gracie
Geek Goddess
Premium
join:2003-07-15
confusion
| tax returns exposed by limewire?
people are reporting being able to see other people's tax return information by using limewire (assuming the other people are, as well). the link below documents one such situation; a friend told me this afternoon that his newsgroup is reporting a lot of people, not believing the article, tried this out and found it to be true. i believe the latter source, as they are usually pretty savvy people over there. here's the public article:
»michellemalkin.com/archives/001830.htm
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graciella! "not tonight dear, I have DSL."
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Greg_Z
Premium
join:2001-08-08
Springfield, IL
 ·Comcast
| That is because the idiots share their "My Documents" directories, which has everything in them. Wish people would stop blaming the program, and start placing blame on their own stupid acts.
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fatdcuk
Premium
join:2005-02-20
England
|  reply to gracie
when you set up limewire,it requests to scan your harddrive for available media(file's)as part of the setup installation and configuration.the box is automatically checked for the scan to proceed.subsequently people rushing through installation will probaly allow this scan to take place.
as with most installations user's need to be vigilant when configuring software installation;) |
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bobd1950
Homer
Premium
join:2002-03-17
Pine Brook, NJ
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FIOS
|  reply to gracie
I did ...un effing real!...PEOPLE acutally store "Life ending" info on open files..on a PC ..!!!!!!
ID theft is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Passed this info along to some so called savvy USERS..they were stunned what they LEAVE on their puter. w/o a pw or any protected file/!!
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heels_fan
1.20.09 The start of Socialism
Premium
join:2003-02-07
Columbia, TN | reply to gracie
somebody posted a website a while back that had stuff like this on it....
Very informative
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R4M0N
Brazilian Soccer Ownz Joo
join:2000-10-04
Glen Allen, VA
·Comcast
| reply to gracie
I've had the oportunity to take a look at lots of personal info back in the day of Kazaa light. I was stunned at the ammount of vital personal info left open for people to look at. If I wasn't a law abiding illegal immigrant, I'd be scamming a ton of people right now. 
Seriously, the amount of data ripe for picking in those programs is amazing. People just share anything without thinking then blame the program. |
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Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·AT&T Yahoo
| reply to gracie
It's amazing the amount of personal data that clueless P2P
users allow others to freely download because they are
sharing their personal documents folder, or in some cases
their entire C drive. Several months ago there was a news
item about how easy it was to obtain others' sensitive
personal documents (and even some military ones) on Gnutella
by doing a search for *.doc, etc. These users are just
asking to have their identity stolen.
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catseyenu
Ack Pfft
Premium
join:2001-11-17
Fix East
1 edit | reply to gracie
I believe this sharing of documents was the default behavior on "older" releases and has supposedly been fixed.
»news.com.com/LimeWire+security+f···949.html
Edit: Looks like this went beyond default. Whoops.
»secunia.com/advisories/14555 |
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SnowyOne
Premium
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI | As I recall, it was the My Document folder that was available by default. |
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jdong
Eat A Beaver, Save A Tree.
Premium
join:2002-07-09
Rochester, MI
clubs:  
| reply to gracie
PSSSSST: Small hint:
If you use NTFS, create a separate user to do tax/confidential stuff, then mark everything private (i.e. read/write permissions to owner, deny all access to everyone else). Not foolproof, but sure would stop dumb mistakes like this!
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antdude
A Ninja Ant
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-25 | reply to gracie
Just tried with eMule...
I searched tax return and found a few. Amazingly, I can't believe people do this! |
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Rifleman
Premium
join:2004-02-09
p1a
clubs: | reply to gracie
Re: tax returns exposed by limewire?
I tried this with shareaza--and was shocked to find hundreds. I connected and talked to a few---they were floored and scared to death. A few even have their family photos for sharing. Scary stuff. |
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tup
Premium
join:2001-01-15
Port Elgin, ON
| reply to gracie
It is not only the Document folder that is a problem.
I recall when I installed Limeware about a month ago, it also wanted me to share my Program files. Since I usually install all software applications like my tax program in Program files, my tax info would have been available to anyone if I had okayed this permission. |
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