Sunday, February 3, 2013
SWM ISO ...
I got my Gmail address way back when the service first started up. As such, it's a fairly short name, and didn't require a lot of customization. As time has passed, I have started getting more and more email that should be going to somebody else, because other people seem to think they own my email. I've gotten wedding plans, "Mom's" electric bill, contract information of various types, and so on. I also started getting more and more spam, on an account that initially didn't get any. With all those various mis-addressed emails coming in, sometimes I'd just ignore them, sometimes I'd reply to the sender stating that they had the wrong person. There's a woman in Australia who never would believe that I wasn't the person she was trying to reach, and sometimes when I look at my spam folder, I still see jokes that she's forwarded. A couple weeks ago, I got an email about renting a theater in Vancouver, BC and tried to tell the sender that she had the wrong person. Her first reply insisted that I had indeed been the one to email her. I replied again, saying "hey, I was just trying to let you know that you had the wrong person, but if she just wanted to argue, then she should just go ahead and rent the theater to somebody else. Her reply to that? "FU". So yeah, I'm less and less inclined to help people reach the right person.
Anyway ... yesterday I received an email welcoming me to one of the larger online dating services. It wasn't for me, in case the preceding paragraph didn't make that clear. That email provided "my" username, password, date of birth and ZIP code. Good gravy, I'm halfway to stealing somebody's identity and I haven't even used the credentials to log in to the dating site and see what else I can find!
I'm sorely tempted to log in and change field that says "looking for women" to "looking for men". I am gay after all. Or perhaps to change the profile text to say "Hey ladies, I'm too stupid to even know my own email address, so you'll probably want to keep looking."
But back to that initial email. The PASSWORD? In plain text? In Two Thousand Freaking Thirteen? Clearly that means the site in question is not encrypting their records. Is it time to name and shame them? Should I actually log in and see what other information is available to me?
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