Imposters continue

[Jicarilla]

Yet again there is a user who feels the need to impersonate another user by registering a similar name and waiting until it turns grey before using it. In this case, dotjhawks was used on Homers People and Places thread, this was an imposter but the actions were so calculated. What security is there on this site? Should usernames not be checked before the name is activated?

[jno]

report them when you see them. They can be hard to spot sometimes. But there's really no way of pre-checking; after all, imposters can sign in under different email addresses each time if they want.

[Jicarilla]

Yes jno I understand that, but surely to use such a similar user id should trigger alarm bells somewhere? In this case there was obviously a malicious intention to cause trouble. Whilst there is no way of stopping a person who has access to several email addys, my point is that all applications should be checked manually and a 24 hour waiting period allowed to ensure this impostering does not continue.

[jno]

Good idea. Perhaps too time-consuming, I don't know, but it'd be worth it.

[Jicarilla]

Time -consuming initially, but how long does the AB editorial team spend checking these things out? Prevention at the outset may well save more problems at a later date. How technologically difficult would it be to install a programme on here that can select a user id based on words selected by the user? That is how Yahoo and others do it, rather than the users selecting their own ID. This may sound too elaborate for the obvious simplicity that Crystal Guides has tried to maintain on the site I suppose.

[jno]

I'm not sure there is an AB editorial team - just the AB Ed and a few techies and salespeople, I believe. (And I don't know if this is the only site they run.) Nobody after hours. Thing is, users know other users better than AB Ed does: you spot dotjhawks at once if you've talked with her before, AB Ed might not. Hence the reporting function, to bring it to editorial attention. In fact, it looks as if it took only a handful of reports to get him off screen, so you could say that self-regulation of the site is working.

[Redbel]

Evening Jicarilla and jno.......I know people have tried to come up with answers to put a stop to the imposter thing, I don't know that much about ISP's and such like, but I know the police can trace people using the ISP address, couldn't AbEd do the same thing, I know it's time consuming, but if Ed said they where going to start doing something like this, maybe it would stop the imposters.....as I said, I'm not too sure about ISP's.. I'll apoligies now if that sounds daft....

[Jicarilla]

It is very sad Bez that any of this is necessary, what on earth do these imposters think is the point to all of this? To think that the site has to put up with this type of threat is quite disturbing.

[jno]

used to be worse when the font was different and you could actually make your name look identical to someone else's because big i's and little L's were the same, and 0s and Os. Couldn't tell Jicarilla from JicariIIa. Now you can as a username, though not in the text of a post.

[Jicarilla]

Mysteriously enough jno you are right, I cannot tell the difference! Are they different?

[jno]

Jicarilla
JicariIIa
JicariIla
JicarilIa

if you cut and paste those into notepad or similar, you'll see they're all different!

[Jicarilla]

That's not working for me jno! I have copied and pasted into my notepad but they do all look identical.

[jno]

goodness - they show up completely different on mine. Wordpad maybe? You could do it on Word and choose some font that clearly distinguished i's and L's ... but anyway, each one has a different arrangement of these 2 letters, so all would register as acceptable usernames that hadn't been used before and yet look identical. Fortunately they changed the font for usernames after the last big imposter outbreak.

[Jicarilla]

That is quite amazing but very alarming. I wonder if any of these imposterers are working in the banking industry?

[Redbel]

I was just sitting here thinking about what I said about the ISP thing...Would the Ed know your ISP when you sign up?.....If so couldn't they make a log....and if certain ISP's come up all the time,using different Usernames they could tell that person that they have contacted the ISP, or that the ISP that they have used will be contacted.

[Jicarilla]

I think the ISP is different to your email address, for instance a Hotmail addy can be obtained no matter what ISP you use, I don't know if the ISP can be identified via an email address. Someone else may, but if it was, I don't think a provider like BT would be bothered, though it would be great if they were.

[jno]

dunno BEZ... <coughs discreetly to hide total ignorance of techie things> but I suppose you could always just switch to your mate's computer or the one on the next desk at work and it would register with a different number. hmmm... perhaps I shouldn't be handing out lessons in lawbreaking here. Time for bed!

[Redbel]

Night jno...... bet i know what jim jams your wearing tonight..... the ones with the arrows.... ;-)..

[noxlumos]

Or use a proxy server.... problem is that the police will only bother with IP addies if you're Ronnie Biggs and even if answerbank started meticulously keeping records, changing your IP is as easy as saying one, two, three, hence all the problems ebay have with shill bidding etc. I think we all just need to be vigilent. People usually let themselves down and don't speak like the person they are trying to immitate and are usually fairly easy to spot. nuxlomus

[qapmoc]

Hi Bez, the IP address thing would not work because most dial-up or home ADSL connections are assigned an IP address at the time the system logs in, also many ISP such as mine will also change your IP address every few hours, they say it is for your security so that hackers can't easily discover your IP address but it also is quite handy for them to make sure that you can't run a website from home without a fixed IP address.
All this means that when you log in to AB your IP address might always be different every time.

[netibiza]

Who would have thought logging on to AB was so complicated. Let's go back to Pigeon post.