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Privacy Invaded: Warning
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Privacy Invaded: Warning |
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DawnG 
since 2000-06-23
Posts 1494United States 
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I had something really horrible happen to me last night and I wanted to share it with all of you as a warning. I have been trying to make additional friends and finding a significant other. To this end I have been replying to ads on various dating sites. The other day I replied to an ad by a man whose ad caught my eye on one of these dating sites. In my initial e mail to him I gave him one of my e mail addresses outside of the dating site. In his reply e mail to me he gave me his phone number and asked that I call him. Because I felt like he may not enjoy talking online I called him, but blocked my number. When I called him he informed me that he had all sorts of information on me. Upon questioning him further I found that he had a special machine connected to his machine that every e mail sent to him or e mail address he received from any source, this machine would go out and search the net to get ALL the information on that person. This person knew my address, phone number, SS#, all my medical needs, as well as ALL and any online activity I've had over the past 19 months. I wanted to make you all aware that this kind of technology is out there that they can get all this information by your e mail address and tracing it back to my CPU ID #. I have looked up info on this technology and found that even if you have your CPU ID disabled they can hack into your system and obtain your ID. Seems the only way to prevent this *may* be to have a firewall and even then I am not sure if that will help. I will look up the info I found last night again and post it in here for anyone who might want it, or feel free to e mail me. I hope that this information can help just one person not have to go through the fear that I am going through right now. Dawn |
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| © Copyright 2002 Dawn - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Dee Member Elite
since 2000-08-19
Posts 2330Queensland, Australia |
Dawn, I cannot begin to imagine how upsetting this is for you. To know so much about you from the little information you gave. Make sure you give his details to someone else, just to be on the safe side. I hope everything works out ok. Can I have your permission to send this to some friends online, with your name removed of course? Dee I wish you every happiness and may you always have the best of the good things in life. a brand |
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Bec Member
since 2001-02-23
Posts 475Canberra |
Dawn... how awful! I hope you're okay. Maybe you could have a chat to you ISP to see what measures can be taken to protect yourself. They would probably have some ideas that could help you out. Bec  "Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you." |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
Sweetie, I'm so sorry this happened to you. Did he actually repeat back your SSN#? Do you know for a fact he has it? If so, you must contact not only YOUR ISP but his. And I would even contact the police in your area, your state attorney's office and the 'dating' site. There is a remote possibility the man may be harmless but you can't take any chances!! I don't mean to scare you but he could give your SSN# to someone and they could use it to steal your identity and get credit cards and run up huge bills in your name. It does happen! And if there is a free attorney service in your area, or if you know an attorney that will give you some free legal advice, I would go talk to a professional. An invasion of privacy like this is serious business. |
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DawnG
since 2000-06-23
Posts 1494United States |
Thank you all for your replies and concern. I haven't heard anything more from this man after I sent him an e mail asking him to never contact me again, but I still feel violated. May take me a bit to get over it. Dee, yes you have my permission to send my story to friends. I just wanted to warn others that this kind of thing could very easily happen to others. Dawn |
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doreen peri Member Elite
since 1999-05-25
Posts 3812Virginia |
this seems so strange to me... as sharon asked, did this man tell you your SS#? did he tell you your address? if so, and you have his phone number, if it were me, i would call the police. if not, perhaps he's just an internet nut trying to play with your head and make you paranoid if you are truly concerned that this technology is out there and that your privacy has indeed been invaded and that this person has garnered the information he claimed he did, this should not only be reported to the police, but also to the media so that an investigation can take place and to inform the public. |
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gracianna Member
since 2002-02-17
Posts 165A 14 year hell |
wow...that's scary...I'm glad I have a firewall... |
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RosePetal
since 2001-08-26
Posts 2985South Florida |
oh dawn, I'm sorry about what happened! I would definitely report him to the police! There is so much technology these days it's probably very possible for people to get your private info! Just look at the Sandra Bullock movie "The Net" |
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Irie Senior Member
since 1999-12-01
Posts 1493Washington State |
OMG! Thank you for the warning Dawn.... This is shocking!  And I agree with Sharon. A friend of mine has had his identity stollen and it's a living nightmare for he and his wife. He has credit collectors after him for tens of thousands of dollors. And every time he has to PROVE that it wasn't him that made these depts. The police and detectives have been searching for this person now for almost 4 years, and still no luck. Every time they get close, they loose any trail they were on. And what's worse, it's all happening in the same state, and a few times, even the same city. Anyway, I would certainly make a stink about it to everyone I could. Good luck to you and I hope it all works out. And again, thank you for the warning. ~Sheri |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
Well shoot - I sure would call him back Dawn and ask him to prove he has this information to you if you have the nerve, then I would nail his sorry butt to the wall. My son has explained how people can indeed hack into your system if they have the program to do it, and I have something installed here (don't have a clue what it is though). I know this is after the fact, but I know that people do look for companionship through this internet, (I don't believe in it) but that is not to say it isn't okay, but one thing I never, ever do is give anyone my real name, or the email address attached to my isp, but guess Ron knows that though ; I bet. I basically use only hotmail for the internet. Well, I will sit here and wait until our leader shows up with the answer to this one, as I am curious if someone can really invade your privacy that much to obtain all that information about you, and if they can, I would report them all over the place. This doesn't take away how upset you must feel, but perhaps if we get some lessons on internet protection we can at least protect ourselves? "Cybergirls of Passions calling Ron...come in Ron?" LOL ~* Imagination is more important than knowledge *~ |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
I got my son on Yahoo and he gave me this... http://www.zonelabs.com/ go to the bottom and there is a free download if you feel you need this protection. Ron may come and discuss this but Todd said that if you set the security too high they are going off all the time. I was told a good way to tell if someone is hacking into your computer is if suddenly the light (on the CPU) is madly blinking away when you are not doing much and continues for a time, that is a good sign that someone is in your CPU. Is that right Ron? ~* Imagination is more important than knowledge *~ |
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epoet Member
since 2000-05-11
Posts 291grand rapid,MI, usa |
Wow, what can I say. Firewalls are a very effective way of keeping unwanted visitors out of your system and data. The two that I've found to be the best at this are Mcaffee's and Black Ice. The settings can be personalized on both of these programs to any height but would reccommend you set it at the next to highest level. Otherwise any time something goes out of your system you will get a blink from the machine P. J. Kotrch |
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NapalmsConstantlyConfused
since 2001-05-15
Posts 529 |
actually in all honesty, it's very very easy to get someone's personal information online, without even doing anything even vaguely illegal. HOWEVER, what this guy was doing IS illegal. if he gets it from any other source than your machine, basically, unless he accesses THOSE machines in an illegal fashion, it's legal - but getting the information from YOUR machine is not just sorta but jail-time type illegal. sadly, there are literally hundreds of programs that can allow a malevolent computer user to view private data on your computer, as well as do lovely things like open / close you cd drives, cause unauthorized accesses to your hard disks, change your desktop, and give you the infamous Blue Screen Of Death. there are ways around this. ZoneAlarm, as mentioned earlier, is free, and pretty good; the only disadvantage it really has is that it doesn't bother to tell you what IT's doing, so if you, like me, are wary of letting anything you don't completely understand run on your machine, it's not so good. i personally use BlackICE defender Pro; it not only blocks access attempts from the outside to my computer, but also logs the IP addresses and whois lookup info for anyone who tries to access my machine - kind of like caller ID for computers. which, of course, let's you report them to their ISP much more easily. if you want to learn a whole lot more about computer security, and you don't mind consorting with questionable people, Astalavista Security Group is a crew of (relatively) white-hat hackers that try to keep people informed of security vulnerabilities in their operating systems, and how to prevent hacker access; it's a good site to read up on. -Dave "FIAT LUX!" -God also, as a post-script, now that i think of it, if you talk to a guy in yahoo messenger or icq and he's giving you hell, open a command prompt (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> MSDOS prompt or "command prompt" depending on your OS version) and type netstat -n to get a list of all open IP addresses - this will list EVERY computer that is currently connected to yours. write down the individual strings of numbers - usually in the following format: "10.10.45.2:80" next, type ipconfig -all to see a list of way more stuff about your internet connection than you need to know. the numbers there that you're interested in are the ones for your DHCP server, and your DNS servers, and if your computer is using WINS that server too. no, you don't need to know what they mean, just look for the labels. compare the numbers there with the ones in the list from netstat, and cross off any duplicates. what's left, should be the IP address of your harasser. then go to Network Tools and put the IP address (just the 10.10.45.2, not the :80 part) in the box right above the Submit button, then click Submit. Give it a second to run. this will give you his computer's identifier, then you can go look it up with his ISP  now, when he sez "your home address is:" you can say "yeah, well yours is:" and give him a link to mapquest image of his house. ( Mapquest is here.)Go Get 'Em. -Dave (again) [This message has been edited by NapalmsConstantlyConfused (03-20-2002 01:37 AM).] |
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