I have a Yahoo e-mail account that I mostly use for filling out online forms and whatnot that I know will be used to eventually spam me.
For obvious reasons, I don’t use my personal e-mail account address when filling out those forms.
For the most part, I check it everyday to essentially clean it out and open the periodic note I actually want to read.
Just now, and earlier this morning, I get this alert as I plug in my name and password-
Well hell no I don’t want to continue.
And why, may I ask, are you suddenly asking me this?
I didn’t change my security settings from the last time I checked my e-mail, and I got in just fine.
Why the change?
My sometimes paranoid mind leads me to believe that my e-mail, and those of other Yahoo e-mail account holders, are suddenly being checked for content?
Here’s what I think happened:
[list=1][li]You decided to use a secure logon.[/li][li]You typed your username and password.[/li][li]Your password was transmitted encrypted to Yahoo.[/li][li]After your password verified, the logon page redirected you to the front of your account.[/li][li]Because the mail accounts are not encrypted (most mail accounts aren’t), the page you were rediredted to was not “secure”.[/li][li]Thus, Internet Explorer pops up a standard warning message.[/li][/list=1]
It’s nothing to worry about; Yahoo! is not going to read your mail or let anyone else see it. In all likelyhood you (and most people) had just been using the normal (unencrypted) logon, so the security alert message never even had an opportunity to appear.
I appreciate the reply, Keith, but I still think its pretty odd.
I go into either secure mode or regular mode and both times it gives me that warning.
A let me reiterate, this is entirely new as of today.
The paranoia part of me kicked in when while at the same times as I was getting that message, I was also hearing on the tube in the background that new security measures were being taken in our homeland… or some such thing.
I’m still a bit suspicious. The timing of it is all wrong.
Just a thought…check your security settings (for IE5: Tools>Internet Options). Windows (esp. W9x) will occasionally scramble your settings just to see if you’re paying attention. Bill’s little joke?
I was just over at the Yahoo Daily News message board and it appears that Yahoo is censoring or removing or something some of the messages there. May not have anything to do with what happened with your account, but it’s possible someone is trying to hack them, or the FBI is checking Yahoo’s files after some suspicious messages were sent.
shrug I’m a computer idiot, so don’t know if this is likely or not - just thought I’d mention it.
It’s not anything on my end. I’ve always had my computer set to notify me of being redirected to unsecure sites when I’m in a secure sight. It’s always been set that way and nothing has been changed recently.
The timing of it is what I find odd. It’s as if Yahoo! is saying to me, “Hey, this once secure site is now not so secure. We’re checking up on what you’re saying here pal.”