Why You Shouldn't List Your Email Address

<...advise anyone to think twice before typing their personal and even their business email address in open forum....>

Quite.

It is the easiest thing in the world for spambots to harvest this information and build up sufficient information to milk individuals' bank accounts, carry out identity theft, etc., etc.

Yet still people do it!

Hello PWS,

Thanks for your reply post.

Its nice to know you agree with what I say. I find it pretty disheartening to be seeing so many email address' posted in the last few months and they are becoming very prevalent.

A little thought could get them to ask on the open forum if they are not sure of the navigation. And some effort put into finding and reading and absorbing the details of the FAQS as I have done, would make things easier for those that want to get in touch with anyones PM or admin, but do not know how?

Take care my friend

You could always use a service like classimail.com. They give you an anonymous personal contact form that you can post in forums, classifieds ETC. Mine is www.classimail.com/1/posts/2-Craigslist/9-Contact-Link/39-john-bentley.html Spammers won't even bother trying to harvest a contact link most of the time. There are way too many easy targets out there.

Hi Guest,

I was not aware this service or similar even existed!

Thanks!

Hey Bear

The other problem is companies keeping your personal info in THEIR database. Many do not know their system has been compromised. One reputable company I deal with discovered this much too late though they did contact their customers to urge them to immediately cancel their credit cards.

Hello Ducky,

Hope all is well on your stretch of water?

Yes, there is an awful lot of pitfalls you can be tripped up by without knowing!

I really begin to get worried when I know that at least 10 friends do not have any anti-virus on there windows machines. It is free for the most part so why not ask if they do not know how to download it? The worse thing is these people are in contact with thousands of others so any virus or Trojan is going be passed on and the people sending it will not even know!

It is pretty frightening the amount of ignorance among these so called experienced youth? A lot is because they cannot be seen to lose face and actually admit they need help. If I can I help I do, but often they have no plan as to how they want to use their computer, and no plan on what to do if or when something goes wrong. One friend goes out and buys another computer that is ready to go direct from the box, when he finds he can't solve a problem. He has 5 computers now.

I would not mind being a computer retailer near him.

Take care. And stay well.

Yo........all coolcats in the frosty north (the fall colours were amongst the most spectacular ever) and just waiting for the big freeze to take hold. I like it, wife doesn't.

The isp I use has built in anti-virus (etc) software though I still use a store bought version which I upgrade constantly. Just must remember to switch one off when running the other. The simple is to know what not to 'open' or surf to. Sometimes a simple 'cleaning' by a reputable company can get a computer back up to scratch (usually around $40).

Hi Ducky,

Yes I have to agree with you on anything 'free', anti virus etc. Why do they do a 'free' version the about three other versions, and the most appropriate one is the most expensive!?

I said to myself, using the internet is risky anyway, so put aside maybe $90.00 a year to stay safe? I think it is worth it. Some may not agree, but at least it is proof to any other getting an email with 'checked by the jim blogs antivirus company' kind of makes me smile and think, "at least they are trying"?

Langyaw and Tornado have made some intriguing suggestions that I'm going to follow up.

Ain't no such thing as free.

I'll be building the underground bunker now............thankyou very much (and also some right on info there Euro!).

Whenever a merchant asks for my phone number I give them the local constabularys direct line. My phone solicitations have dropped dramatically. Buying anything over the internet......forget it! I'll send a money order or do a bank transfer.

ps...be vigilant when the store clerk drops your credit card

Hi Ducky,

I like your idea of the local Cop shop number! Bit of a shocker for those unlucky and stupid enough to ring!

The greeting folks hear when they call my cell phone is the state mental hospital's admissions-fax preamble. Seems to have cut down drastically on the number of telemarketing calls I receive. And the collection agencies!

Hi europium,

I think I like that as much as the cop shop from Ducky!

Take care my friend.

So, if you call, please just stay on the line until two of our muscular interns come to forcibly escort you to a padded room because you called the state mental hospital fax machine actually expecting somebody to answer...

Hi europium,

Yes, all this modern electronics does its work simply by using radio, right? It does not take to much of a genius to figure how to get round most of the so called modern world for sure!

Hi europium

I watched a documentary on just this theme last night. What you are pointing out is very useful information and advice. The bottom line of this program was that there is no such thing as absolute privacy. Anything flowing in or out can be recorded, traced and used against you if the other party has the means and will to do so.

What I found most disturbing was that the panel just excepted that as a fact and nobody was surprised nor could they suggest what to do against such blatant misuse of technology to breach privacy. They were talking to the average user of the internet and did not even scratch the surface when it comes to the possibilities of governments, law enforcement intruding on their people. More subtle than Orwellian 1984 and more finite it seems.

It is an illusion to think that one could be in a safe position. The good thing is that the statistics of being chosen for closer scrutiny are slim. Unless you use keywords that trigger an automatic registration response, one is quiet safe.

It really looks like a matter of getting some geeks together paying them well and then infiltrating what ever one wants to infiltrate. I know of a young dude who hacked like hell and loved the challenge and because he was in the know he could not be caught. So it seemed. He's over that now but has acquired some information in the process which I would love to have. Not to get out there but to properly protect confidential information, which I now know is impossible to do as a novice.

After a couple of years not using google earth I was surprised to find that there was a street shot of my house on that site. Letter box, car in the drive way and the lot. Hardly a tourist would ever come this way were I live. I only connected to the net a short while ago and have possibly done more 'information overload' damage than can be rectified. But then again we are all a bit gullible at times and ones trash can be an others treasure.

If I can believe the experts on that show last night its too late Mate, isn't it? Ky.

Hi Ky,

Interesting post my friend!

Not sure what program you refer to, but regarding your 'dodgy' friend.......... It is not until you have the equipment and slowly gather info by trial and error, virtually everyone can really know what is happening to them or their lives.

I think the steep learning curve after your first computer, and all those LOVELY CHAT SITES, on which people publish all their personal details without a second thought! I am embarrassed when I do a search on my name and find things published to all kinds of notice boards. We have to learn unfortunately there is no way I can think of NOT to publish some details which I should not have done.

You may have heard of the old methods of spying like aiming a Mic' at a window and recording the conversations? Lots of others.

But one of the creepiest is the US Government listening in to the lives of others by tracing mobile phone numbers and then listening for as long as they want, even when the phone is switched off!

These and I am sure there must be thousands more were originally used for spying between the US and Russia for instance, but these systems are also used against normal everyday folk now.

The same can be said of 'emergency laws that can be set up after riots or during wars. Those laws are and can be used against anyone any time now.

THAT IS SCARY!

A "turned-off" cell phone is not 'off' in the sense that a "turned-off" light bulb is. Many, if not all, cell phones are "turned-on" by holding down one of the buttons. On mine its the 'disconnect' button (button icon looks like a red telephone). Some part of the phone's internal circuitry must be live in order for the phone to sense that one of its buttons is being pressed. It ain't off. Not by a long shot.

Some years ago my kids gave me one of those 'blinky' cell phone antennas to replace the one that came with the phone. 'Blinkies' contain a group of tiny LEDs connected to a chip that makes them blink in one or more patterns. The chip and the LEDs are powered by the phone's transmitted signal by means of a tiny coil in series with a Schottky diode that rectifies the RF and turns it into a DC voltage. The DC is then fed to the chip to make the magic happen. Blinkies have Coolness Value. That's about it. They're cool and that's all they're good for.

Or is it?

Blinkies light up any time the phone's transmitter is transmitting. The received signal is far too weak to do anything; but any time you see the Blinky blink, the transmitter is on and talking. It's the only thing that has the power to make the Blinky blink, and late at night I would often see the Blinky blink...

...even when no one was using the phone.

Hi europium,

Very interesting post, thanks! All the more reason to invent a battery compartment which can be moved as if taking the battery out, to disconnect it from the electronics?

Or perhaps an encryption kind of thing that works when you have the phone turned 'off', but is switched off to allow phone calls?

When it comes down to it everything is 'getroundable'!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A "turned-off" cell phone is not 'off' in the sense that a "turned-off" light bulb is. Many, if not all, cell phones are "turned-on" by holding down one of the buttons. On mine its the 'disconnect' button (button icon looks like a red telephone). Some part of the phone's internal circuitry must be live in order for the phone to sense that one of its buttons is being pressed. It ain't off. Not by a long shot.

Some years ago my kids gave me one of those 'blinky' cell phone antennas to replace the one that came with the phone. 'Blinkies' contain a group of tiny LEDs connected to a chip that makes them blink in one or more patterns. The chip and the LEDs are powered by the phone's transmitted signal by means of a tiny coil in series with a Schottky diode that rectifies the RF and turns it into a DC voltage. The DC is then fed to the chip to make the magic happen. Blinkies have Coolness Value. That's about it. They're cool and that's all they're good for.

Or is it?

Blinkies light up any time the phone's transmitter is transmitting. The received signal is far too weak to do anything; but any time you see the Blinky blink, the transmitter is on and talking. It's the only thing that has the power to make the Blinky blink, and late at night I would often see the Blinky blink...

...even when no one was using the phone.

If your phone is switched on, It will still 'ping' the tower to say where it is and check for messeges/texts. You can hear it if you set it near your PC speakers.

One sure way of turning it off is to take out the battery.

The blinky LED's your refer to respond to many wavelengths of RF, Even if battery is out, they could flash if they get a spike of RF that could come from a million sources in today's technoligical world. Or probably only when the spy cameras and mic's in your house are transmitting to the U.S. Govt.

"The blinky LED's your refer to respond to many wavelengths of RF, Even if battery is out, they could flash if they get a spike of RF that could come from a million sources in today's technoligical world."

The "number of wavelengths" they respond to (technically, the bandwidth) plays a minor role in the life of a Blinky. Blinkies are broadband in the sense that they do not employ tuned circuits in their construction (apart from unavoidable parasitic ones at microwave frequencies).

What is important to a Blinky is the power density. Blinkies respond to signals in the hundreds-of-milliwatts-to-watts range and above (to a point, of course, like anything else). The space around us is saturated with signals ranging from DC to Daylight, but for the most part we are speaking of microwatts or less. Microwatts does not a Blinky blink.

I do remove the battery from my cellphone when I'm not going to be using it for awhile; in large part to disable its host of highly annoying 'features.' I removed the battery from my old phone, too, and not once did the Blinky blink when the battery was disconnected.

One more thing: there are microphones and cameras in my house simply because I insist on staying in regular contact with my colleagues at the NSA. And please, please do clean your monitor's bezel; particularly that upper left corner. Yes, I know that plastic looks opaque, but it isn't. Not by a long shot. Not at infrared wavelengths, my friend. We've noticed also that you're getting a bit low on Windex and Q-Tips, but I'd be more than happy to send two of my guys over in a few minutes with refills if you'd like. (You needn't worry about the other cams located throughout your house, in your car and at your job. We've got everything covered. And boy do I mean everything. And here you thought we didn't know...)

Sweet dreams, cowboy.

OK, and now for the serious answer:

A cellphone tower can only support a limited number of simultaneously connected cell phones. It therefore needs to know exactly when a cellphone leaves its range, or disconnects from the network altogether, so it can free up its connection slot for use by another cellphone. Normally a phone communicates a disconnect to the tower whenever possible (for example if it's getting out of reach and connects to another tower, it then disconnects from the first and the connection gets transferred gracefully from the old tower to the new one, even in the middle of a conversation). However, if you just yank out the batteries, the phone gets utterly destroyed, you suddenly enter a cage of Faraday or even an underground tunnel, ... the phone will have no time to notify the tower, so the tower needs to check up on supposedly connected phones from time to time to check that none of them are MIA. It's basically similar to an ICMP ping on the Internet. Similar thing happens right before a call or SMS comes in, or when you dial out: there's two-way communication.

GSM is a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) system. This means a single physical channel is divided up in time for multiple people to share. A single physical channel is just a frequency range, such as 890-890.2 MHz. Each physical channel is divided up in time into what are called time-slots. Time-slots are grouped by 8's into what are called frames. Each time-slot lasts 0.577ms, and a frame is 4.615ms. When your phone is communicating with the base it is assigned a single time-slot in each frame. This means it is transmitting ON off off off off off off off ON off off... and the ON's are spaced 4.615ms apart (the frame duration). 1/4.615ms gives you 216.7Hz. What else... this is what is happening 1) one or more base stations broadcast "hey you" to the geographic region where your phone is (your phone is always listening for this) 2) your phone contacts a specific base station requesting a channel (AUDIBLE) 3) the base station responds, assigning a channel 4) your phone goes to that channel, authenticates, etc. (AUDIBLE) 5) phone finally rings / SMS is sent

Hey bwire,

Every morning around 1:30 the phone transmitted for between 20 seconds and 100 seconds. The phone's display* did not change during this time, nor did the backlight come on. Were it not for the lights on the Blinky, no one would have known anything was happening at all.

Then things got really weird.

One morning around three I received a call from a concerned friend who asked why I had just called and if everything was okay. I assured him I was and later checked my call log. The phone had been calling other numbers, too - some of them fax machines!

This wasn't a simple case of the system Dialing for Dollars polling for phones. Either the phone had been pwn'd or something else was going on.

Thanks for the info, though. I find that kind of stuff really interesting.

-e

_{* The phone sported an indispensible zoom feature that allowed me to change the 'T-Mobile' font size at will. Any other stock information that the user might find even remotely useful was relegated to a microscopic, fixed-size font which could only be read using an atomic-force microscope.}

Remember to turn the cell phone off at least once every twenty-four hours and update the software every twenty-eight days.

Hi wire,

Great Stuff! I am sure I have read something similar when I first got a mobile, but it evaporated in an instant! Just goes to show, we do take think for granted and definitely are not in control of our electronic destinies!

I wondered how the mobile system worked which is why I sorted the details from the garbage (useful/useless!) and then found and understood why and how the system could handle so many sources from apparently not enough hardware? Clever stuff, and clever people who ever thought it was possible. Of course I guess none of it is really new, just an extension of the wireless systems used by the army and such?

I mean, every now and then, as one type of com' gets more use or, needs more bandwidth, either because of the huge amounts of info sent or, because of the number of individual messages sent, which boils down to the same thing, the International bandwidths have to be allocated in different ways. (Excluding Computer Com's of course). But when push comes to shove, there is only so much bandwidth available and some part of the Com's' which is usually the public cell phone and radio, and or TV are the ones which have to die in an emergency, like 911? I find it fascinating when getting down to the minutiae. If I start at the begging so as to speak, then work my way out, it all becomes obvious or at least understandable?............. Should I put a question mark after the word understandable??? Mmmm.

Bandwidth Allocation with Half-Duplex Stations in IEEE 802.16 ...Bandwidth Allocation with Half-Duplex Stations in IEEE 802.16 Wireless Networks ... B. Bisla, R. Eline, and L.M. Franca-Neto, "RF System and Circuit .... WiMAX Forum, "Initial Certification Profiles and the European Regulatory Framework ...
portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1313235 - Similar -
by A Bacioccola - 2007 - Cited by 2 - Related articles - All 6 versions

http://www.onlineconversion.com/downloads/european_frequency_allocations.pdf

[PDF]

FCC ONLINE TABLE OF FREQUENCY ALLOCATIONSFile Format: PDF/Adobe AcrobatAlternative allocation: in Tunisia, the band 255-283.5 kHz is allocated to the ... of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) (see Resolution 339 ...... arrival of the radio-frequency wave and the reference bandwidth is 4 kHz. No. ...www.fcc.gov/oet/spectrum/table/fcctable.pdf - Similar -

There is only so much space and band width and relatively little is given over to the 'public' use. I first went into this after getting a UHF HAM radio. Very little bandwidth here!

Thank for a really great post!

To keep it simple, remember it's all radio and security is only the best kept secret code

Giving up your car keys to a valet or mechanic is another dangerous risk for security. All they need to do is copy the key(s) and they got access to your vehicle and home. Even if your GPS doesn't give up your address, I am sure insurance documents or other various clutter that collects in your car will.

When I drop my truck off at the local Wal-mart for tire rotation, all they get is the ignition key and I make sure nothing sensitive is left in the vehicle.

I seem to remember on a tv show they did something like this. A restaurant offered valet service and they took somebody's keys and a camera crew to their house and videoed them holding the keys in front of the door to the house. Then showed the family the video explaining the risk they were taking by giving the valet all their keys and leaving personal information in their vehicle.

Drew

I must thank you for the caution.

Even with out having to copy personal mail ID, the fraudsters are capable of accessing your address book to commit criminal swindle.

When I was away abroad, I happen to receive the following mail supposed to be from a very close friend of mine.

My Dear,
How are you doing?hope all is well with you and family,I travel to England and i need a favor from you as soon as you receive this e-mail because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money,and other valuable things were kept i will like you to assist me with a soft loan urgently with the sum of (1000GBP) to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home,meanwhile i could have call you but i did not hold my phone along right here in England mind you i will not be able to rich you on phone just until i get back home as well and again right now as i was saying i don't have any money with me for my feeding pl's and pl's i will appreciate whatever you can afford and ill pay you back as soon as i return ,Meanwhile i will want you to wire the money to me via western union money transfer this are the details to send the money below................
Here are the details :
Name (omitted)
Address :Manchester Marathon Association
PO Box 933
Zip code: NH 03105
State:Manchester
Country:England
As soon as you make the transfer kindly get back to me with the details of the transfer such as MTCN # 10digts number .
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regard.

Instantly I realized the mail is from a thief. After reading

http://www.lockportjournal.com/local/local_story_022230137.html

no more proof was required.

With advances in technology thieves are becoming more creative.

We have to run to stand still!

With all the free email services, I have a few email accounts, one for work/bills, one for family/freinds, and one for junk emails (i.e. the sites that require an email to sign up).

I regularly get these at my "junk" address. I sometimes lead them on like I'm going to do something but never give them anything. I figure at the very least I'm wasting their time and having a bit of fun.

I keep all of the spam email's I get and save them in a folder. I figure someday some digital historian will hit upon my email address's stored files and have a good picture of what life was like online between 2004 and whenever I quit saving them.

In today's world, we try to protect personal information as much as possible. Personal documents are shredded left and right. I like hearing on some historical show that they checked the church in Garbaldisham and found property, sales, marriage, birth or whatever from a thousand years ago. How much will historians be able to find about us 1000 years from now? I realize that we generate much more paper and digital information than they did 1000 years ago, but it is something to think about.

Drew

Hi Drew K,

I have had this for a while now. I have forgotten how to use it so googled it, and it and variations of the same can help stop spam bots gathering your address, etc.

stop spam bots 'email gathering'.

Has anyone used this form of protection?

How to Prevent Email Harvesting

4 Basic Types of Communication · How To Stop Spam Comment In Your Wordpress Blog ... GG Sep 25. http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/spam/spam.htm. Link is dead. ...askax.net/2007/10/23/how-to-prevent-email-harvesting/ - Cached - Similar -

"The safe way to send your email address is to sent it via 'PM'. PM (Private Message) is just that, private."

even with that measure, be wary, because bots can also be programmed to look all over the website, not just in the forum threads.

if really necessary to give your eMail addy, I'd recommend using the relatively-undetectable format of "someoneATsomewhereDOTcom", rather than using the @ sign which is a sure indicator of an eMail address.

I too have used and suggested this technique. I have 1234 even 5678 included 9012 credit 3456 card numbers in unsecure connections, so far without negative results. Humans can figure out such stuff pretty easily, but it's hard to see how how search bots could manage even to look for things like that. But...if enough people do this, maybe the bots will catch on.

BTW, I think computer crime of this sort is a perfect occasion for sharia law.

Interesting! I use a hyphen before and after my initials but have retained the @ configuration. Spam servers and others of the ilk read the address as a program. I think I'll try your technique as well.

Hi Ducky,

I have tried similar ways to stay safe in the past, but on two occasions, when I have sent my email this way, if a person not familiar with the way an email is written....... Yes there is still some!.............. they have not understood the way I written it. It may be more understandable now but this was almost ten years ago. I did not get any reply which included confirmation they knew my email, so I had to ring them. Would have been easier to do that is the first place? LOL! You can only ring locally, so when sending similar email info around the world, you just have to hope they understand.

Sorry for that clumsy explanation. I had a problem halfway through typing it and lost my way.

Some 10 yrs back I used to get the so called Nigerian Letters which I would store in a folder. Seeing as the bastards had my e-mail address anyway I would reply by attaching the folder and send the whole thing back to them.

Hi Ducky,

Thanks for the reply post.

I have at least one of those a day. Always from the same 'person'. I read somewhere that returning any mail or just sending an email to the address will confirm the address and then there could be more email sent. It is a pain but one a day I can handle. A year ago I got 25 a day! They are Jerks!

I have a question, if you could just email me at joe...just kidding.

Really good advice.

Hello joeblow,

Thanks for your kind post.

It does seem to have struck a note with people.

Electronic 'bots' gathering info can work so fast they will automatically find out any detail given enough time. So just change a single letter or digit in a password, each month or so and it will perhaps be less likely to find the password?..............

Take care.

Well thanks all you concerned people, have taken advise on board, it wont happen again.

I never gave it a thought, when I posted my email address.

Cheers

Hi Joe,

Nice to have helped or been useful to at least one Member!

Take care.

Agreed, I'm with you on that one!

Hey bb,

Good thread and everyone should recognize the ideal of not presenting opportunity to the criminal element unless for a sting.

I would also encourage everyone to consider use of an ID security measure of service, fees are often negligible or are packaged within another service.

All should acknowledge in this electronic communication age personal privacy is much of an illusion without a purposeful intellectual/personal security service. Whereby your credential maybe compromised/known but can not be used.

I was amused when applying for a service and they ask all sorts of info like mothers maiden, so they message me about this word I used not appearing to be a name. I ask them, what is the objective??

Hi wire,

Some good points there.

It also shows how people can lose the plot without realising it?!

A similar situation happened to me.

I got a postal letter from the 'Tax man' asking for my postal address !!!!!

I framed it to show people who did not believe me. It is on my wall.

Perhaps they were new to the Tax Dept and a whole lot of 'leg-pulling' ensued? You know like ask for a 'long weight/wait', left handed screwdriver, tartan paint.........

Yes I put my hand up as guilty. All the other 20 staff in my Dept knew what I was doing when I made it sound urgent and sent a newbie to the Engineers Shop once every day for the first week!

There's another scam has been going on for years. It has to do with The Yellow Pages phone directory.

Most business' pay to have their name listed as an advertisement. This can range from a few bucks to a couple of thousand per year. Anyway, there's an outfit that sends you a bill and at first glance appears to be legit even going so far as to offer a discount. At second glance the fingers that "do the walking" are reversed.

They do deliver the goods tho as I discovered when I found a rolled up soggy mass of cheap newsprint lying by the door.

Hi Ducky,

If you actual letters by Royal Mail, I had two 1 or 2 come about two years ago. But like any email I do not recognise, they went in the trash, and any emails go in the electronic trash.

It makes me wonder why, if these people can work out a scam, they do not operate a pukka business?

I should have just clicked on that link. Would have saved some time, Ky.

Babybear,

A timely information and warning to all members. Once I happened to give the same for one of the members for contacting me and surprisingly a lot of Foreign Bank Money Transfer mails started coming. I fully agree with your views.

Hello s.udhaya,

Thanks for the reply post my friend.

Even if it stops one Guest or Member from writing their Postal Address and or email Address it will be worth it, right?

On CR4 the address or anything else can be removed, but there is a small chance that while it is still published and viewable anyone can copy it, etc.......!

Take care.

It's getting pretty scary what is out there. Today I searched for myself on peekyou.com and found that it had my name, a derivation of a common username that I use, and my unlisted phone number.

I was also searching for an old friend on google and came across a document on a site that had all kinds of personal information (name, address, DOB, SSN, transcripts, etc.). The google link was to a government https: secure address but I was able to access it without any sort of password, and the contents had actually been indexed by google. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it was not my friend but another with the same name, but this person has definitely been exposed to identity theft. I notified the site that they were allowing access to private information, but who knows what damage has been done. In this case, it was probably not the person's fault that their info was out there, but still you should be very careful what personal information you disclose to any agency or forum.

peekyou.com has the goods on Guest, too...

so if you could delete the enquiry i made to you on monday .. that would help as I just read this thread and I am mortified to find my info on peek..

after reading this I am going over my messages

you are so right and

thank you

for the time you took to right this

Thank you BabyBear for bringing this to our attention, very good stuff. Thanks to all the posters with related info too. I was intrigued by bwire's explanation of the cell phone service, that was really interesting too, thanks.

Hi Matt,

I appreciate your post, and hope other will find this useful.

I cannot see it will be likely to be noticed by any newbies but, even if it stops one email appearing it will be a success. I am surprised so many people still post private details and thought I should say something.

Good luck

Thanks a lot

Hi bb,

I only just noticed this one.

A month or two back I scoped a new members profile; The person had pasted up what was essentially his/her CV in the 'Biog' space. Fair enough, but the horrific bit was the he/she had given full contact detail of a referee . Name/Address/Telephone number - the lot. Poor sod mentioned probably had no idea. Had I been on the ball, I'd have asked Admin to sort it. To my regret I don't recall exactly who it was. I think it was done in innocence, just naivety, but was an absolute no-no.

CR4 does warn people against this kind of stuff, but often people just dive in and splurt the details without realizing possible consequence. I don't think I need to ramble about 'crawl-bot's' etc.

Just recently there was a post by a 'Guest', that gave an e-mail address. Don't know if it was innocent naivety, or possibly malicious, but your advice on the matter is sage.

Good of you to point this issue out, bb. As I scurry from thread to thread, I don't always take the time I should to lend a helping hand to others. It's characteristic of you that you would do so.

Hi Kris,

I have been thinking a lot about this for some time, and of the best way to help prevent people typing any name/address/phone/email etc, but especially of another as you mention.

I wonder if Admin will notice my 'tiny' post?

Perhaps

> "personal address and details should not be written"! <

Written just above the post it area. What do you think?

Good luck and a great holiday!

Your quote line says it all, bb. Have a great time over x-mas as well. People could do well to follow advice from members such as yourself. Have a great time over the festive season

Hi Kris,

I will try OK?

I have a whole half bottle of Barsac stacked away which I will treat myself to! May even wrap it as well. Now that is getting a little desperate is it not?............

You have a great time along with you Family my friend, OK?

Take care and best wishes.

Thank you, Taken note and will abide, make sense too. GJ

Hi ramofpersus,

I thank you and hope many others read the thread!

I have asked the Admin to write a warning above the threads or on each post but my suggestion in falling on deaf ears at the moment.

Take care

Thanks for the advise, will not be doing that again.

Cheers

I use gmail as my preferred e-mail tool. Of late I have noticed ads appearing on my gmail window, which not only relates to the content of my e-mails, but often times data on my word or excel or pdf files, which I never e-mailed to anyone ever. It seems google is reading my entire hard disk.

Also, just this morning, and which prompted me to share my experience with this forum, I got an unsolicited offer for an enquiry I have been working on for a very difficult to find product. The product again was mentioned in a pdf file on my hard disk. The offer came from a chinese company.

Seems like my hard disk has been published in the classifieds. I am scared. I will definitely revisit my online habits.