E-mail addresses.

[Praefectusclassis]

NOTE: RAT is visited by bots every day and while they cannot see information you put in your profile, they CAN see (like anyone) the information you put in your posts. Therefore, it is HIGHLY recommended you refer other posters to your profile for your email address or hide it from bots by replacing @ by AT or NOSPAM. Some bots, however, see through that too. So the message is: [size=150:1i6frmdr]BE CAREFUL SHARING YOUR MAIL ADDRESS![/size]
Remember, RAT members can always email you through the email button in your profile, you do not need to give them your email address!

[Andrew]

Please excuse my ignorance but what exactly is a 'BOT'?

Andrew. :?

[Cornelius Quintus]

Ave Andrew,

these 'bots' are programs which automatically search the internet for information. Some are the good guys (collecting news and contents for search engines like google). The bad bots are spies, aiming for personal data like e-mail addresses (which will be at least spammed later with advertising or other worse things...). There also are bots who do not read but write. Bait-postings or again - advertising of a special kind. A lot of guest books suffer from that plague...

[Andrew]

Dear Heiko (Cornelius Quintus)

Greetings from Arabia Felix!

Thanks for your feedback, Interesting,

I guess in this 'information age' we live in - personal information details are worth a premium for advertisers and such.

I lived in Germany for a time also, I wished I'd visited more Ancient sites when I was there! would like to have visited 'Kalkriese' where the battle of the Teutoburg Forest was sposed to take place (not confirmed)

Thanks again

Bis Spater,

Best Andrew.

[Tarbicus]

I guess in this 'information age' we live in - personal information details are worth a premium for advertisers and such.

I'd just like to add that it can be more serious than that, and when Jasper says in his post about email addresses to be careful about putting your entire email address in a post (don't, or alter it for any intelligent person to figure out the alteration, IMHO) that should be taken very seriously.

Not just Spyware or Adware can end up on your machine, but trojans that can harvest your personal information. This can then be used for identity theft for internet fraud and other crime, and you could end up with the bailiffs at the door asking why you didn't pay for the car you bought three months ago in your name and seeking the money in other ways! It's actually more difficult than you think to prove you did NOT buy the car, or were involved in a fraud, if the police have any inclination you did it.

The criminals are getting very sophisticated, and I've heard reports of talented individual programmers and hackers being forced to work for criminal organisations in these scams.

You won't be scammed here on RAT (unless you dumbly respond to one of those spam threads that have been posted here lately), but if you post your full email address in a post you can guarantee you'll get loads of spam. If you open the spam then you will probably end up with spyware on your machine. Spyware is usually just a pain in the neck, but it can be nastier and sit on your machine collecting the details of your credit card transactions. Next thing, you've paid for a new car without knowing it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware

Spyware has principally become associated with identity theft in that keyloggers are routinely packaged with spyware. John Bambenek, who researches information security, estimates that identity thieves have stolen over $24 billion US dollars of account information in the United States alone

[Praefectusclassis]

Tarbi is completely right.
Sensible internetters make sure they have good, up-to-date antivirus software that nowadays often includes protection against spyware and malware. However, no software can protect you against not using your common sense!

[Andrew]

Thanks Guys, certainly worth keeping in mind - could put one off using the net for transactions etc. its a very 'insidious' way people go about extorting others out of their money.

Thx again A.

[Tarbicus]

Here's an example of how to modify your email address for public display:

[email protected]

is better displayed as:

dieallhackers AT hackersarefilth DOT com

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

[email protected]

why do you use my email adress?

:wink:

[JRSCline]

HAHAHA!

Actually it is serious though:

Back in the middle ages of the Internet, I kept my credit card details on file in a large online bookseller's website. Permitting them to keep my details on file certainly caused me to spend significantly more there...

However it was a disturbing surprise when a year later, they wrote an email to all their clients, apologizing for the fact that their cc database had been compromised by unknown hackers.

I suppose that's how I ended up with $2500 hock: charged to my VISA at a Nordstrom's department store in Seattle WA. And meanwhile, I was obliviously living in Germany.

This was my fortuitous alibi when my credit card issuer asked, "And how do we know you didn't make these purchases?" I said, "Well, I'll photocopy my passport for you if you like. I wasn't even in the country, let alone Seattle!"

That shut them up, and the charge was removed from my bill, but I never heard that they ever caught the fraudster...

[M. Demetrius]

Well, I guess I'll just check...I'm good to go!

Nope, no email address displays in my sig or profile. That's better than posting one. Thanks for the warning, though. We all know you love us, Jasper.

[Marcus Julius]

I'd just like to remind people that there is another communications option - the private message system tied to the boards. Send your email address through that system, instead of posting it on a thread. Again, not a 100% measure, nothing on the net is, as a good hacker can still find it. However, if they're that good, I'd like to think they can think of other places to go digging around in.