Thread Ratings and Reputation

[ledzepp8]

He called me on Yahoo! IM. Said he was from upstate NY and he was 15. Hasn't called in about a week. He did casually mention rep points once.

ddwe2342000 (11:17:35 PM): I was like a rep or two away from 100 reps and two small bars and tony negative reped me
scott62562 (11:17:54 PM): what for?
ddwe2342000 (11:18:26 PM): remember that background thing I was doing for people?
scott62562 (11:19:11 PM): the
scott62562 (11:19:12 PM): yeah
ddwe2342000 (11:19:21 PM): I was pretty mad
ddwe2342000 (11:19:30 PM): I always longed for the two bars .. lol

Yeah that's where he told me he was from also. Awww geez, now I don't know what to believe.

And the funny thing is that we basically had the same conversation.

[ledzepp8]

Not to make light of the situation...but I don't know if I'd say he "hacked" into her account as much as he just guessed her blatantly obvious password.

[Witchy Chick]

Not to make light of the situation...but I don't know if I'd say he "hacked" into her account as much as he just guessed her blatantly obvious password.

Good point. Note to self -- PM Cindy and give her suggestions to make her passwords more secure.


Witchy

[scOtt's squEEze]

Yes, granted, Cindy should've chosen a password a bit less obvious. That doesn't make doing what he did right. Tony can get and use personal info on any of us. He doesn't. He won't. Personal accountability. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. And kids in grade school know that stealing personal information on the net is wrong.










damn, i'm such a mom sometimes....

[ledzepp8]

Yes, granted, Cindy should've chosen a password a bit less obvious. That doesn't make doing what he did right. Tony can get and use personal info on any of us. He doesn't. He won't. Personal accountability. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. And kids in grade school know that stealing personal information on the net is wrong.










damn, i'm such a mom sometimes....

Of course, and I'm certainly not condoning what he did. But assuming he's telling the truth about his identity(and I'm still not sure), it's not like he's some evil computer hacker trying to steal someone's identity or something.

[cindyluvsbrady]

Tony/Matt -- seriously unless it's way too much trouble on your part to do this, take away whatever points I got from this kid. I SOOOOOOO don't want them -- especially now that I'm reading all this about he hacked into Cindy's account. In fact, for all the heartache she went through, give Cindy the bogus points that Sun gave me. From what I can tell, I didn't get any bogus points from Cindy's hacked account, but I know I got 2-3 from Sun in the past week or so.

Some were from the "Your User Name Band!!" thread (comment was: "Huey Lewis and the News, as you posted, was the greatest band ever") and the "Contest: Name the Orioles Hangout Band" thread (comment was : "ok"). I don't know if that helps in finding/removing the points from the DB or what. Seriously -- now that I know what went down, I don't want these points from this joker. Although I'm on the brink of 200 rep points, I want those bogus points gone from my account. I feel dirty.



Witchy

you are a nice person.

[Tony-OH]

well, he is a mindspring customer in the DC/Baltimore area, but his connection is through Time Warner. That leads me to believe he lives in a suburb that is covered by Time Warner and not a Comcast area. Anyone know of any TimeWarner cable systems around the area? I will look up what cirties are Time Warner on Monday at the office.

69.86.113.177 is the IP he had at his last post so I can find the router that has that range assigned to it and probably from there can get the neighborhood he is in. At that point with some help fromt the TimeWarner Engineers I can get the logfiles and see what Cable Modem MAC address had that IP at that time and we can match it to their customer database.

CSI...what a bunch of wankers!

I love his AIM handle, macgenius, an oxymoron!

Hence, why you should not hack or mess with the Hangout.

[cindyluvsbrady]

Yes, granted, Cindy should've chosen a password a bit less obvious. That doesn't make doing what he did right. Tony can get and use personal info on any of us. He doesn't. He won't. Personal accountability. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. And kids in grade school know that stealing personal information on the net is wrong.










damn, i'm such a mom sometimes....

you are 100& right!

[scOtt]

Hence, why you should not hack or mess with the Hangout.

I GAR-Ron-Tee!

[ScottieBaseball]

Man, Tony why didn't you give me a call? I missed all the fun. Now I'm gonna have to do some work to find out who this really is....

Screw CSI!!! This is good stuff!!!!

On a serious note, speaking as a parent...If my kid is wreaking havoc with his computer, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT!!! He proclaimed himself no "computer magician", but what run-of-the-mill 14 year old knows IP addresses and would be inclined to log on to a FOR-PAY website in someone else's account?

I definitely think this needs to go beyond a "stern warning" and scare tactics. I hope you guys (Matt & Tony) have the time and resources to make sure it doesn't happen again. Right now it's dishing out rep points on the O's Hangout. Next it might be identity theft. Matt, Tony...I think you'd be doing we members, this kid (whoever he is), his parents, and yourselves a great service by seeing it through. If it were my son, I would be grateful.

[BustaJ2632]

If I can ask...

What are the "limits" for points/reps given out in a day? Can you give out a certain number of approvals, or a certain number of points? I maxed out at the same time as this mess was going on - the first time that's ever happened to me - after what I felt was a relatively low number of approvals (and not just the "Free rep point" thread junk...just had several posts that made me laugh that day ). Maybe I had just done it more than I realized though, or maybe for some bizarre reason my approvals mean a lot. In which case I'd highly suggest getting rid of the system, because if I hold that much power, we're all in trouble .

I highly doubt that he hacked into my account, though, unless he is not telling us all that he knows about computers, because my password shouldn't be too obvious.

[Tony-OH]

If I can ask...

What are the "limits" for points/reps given out in a day? Can you give out a certain number of approvals, or a certain number of points? I maxed out at the same time as this mess was going on - the first time that's ever happened to me - after what I felt was a relatively low number of approvals (and not just the "Free rep point" thread junk...just had several posts that made me laugh that day ). Maybe I had just done it more than I realized though, or maybe for some bizarre reason my approvals mean a lot. In which case I'd highly suggest getting rid of the system, because if I hold that much power, we're all in trouble .

I highly doubt that he hacked into my account, though, unless he is not telling us all that he knows about computers, because my password shouldn't be too obvious.

I dropped it all the way down to 2 per day from 10 but I may put it back up since it appears the only real problem was Sun.

[Tony-OH]

Sun's Dad contacted me and the matter is settled. He realized he made a mistake and came clean to his Dad. He had two other accounts on here as well and was really into the rep point thing (obviously). We'll give him a year off to mature then give him a second chance.

[The Wedge]

Wow, two others? Who else, or can you tell us that?

[scOtt]

or maybe for some bizarre reason my approvals mean a lot. In which case I'd highly suggest getting rid of the system, because if I hold that much power, we're all in trouble .

I know what you mean. Since I got my third pip, I've been pretty wary of giving points. I think mine are worth 8 now.

I'm still pretty free with positive points, if something makes me laugh, or for a good analysis of something, but I haven't given any negative since. Too much of a hit, even for the couple of trolls that deserve them lately.