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Wed Nov 14 2001

In response to the questions posed by Hidingbehindmyself I thought it best to put them here instead of emailing privately incase anyone else was interested.

Yes you can change your username, just email us (or use the Help facility, that's the preferred method) your current username and what you'd like it changed to (please check it doesn't already exist though :) ) and we can get it switched in a jiffy.

As far as private diaries being hacked, this is the first i've heard of it.... If anyone is prepared to tell us how it happens or just give us any ideas that they have then we can work on plugging the hole - though I am still not sure how you would even do it.... any help you can provide would be much appreciated even if it's just a vague direction to look in :)

Hope this helps.
Matt.

4 Comments
  • From:
    RavynAshSummers (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Nov 14 2001
    Thanks for the heads-up, as far as hacking the accounts goes, could be brute-force (as in sending a LOT of trial passwords for the one username via use of a wordlist

    eg. if my password was "fish" (which it of course isn't) someone could run a list of a billion words to try as passwords and eventually one might unlock the diary with the word "fish"

    and someone just got lucky, the easy solution for that, is use numbers & words to make it harder to crack. Although I'm sure there are methods I haven't thought of. Just a thought.

    Ravyn
  • From:
    SecretHugger (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Nov 14 2001
    `safely gives you a hug if you want one`

    Everyone Needs A Hug,
    SecretHugger

    P.S. I have a question. What if your password is two words put together, with no fancy stuff? Is that easy to get?
  • From:
    RavynAshSummers (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Nov 14 2001
    Another password idea might be to change your password every say three or four months, just in case, to keep potential hackers guessing. Windows NT has a mechanism that you can set so that network passwords must be changed in a specified period of time. Diarist might think it a good idea to change there passwords once every 3 or 4 months, more frequently if you want to be very safety conscience. And to be just that little bit safer, it might be an idea if you are to change your password to something completely different...

    As an example, I heard a story from my school about a girl whose name was lauren, and her password was "lauren" and so, was quickly hacked by some bored school kids. They sent pornography from her account to every student in the school. Needless to say, the school was unimpressed...to remedy this situation, she changed her password. Word spread within two weeks her new password was "lauren1". That's a long-winded way of saying, make sure if you change your password, it's completely different.

    Good luck,

    Ravyn
  • From:
    Hidingbehindmyself (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Nov 14 2001
    Cool I will use the Help function and get you to change my diry name for me... thanks!!

    I am trying to find out from the person who got it hacked how it was done, but he is reticent to tell me for obvious reasons. All he said is it took just a few seconds, so he mustn't have been trying normal word combinations, (as mine is not just a word). I cannot offer you any further help than that I am sorry.

    Thanks for the advice though!!

    ~HBM~