It may be nothing but we could have a security problem on FD

[Narrow Back]

I made Connie aware of this a few days ago. It’s been bothering me a lot. Last night I PM’ed her and said I think I should post something about it. She agreed.

I work in web but I am not a “techy” guy. I do mostly project management and design, as well as SEO. I may be wrong about what I am going to say so I ask that someone who is better with this stuff to correct if I am wrong.

I know for most of us when we login we just need to type in the first letter of our username and the rest of the name automatically spells out from our memory, or cache. I have always thought this information was cached on my computer. It may be that this PHP board is different that way but I doubt it. Even if that is true, this still makes no sense. I am concerned.


Here is what it looks like when I login normally:



The other day I went to login. Recently I have been having a muscle spasm problem with my index finger so I tend to double click when I don’t mean to. Here is what happened when I double clicked in the username box:



Why these names come up, and only these names, is a mystery to me. I have exchanged private PM’s with Connie, Shiva and Hubert but never with pirapoi or Charles White. I MOST CERTAINLY HAVE NEVER TRIED TO LOGIN TO ANYONE'S ACCOUNT BUT MY OWN!

So now I find my mind whirling away with theories. One I can imagine is that these accounts are hacked for private information so malicious rumors can be spread to discredit certain members and sow seeds of mistrust about some FD members here. Or maybe they are looking for identity info. I just don't know.

I am open to any ideas or theories as to what is going on. More importantly I want to warn everyone that if you hear something negative about someone through other members don’t be too quick to believe it. It is no secret FD has many enemies. People speaking the truth always do.

If anyone has had an unusual experience or has been told something about some members that doesn’t sit right, please post what you have heard here. Bringing this into the sunlight could be very helpful.

Thank you for time.

NB

[Red Green]

I just tried and the only thing that came up were my logins to this and other sites. I am however running on a Mac using Firefox.

[Narrow Back]

I just tried and the only thing that came up were my logins to this and other sites. I am however running on a Mac using Firefox.

Thanks for letting me know. I use Chrome and I always use proxy servers. Maybe that is why I am targeted because no one can get my IP.

I hope one of our more skilled FD members can help explain this.


P.S. Styky, would you mind adding 'be' to the title line - it should read "it may be nothing". Old age is catching up to me and I find I am making this sort of mistake too often. Getting old sucks!

[styky]

I just tried and the only thing that came up were my logins to this and other sites. I am however running on a Mac using Firefox.

Thanks for letting me know. I use Chrome and I always use proxy servers. Maybe that is why I am targeted because no one can get my IP.

I hope one of our more skilled FD members can help explain this.


P.S. Styky, would you mind adding 'be' to the title line - it should read "it may be nothing". Old age is catching up to me and I find I am making this sort of mistake too often. Getting old sucks!

I hope that's what you wanted because it's done. If not let me know.
As for logging in I use firefox and I have never had this happen when I log in so I'll watch this thread with interest.

[Narrow Back]

I just tried and the only thing that came up were my logins to this and other sites. I am however running on a Mac using Firefox.

Thanks for letting me know. I use Chrome and I always use proxy servers. Maybe that is why I am targeted because no one can get my IP.

I hope one of our more skilled FD members can help explain this.


P.S. Styky, would you mind adding 'be' to the title line - it should read "it may be nothing". Old age is catching up to me and I find I am making this sort of mistake too often. Getting old sucks!

I hope that's what you wanted because it's done. If not let me know.
As for logging in I use firefox and I have never had this happen when I log in so I'll watch this thread with interest.

Perfect. Thank you very much Styky!

[Charles J. White]

So why is my name coming up? I have a theory based on inside information - and clearly I have rubbed someone the wrong way when I speak about so-called "conservatives"...

Connie this needs to be fixed now

[doggedlyright]

Interesting

For me, I constant delete all cookies, including board cookies (see bottom of the screen when viewing any thread).

When ever I exit FD, I always close down my browser and at that time all cookies and temp files are deleted. I also run disk clean all the time.

As a rule, I never have any system remember me or log me in automatically especially boards like this, newspaper sites, etc.

As a result, I never see what was posted by Narrow Back

[Julian]

I too take a number or measures to prevent eaves dropping and when I log in whether right or left click I get nothing other than what I expect to see.

[styky]

Interesting

For me, I constant delete all cookies, including board cookies (see bottom of the screen when viewing any thread).

When ever I exit FD, I always close down my browser and at that time all cookies and temp files are deleted. I also run disk clean all the time.

As a rule, I never have any system remember me or log me in automatically especially boards like this, newspaper sites, etc.

As a result, I never see what was posted by Narrow Back

I have mine set up to run the same way. When the kid set this up for me he asked...any requests. My only one was not to be memorable.

[Narrow Back]

So why is my name coming up? I have a theory based on inside information - and clearly I have rubbed someone the wrong way when I speak about so-called "conservatives"...

Connie this needs to be fixed now

I want to know that too.

It's very easy to say fix it. If you knew anything about internet security you would know how incredibly complex it is. I took a course once with 4 security experts. My head was swimming at all the possible ways to hack a site and how incredibly difficult it is to protect a site. Think of a castle and all the ways one can break in. Now multiple the possibilities by one thousand. That's what we are looking at here.

[WestViking]

I have tried to duplicate the problem you encountered Narrow Back. I run Windows 7 Pro, with Norton 360 and AdAware for protection. I tried using both Explorer and Firefox but could not get similar results after several log-in attempts. I suspect that the problem may be in your Chrome browser:

Predictions in the address bar

This article applies to the Google Chrome browser on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebooks

When you type in the address bar, Google Chrome can use a prediction service to help you complete the web addresses and search terms that you're entering. For example, typing london in the address bar could bring up http://www.thisislondon.co.uk as a predicted site or [ the city of london ] as a predicted search.

To help you differentiate between web addresses and searches, a search icon appears next to searches in the address bar menu; a suggested sites icon appears next to web addresses.

Unless your default search engine uses a different prediction service, the search terms that show up are the same ones that would show up if you were searching on Google. Learn more about Google's auto-complete algorithm

Disable the prediction service

The prediction service is typically turned on by default. Follow the steps below to turn it off.

Click the spanner icon tools menu on the browser toolbar.
Select Options (Preferences on Mac and Linux; Settings on a Chromebook).
Click the Under the Bonnet tab.
In the "Privacy" section, deselect the "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" checkbox.

Keep in mind that the address bar shows matches from your browsing history, in addition to predictions. If you don't want to see matches from your browsing history, clear your browsing history.

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95656

I suspect that your first instinct is correct; the information is being stored on your machine in the Chrome browser. That would account for the names in your list as they would come up with a 'reply to' on a thread as well as in PMs and searches.

[Julian]

N.B., Brocade makes a product named Silkworm that may be helpful in your quest. I know about this from an article I read yesterday (that I cannot locate now) posted to a discussion board run by techies. I was searching info about whether or not Picassa spies on us and a user at the board had detected that when he merely typed a address into his browser that Chrome began activity before he hit the enter button. This was detectable only if you were running Silkworm and there should not have been any activity whatsoever.

I don't understand all of the implications (apart from the obvious) that this may have. You are better able than I to know if this is useful info or not.

[Narrow Back]

I have tried to duplicate the problem you encountered Narrow Back. I run Windows 7 Pro, with Norton 360 and AdAware for protection. I tried using both Explorer and Firefox but could not get similar results after several log-in attempts. I suspect that the problem may be in your Chrome browser:

Predictions in the address bar

This article applies to the Google Chrome browser on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebooks

When you type in the address bar, Google Chrome can use a prediction service to help you complete the web addresses and search terms that you're entering. For example, typing london in the address bar could bring up http://www.thisislondon.co.uk as a predicted site or [ the city of london ] as a predicted search.

To help you differentiate between web addresses and searches, a search icon appears next to searches in the address bar menu; a suggested sites icon appears next to web addresses.

Unless your default search engine uses a different prediction service, the search terms that show up are the same ones that would show up if you were searching on Google. Learn more about Google's auto-complete algorithm

Disable the prediction service

The prediction service is typically turned on by default. Follow the steps below to turn it off.

Click the spanner icon tools menu on the browser toolbar.
Select Options (Preferences on Mac and Linux; Settings on a Chromebook).
Click the Under the Bonnet tab.
In the "Privacy" section, deselect the "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" checkbox.

Keep in mind that the address bar shows matches from your browsing history, in addition to predictions. If you don't want to see matches from your browsing history, clear your browsing history.

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95656

I suspect that your first instinct is correct; the information is being stored on your machine in the Chrome browser. That would account for the names in your list as they would come up with a 'reply to' on a thread as well as in PMs and searches.

That's helpful, thank you, but it doesn't explain the names that came up. In order for that to happen I would have to have typed those names in at some point. I would never have done that for any reason, ever. As I said, I have never had exchanges with 2 of the names, Charles and Pirapoi. Even if I had, why would their names come up in the login area?

This doesn't make sense to me.

[WestViking]

So why is my name coming up? I have a theory based on inside information - and clearly I have rubbed someone the wrong way when I speak about so-called "conservatives"... Connie this needs to be fixed now

1. You do not know that this is a site problem;
2. Connie and Mark are in court in Ottawa today;
3. This could be a browser problem and user based; and
4. We are still investigating the probable cause.
Please put your paranoia back to sleep.

[Narrow Back]

I took WV's advice and deleted all my cookies, cache and tightened up security. The problem has disappeared but it still doesn't answer my question as to why this happened. I will keep researching the matter. I have also asked someone I know to look at this. I will keep you posted.