# Why is the SDMB saying it wants my credit card info? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 9, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036 "2003-03-09T04:24:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/1 "2003-03-09T04:24:22Z")
I have Norton Personal Firewall, and I just posted to the ‘’ thread. When I did, an alert from NPF came up saying “an attempt to send the info you specified as ‘credit card’ over the Internet has been made to [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com).” Naturally I hit block, so, I’m wondering what that was? Wait…now, whenever I click on a link on the boards that pops up. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/2 "2003-03-09T04:25:25Z")
Sorry, ‘’ should be the “movies you know you should see but won’t” thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/3 "2003-03-09T05:02:41Z")
[Link to the thread in question.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=166841) Umm … dunno. Didn’t have any problems on this end opening it up. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/4 "2003-03-09T16:50:11Z")
I have no idea. We don’t collect doper credit card info, and certainly wouldn’t be trying to sneak it out of you. Maybe a glitch in NPF? No one else has ever mentioned anything like this happening before. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/5 "2003-03-09T17:44:13Z")
Run a complete virus scan, and maybe also [Ad-Aware.](http://www.lavasoft.de) Maybe some rogue program is attempting to communicate thru a backdoor? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/7 "2003-03-09T19:26:54Z")
Or, possibly, your SDMB cookie has been misidentified as credit card info by the firewall software. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/8 "2003-03-09T20:38:25Z")
We do not ask you for credit card information. Not on the board, not in email, not in anything. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/9 "2003-03-09T20:41:06Z")
I know you guys don’t ask for credit card info. That’s why I was puzzled, and made a post about it. 🙂 It’s gone away now. Actually, it went away right after I posted this last night. So it only happened for about a minute or so. Since I didn’t have any other sites open except the SDMB, it wasn’t a popup, and I don’t have any spyware (says Ad Aware). It must just have been some random glitch that the firewall interpreted as a request for credit card information. _shrug_ Thanks for the replies, all. ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/10 "2003-03-09T23:47:01Z")
It just happened again (once)–the same thing, except it said “Bank Account Information” rather than credit card. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/11 "2003-03-10T02:39:07Z")
Have you actually specified any “Credit card information” to your firewall? It seems to me that that would be a mighty odd thing to tell your firewall. I know that if I were running a firewall program and it asked me for my credit card, I’d suspect that it had a Trojan horse in it. ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/12 "2003-03-10T04:53:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*Have you actually specified any “Credit card information” to your firewall? It seems to me that that would be a mighty odd thing to tell your firewall. I know that if I were running a firewall program and it asked me for my credit card, I’d suspect that it had a Trojan horse in it. \*\* The firewall itself isn’t telling me that it wants my credit card/bank account information. It’s saying that the SDMB wants it. And I’ve had the 'wall for a while and it’s not done anything like this before. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/13 "2003-03-10T11:59:02Z")
Well, unless other posters chime in with the same problem, I’m gonna have to guess it’s your firewall acting up here, Caesar’s Ghost. Whatever causes the error message, it’s not the SDMB, as stated before. We don’t ask for such information, and certainly not in a stealthy manner as described here. FWIW, I use Norton Internet Security and Norton Anti-Virus. Is the Personal Firewall that bluish globe in the system tray? If so, then it has never produced such errors for me, and it could be argued I peruse these boards quite a bit. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/14 "2003-03-10T23:08:22Z")
yeah, it’s the bluish globe. All right, I was waiting for something to happen to prove it wasn’t the boards (I knew it wasn’t, I just needed proof), and it finally did. I got the “credit card” message while surfing on [Neopets.com](http://Neopets.com), a completely unrelated site. So, it’s the stupid firewall. Bleh. Thanks, all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/15 "2003-03-11T21:09:33Z")
What I meant was, the blurb you quoted said “info **you specified** as credit card” (emphasis mine). It just seems to me odd that you would specify to your firewall what is “credit card”. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-sdmb-saying-it-wants-my-credit-card-info/160036/16 "2003-03-12T00:11:46Z")
Actually not. The Norton Personal Firewall has a feature whereby you specify personal information to it like credit card numbers and the like, and it warns when something that matches your pattern is transmitted (as a cookie, for instance). I tend to side with **Smeghead** that one of the cookies sent to SDMB is triggering a pattern match that you have defined, possibly inadvertently.