to be very clever. In fact, I learned a lot more about how clever scammers are, and I thought I was already pretty much in the know as to how they work.

[Lee Mannering]

Having been scammed I would welcome the additional privacy.
Lets face it, if someone joins they will probably have something to say rather than just trawling this web site gathering information and contributing nothing. Is it not a two way street of you get out what you put in?
Just a personal view..

[Tom Photiou]

Very true Lee, another thing for the administrators to check is IP addresses, some members will have multiple user names, in other words, join several times under different names, checking the IP addresses should pick this up.
As a good friend of mine pointed out, regarding the scam email recieved, if the receiver looked at the raw code of the email it would show a sender IP address in the header - he could then give this to Doug to look through the membership to make sure it was not an inside job i.e. a Forum member which would explain how they got that persons email in the first place.
I'm sure my friend wont mind me sharing this, however, this is what i'm talking about. I do get that being a private forum doesn't necessarily mean everyone's protected, they arnt, but they are certainly much better protected. Theres a lot of weirdos out there, & i aint the first one to say that.

[Osi Osgood]

Another thing I would highly endorse is, if you do business with anyone on this forum or otherwise, do all your sharing of private information over the private messages that you can do. Still, no sharing of bank account numbers. A person could get ahold of your password to this forum and have access to that critical info. Changing of passwords is, of course, a wise thing to do. Best to keep the messages to only confirmation of payments only.

[Brad Miller]

I'll quote a few snippets here and there because I don't have the time to literally answer every single comment made. Please do not take my responses as any sort of attack on any member. I am overwhelmed with work right now and just need to rattle a response off as quickly as possible, but don't want to discount the concern into a quick and dirty 2 sentence answer. To do this quickly means I am just going to use my super fast typing skills to effectively type my sometimes snarky, and often sarcastic personality direct into text. Hopefully it reads right so nobody gets their feathers too ruffled, because I'll likely be displaying a smirk and a wink during most of this. The personality of my response isn't intended to create an argument. It is intended to point out when something is blown out of proportion.

one of the problems here is simply, everyone registers with their real names, this leaves leaves every member, in my opinion, wide open, to the whole world reading this forum, (i know its a bit late having been a member for XXXX amount of years) but reading recent threads makes you realize, not being private members only does leaves you wide open.

Unfortunately your opinion needs a reality check. If you think your NAME is going to cause you to be scammed, it's time for you to realize that the problem is someone being gullible to a scam, not THE single most commonly known thing about you ("your name"). Case in point I think I got the first email amongst the members here from Osi's email virus. I didn't want to offend him in case by chance the story in there was actually legit, but it stank of a scam from the first email. After carefully replying 3 times to validate if it was really Osi or a virus/hacking program, it became obvious to me it was a scam, so I sent him a private message here on the forum and as I expected, he replied back with having no idea that a virus had gotten access to his email credentials (or directly into his email program) and was sending these emails trying to get people to send money.

That being said, your name is Tom Photiou. How exactly does this give me access to your email server, username and password? I see here on the forum that's your name, but by your logic, that would give a scammer what they need to have sent out these emails using his account that they took over. So I tell you what, my name is Brad Miller. Please go ahead and log into my email server and send out some emails for me. You already have my name, so you're all set, right?

Nope. Knowing my name doesn't get you one damn bit of anything.

Let's look into the seriousness of people knowing your name a bit more. You do realize every time you use a credit card to buy a drink at a gas station, that kid behind the counter now has access to your name, right? (Plus he can see your car's license plate!) Anyone that opens your postal mail box and peeks in now not only knows your name, but with little effort can learn where you bank and companies you do business with. When you get your haircut, not only do people working there as well as the other people waiting for their haircut learn your name, but they generally know your phone number too (at least in my area of the world the hair salons all identify people by their phone number). What about when you take your car in for repair? Once again, everyone involved in your car repair that works there along with the other waiting customers now know your name once they call your name on the speaker announcing that your vehicle is ready.

My point is, if you are afraid of your own name becoming known by others, you really just need to shut your computer off right now and go throw it into a lake and never, ever, ever get on the internet again. This means you should also never use a cell phone again too, because cell phones CANNOT BE TURNED OFF! Sure you can power the phone off, but you DO realize it is STILL ON and the mic is still able to listen and report back to the mothership, right? (Remember, the only way to totally turn off the phone is to remove the battery...but how many of you have phones that you can remove the battery on?)

Have you never been sitting around talking about something in a room only to find the next time you log onto the internet to see youtube is now recommending videos based upon that topic? And google suddenly starts displaying ads for that item? If you want something to be paranoid about, THAT is something to be paranoid about. That is called "targeted ads", and it is intended to be an innocent way to maximize advertisements, so the user doesn't see ads for things that don't interest them. However because the phones are ALWAYS listening, there is admittedly a potential for even your private conversations at home when you have your phone turned off "getting out". That's how Alexa and Siri works too. Your phone microphone is on 24/7 and capturing. The official reason is so it can learn your accent better to become better at following commands, but your conversations are also being analyzed to figure out what ads to target at you. Sure when your phone is "turned off" it isn't actively transmitting the data, but once you turn it back on it does the upload in the background. Look it up!

The point to be made here is that your name is the absolute least of ANY potential problems. This is simply a fact, and it really is indisputable.

Some say public allows more people to see it, but i think if anyone is in the least bit interested, they would join a private forum anyway, it would be free to join, and only member will see it and you sign certain clauses and responsibilities of use.

Exactly...because anyone who wants to pull some sort of scam would NEVER EVEN CONSIDER ticking the "terms of use" box and registering anyway. This is like how in the US some businesses are starting to require proof of vaccination. Have you SEEN any of the "Karen" and "Anti-Masker" videos here in the US? Do you REALLY think these people won't just photoshop a vaccination card? In fact, there are already websites SELLING fake vaccination cards! There is no "terms of use" that exists that will stop people from lying.

And if people actually read when they registered, we wouldn't have to reject half of all new registrations because they didn't read the short and simple text on the registration page telling them to use their real name.

If a forum is public as this is, then im guessing that the forum owners/administrators have a huge responsibility. Should people get scammed they could be open to liability.

Time to learn the law! No we do not have a responsibility. Nobody is forcing anyone to participate here and no money is exchanging hands, nor are we making any money from ad revenue, etc. Just like every single document you sign for just about anything, every single app you put on your phone, every piece of software you have ever used, and even just registering your Windows or Mac operating system or getting a new cell phone, you are solely accepting all responsibilities legally.

Mr. Williams for recent examples go here...etc, etc, etc

David, those email scams and viruses you linked to have absolutely NOTHING to do with this forum. This forum simply alerted others about them circulating. No offense intended, but you really need to understand the difference here. If you don't understand the difference, what if I was to say you caused me to choke on some food I was eating, because I ate my sandwich just after reading your post? Why would that be your fault? They have nothing to do with each other. It's an absurd example, but it's the same thing.

another thing for the administrators to check is IP addresses, some members will have multiple user names, in other words, join several times under different names, checking the IP addresses should pick this up.

It is near-effortless for people to change their IP address now. This is the very first thing any half-way legitimate scammer learns first. Logging IP addresses USED to work 20 years ago, but not anymore. Similarly you can clear the cache and cookies on your computer every hour if you want to, but that can't clear the data from "the cloud" in 2021. Everything you do on the internet is logged and you need to use the internet knowing that. At some point a hacking group like "anonymous" is likely to expose it publicly.

Continued on the next post > > >

[Brad Miller]

< < < Continued from previous post

The bottom line here guys is that you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Or simply put, don't be a fool. Are you the kind of person that posts photos on facebook "Bob is dining at McDonald's"? Guess what, THAT is dumb! Not only is it creating boring content that others now have to scroll past, IF YOU ACTUALLY DID HAVE someone following you with the plans to break into your house, they now know they have a window to do so while you are stuffing your face at McDonald's. This example is even worse when you post your vacation pictures WHILE YOU ARE ON VACATION. DON'T DO THAT!!! All that does is alert anyone that IS actually stalking you with plans on breaking into your house that you are currently out of town, state, or country and they can take their sweet ass time!

How about the cloud? Does anyone use "the cloud"? You do realize that "the cloud" is just a pretty way of saying "someone else's server", right? When you signed up for "the cloud", you gave up all rights and freed the company of all responsibilities that is holding your personal, and often private data. So what happens when these "clouds" get hacked? Well I've got news for you, when the cloud that is storing YOUR data gets hacked, you won't give a flippidy doo dah about them knowing your name. You will be worried about all of your other data that is now out on the loose!

As long as we are talking about foolish things, how many of you actually make it a point to completely disable the GPS on your phone? If you don't, every step you take is tracked and logged. Same goes for the photos you take on your phone. Newsflash, there are free websites that you can upload a photo to which will extract the LOCATION DATA of the photo and show you EXACTLY (to within a few feet) on a map, as well as providing the address, of where that photo was taken. It will even include things like shutter speed, the specific camera used, the date and the exact time the photo was taken. So how many of you are guilty of sharing photos on facebook of your home screening room? You DO realize with that little bit of info, anyone can lift the photo and look at that embedded data to see the exact position of your home on this planet, right? Did you know that works for videos too? Well, it does.

This makes me wonder how many people here actually don't put one hand over the other when entering a PIN number at a store to conceal which buttons are being pressed? When you just stick a finger out and enter your PIN, it is EASILY seen from a distance because everyone knows the order of the numbers! (This is why the "Lockly" line of locks is a spectacular design, as the screen moves the keypad numbers around each time.)

And by the way guys, stop using your card as a debit card. Use it as a CREDIT CARD. That way you NEVER have to enter your PIN number where it could be seen or someone could come up behind you and use one of those heat sensors to see which 4 buttons your fingers just pressed. For further info on why debit cards are bad, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ga-M2CpRgY

So let's not worry about people knowing precisely where you live, when you are not home, and all sorts of other personal data down to your bank account statements and so forth. The point of this thread is how horrific it would be if someone learned what your NAME was! So...is anyone starting seeing the absolute ridiculousness of this concern yet?

But let's get back to that naughty word REALITY for a moment. These 8mm films may be YOUR most cherished possession, but to a thief, trust me, they are worthless. Don't believe me? Take one of your films to Wal-Mart and stand outside all day long and try to sell it to a stranger. Nobody is interested. It is far too niche of a hobby. A robber will go for your flat panel television or your computer because THAT is something they can sell and get a decent amount of cash for. A robber is NOT going to steal something he likely doesn't even know what it is, because they need items that are "quick cash / instant turnaround" items to sell. Imagine how difficult it would be to sell a Raiders digest in 2021! Pretty much the only interested people are right here on this forum, and if someone here was burglarized, they would most certainly post about it and then when those titles started to appear, there would be extremely good odds that the police would be able to catch the guy due to the oddity and rarity of the stolen items being sold. Criminals are WAY smarter than you think. They won't take non-mainstream things like that in the first place.

Everyone must remember that making this site "private" will accomplish nothing but kill participation.

First off, nobody likes to sign up for new websites only to find there is no content there of interest to them, so when someone comes across a "members only" website, MOST of them simply move onto the next website because it is likely a waste of their time to sign up AND every website you sign up for increases the chances that it is ran by scammers that will mine your data and sell it (despite what their "privacy statement" might declare).

Second, any "evildoer" will simply register and then have full access to the same (generally useless) data that they have access to now.

The FACT is that if anyone on here gets scammed, it is virtually guaranteed to have been from a virus on their computer or other scam TOTALLY UNRELATED to this forum, just as these 2 other threads being discussed here had nothing to do with this forum. Whether this forum is public or private makes ZERO difference in anyone falling for a scam. In fact, if we were to make this forum private, that would likely INCREASE the odds that people would be open to more scams! This is because people would then have a "false sense of security" and start to post more specific details about things which common sense says should not be posted publicly because in their head they think "oh this is a private forum, so it's safe". It's just like the people that post private stuff on their facebook and say "but my permissions are set so only my family members can see them". Uh huh, yeah, keep telling yourself that!

If everyone remembers only one single point I have to make in this post, remember this. Once you post something on the internet, and I mean ANYWHERE on the internet and REGARDLESS of any sort of membership or privacy settings, you need to understand that for all practical purposes, even if later you go back and delete it, that data IS STILL online in some form or fashion FOREVER! Just think before you do silly things and you will all be just fine.

If anyone just HAS to be paranoid about some conspiracy plan, maybe you should join in with this group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDAZ3wisjMg

As far as this forum, no it will not become a private forum, and it is not open for a vote. Everyone can make their own decisions as to whether to participate or not, and everyone can make their own decisions as to their actions, whether they be intelligent or foolish.

And finally I stress again my apologies if anyone does not "read" my post here in the correct snarky/sarcastic/winking eye tone that I wrote it in. Hopefully everyone can learn to realize that your NAME is the absolute LEAST of your worries in this day and age. It's the OTHER things you do that will get you.

Yes I really do type fast. :P

[David Baker]

Brad , I sooo appreciate what you wrote . Responsibility is everyone's . Lets do this my friends !

[Osi Osgood]

Excellent post, Brad as well as an eye opener about my cell phone, (gasp, didn't know that). If I may reiterate one point Brad made in a much more simplistic fashion, always, ALWAYS be careful what you post, as, as the old saying goes, " Big Brother is watching you", and I am not talking about Brad or Doug. This is why I always think it's assinine when some young lady will post naughty videos or pictures, JUST to they're significant other, and then have the nerve to act surprised when others end up with it. Once again, very well put.

[Tom Photiou]

Cheers for the response Brad, many points answered, i suppose in a nutshell, for me at least, being open rather than private simply makes it more easy to access for far too many people, i get your answer, i agree that obviously, EVERYONE should be more careful, especially when announcing payments being made, (thats what PMs are for), but when an IT company tells me private is much more secure, then i go with what they say. This thread is me asking after conversations with others, i dont give a dam having been on here and elsewhere for years, but I've learned a quite a bit in a short time on this.

Not sure what "some conspiracy plan" is all about, conspiracy wasn't mentioned by me, thats the weirdos of the world.

[Maurice Leakey]

I would like to suggest that Brad's excellent posting should now bring this topic to a close.

[Tom Photiou]

Im happy with that.

[Douglas Meltzer]

The motion is carried.