[yoder]

Ah, well, then I apologize and retract the statement “I am 100% convinced that someone is able to access the email addresses from the BBO server.” and replace it with “I am 100% convinced that someone is able to electronically access the email addresses from BBO member data”.

I’m sure the difference between “the server” and “member data” is an important distinction to you, but most of us couldn’t care less about whether it’s the “server”, the “cache”, or the “dooflehicky”. BBO member data is, somehow, electronically, automatically, being obtained by spammers. Sign up for BBO and put your email in your profile, and you get spammed, which is really what this thread is about and what the original poster asked.

Is there nothing that can be done about it?

[jillybean]

yoder, on Feb 1 2006, 08:52 PM, said:

Is there nothing that can be done about it?

Yes, don't put your email address in your BBO profile.

[yoder]

jillybean2, on Feb 1 2006, 11:00 PM, said:

yoder, on Feb 1 2006, 08:52 PM, said:

Is there nothing that can be done about it?

Yes, don't put your email address in your BBO profile.

Well, the problem is, many of us would LIKE to have our email address in our profile, so that legitimate bridge friends can find it, without it being exposed to automated capture for spam purposes.

There must be some way to put it into the cache, perhaps by disguising the @ or some such thing that would make it unusable by spammers but still show normally in our profiles.

[coyot]

yoder, on Feb 2 2006, 06:25 AM, said:

jillybean2, on Feb 1 2006, 11:00 PM, said:

yoder, on Feb 1 2006, 08:52 PM, said:

Is there nothing that can be done about it?

Yes, don't put your email address in your BBO profile.

Well, the problem is, many of us would LIKE to have our email address in our profile, so that legitimate bridge friends can find it, without it being exposed to automated capture for spam purposes.

There must be some way to put it into the cache, perhaps by disguising the @ or some such thing that would make it unusable by spammers but still show normally in our profiles.

I think that it's a bad idea to have your e-mail address ANYWHERE public if you don't like spam and you happen to have a crappy provider that can't protect you from most spam.

If you really want your e-mail to be accessible to your bridge friends, don't you think they can just drop you a message on BBO asking for that e-mail?

Furthermore, if anybody actually IS retrieving data from BBO members' profiles, he is NOT using some generic tool that will get easily confused by disguising @ etc.

While there is a very remote possibility that the BBO server has been attacked even without the admins knowing it, I would bet on client-side breach or packet sniffing along the way.

In any case, the person extracting the emails must have taken steps to get specific information from specific places. I imagine somebody created an account on BBO with the sole purpose of logging in and getting the profiles of all logged members. If the BBO changes the format it stores the emails in, that person will simply modify the tool to extract those emails.

Well, on the other hand, it certainly would not hurt if the e-mails weren't stored in plaintext in files on the user's harddisk, as most worm viruses extract e-mails from infected computers and it's really no big deal for them to just sniff every accessed file...

But, in short, I suggest that you keep your e-mail to yourself and give it on demand, that you use a separate e-mail for any web registrations and stuff, and you get a decent provider that can filter at least the known spam

[doc_jo]

As I said in my previous post, I have never put the e-mail address in my profile and in spite of this I got a bunch of mails full of viruses. What do you think about it?
Jo

[barmar]

coyot, on Feb 2 2006, 04:43 AM, said:

Furthermore, if anybody actually IS retrieving data from BBO members' profiles, he is NOT using some generic tool that will get easily confused by disguising @ etc.

Actually, I suspect that's exactly what they're doing. I doubt the spammers know anything about BBO, they probably just search all files on the disk looking for things that look like email addresses. That's far simpler and more effective than programming their tools to know about lots of different, relatively obscure applications.

[rona_]

Well then. maybe someone can explain this. I have had two different email addresses on my profile for the last three years. One was a hotmail account. I have never had spam sent to either of those addresses. In fact the only address that gets spammed is one that has never been on my bbo profile. So I would tend to disregard most of the above posts and continue showing my email and name. I am rather tired of all the people called Private, whose email is private, and level is private of course. On the whole they aren't the ones to display the best of manners, neither in tournaments or in the MBC. . Gone a bit off-topic here, sorry................

Rona

[csdenmark]

rona_, on Feb 4 2006, 08:41 AM, said:

Well then. maybe someone can explain this. I have had two different email addresses on my profile for the last three years. One was a hotmail account. I have never had spam  sent to either of those addresses. In fact the only address that gets spammed is one that has never been on my bbo profile.    So I would tend to disregard most of the above posts and continue showing my email and name. I am rather tired of all the people called Private, whose email is  private, and level is private of course. On the whole they aren't the ones to display the best of manners, neither in tournaments or in the MBC. . Gone a bit off-topic here, sorry................

Rona

I am very tired of that too. Those people contacting me with such I inform their ID looks hostile to me and I reject further contacts. Of course same for all those who think it is more fun to switch their nationality than providing solid basic personal information.

I think BBO ought to set up a bold policy about basic personal information and then display that on ID from the database. Also remove the default from download info with 'Private' so that people much too easy get to the silly conclusion that such kind of info is private. - They simply don't understand why I reject access for them to my table. Many don't know that much english that they have any chance to understand the information about that I give them.

[nickf]

csdenmark, on Feb 4 2006, 08:33 PM, said:

I am very tired of that too. Those people contacting me with such I inform their ID looks hostile to me and I reject further contacts. Of course same for all those who think it is more fun to switch their nationality than providing solid basic personal information.

I think BBO ought to set up a bold policy about basic personal information and then display that on ID from the database. Also remove the default from download info with 'Private' so that people much too easy get to the silly conclusion that such kind of info is private. - They simply don't understand why I reject access for them to my table. Many don't know that much english that they have any chance to understand the information about that I give them.

I think Groucho Marx probably said it best, "I wouldnt want to join a club that would accept me as a member".

I will however, keep any eye out for members who espouse (imho) irrational views like those quoted above.

nickf
sydney