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I have a friend who just found out tonite that someone hacked his account and is now using his user ID (and avatar-not the brightest bulb in the universe here), which has my friend a little agitated. Fortunately he knows the admin outside of the board and should get prompt action on the scrofulistic scalawag. Has this happened to anyone else, and what was the end result?
Lets get the obvious out of the way.
Sort of…
I’m a long-time member and regular poster on a motorsport-related board. For fun, we do several online racing championships using simulators such as NASCAR Racing 2003 Season and rFactor. Back in March, I missed a race in one of the leagues I’m in because I simply chose to sleep all day. When I checked the league thread later on to see how things went, and apologize for missing the race, I was rather shocked to see that I had won! WTF??
I knew something was up, so I let everyone know that I hadn’t been there…
Immediately, everyone suspected that it was another long-time member of the board, who had been banned from racing in that particular league (and was pretty much unwelcome in all the others) because of his cocky attitude, reckless driving that he would blame on other people “getting in his way”, and just being a bad sport in general. He had joined the game using my name and my car. The thread quckly grew by several pages as people weighed in with their reactions at what happened, even people who didn’t race in the league were outraged.
Finally, the guy everyone suspected showed up to gloat about what he had done…
Nobody accepted his excuse that the league technically takes place “outside” of the forum, and he got piled on by everyone. He only lasted a few more hours after that, and was banned permanently once the mods had discussed it.
Years and years and years ago, back when I was still in middle school, my best friend and I thought it was the funnest thing in the world to go into sex/relationship related chat rooms (like the now long gone “chatbox.com”) and create log in names that deceptively resembled some other people doing some real chatting. in other word if Doglover was in the chatroom we would log on a DogIover or Dog1over and then just start claiming outrageous things. Back in those old chatrooms the font wasn’t as clear so the names would be identical.
Doglover: so a/s/l?
RickyRicky: 29/m/LA
Dog1over: send me a picture of your erect penis
RickyRicky: What? <RickyRicky has left the room>
Doglover: gah!
At the time we thought we were being clever and mischivous. Looking back, I’d bet that if there were 50 people logged into a room 45 of them were probably teenage boys pretending to be someone they’re not.
And I wonder why I hated hosting the romance rooms for MSN?
Before the Web, there were BBSes. One BBS I was on shrank a lot because of squabbling between the two lead sysops (I think they were a couple that broke up, but I’m not entirely sure). The guy took most of the equipment and split, forming his own BBS, and a lot of the users followed him. When I went there to sign up, I found that my handle was already in use. Suspicious, I used a different handle to get in the system. Turns out a guy I didn’t like was deliberately impersonating me, filling in his profile with half-remembered and inaccurate details that I had used on the old BBS. He was jealous that I was going out with this girl he was always trying to get with, but she didn’t like him either. I suppose he was trying to block me from getting on the new BBS or something.
Within a few years of all that drama, the Web rose and BBSes fell. There was a brief time when they coexisted peacefully, but now the only BBSes are catering to the nostalgia market.
Oh when we were young. Young and stupid.
I hosted in 1998- and everyone (apart from we hosts of course) were there for one reason. Looking back, I think the hosts were mainly pretty well a lot of people who should have been certified.
Just to be clear, I was referring to myself. I hope you didn’t think I was calling you stupid in any way. Now, back to the OP and away with this hijack!
Never, ever thought that- and would not have been offended anyway. Thanks though.
Ask Hal Briston.