I thought of this partly due to the theft of Mav's M3, even though I doubt that his car theft was planned through online.

This is an edited repost of my post on the Atlanta forums. No one wanted to give intelligent responses there, but to be fair, it was off-subject in another thread. here:

For every post, if you wait enough time (as little as 5 minutes in local forums), there are approx. 5 or 6 immediate views to the thread per post with no response, then a drop off in views (meaning they are constanly reading right after new posts). WHO are these lurkers? Why are some people here constantly rechecking the thread after each post close to 2 AM? To the more important subject matter...

This is very weird to me, considering the large amount of personal information exchanged on this board. Actually makes me quite uncomfortable, especially with other recent threads linking to our pictures, car info, town, and all phone numbers... (the Atlanta site is terrible when it comes to member profiles, see http://www.s2000atlanta.com/cgi-bin/list_profiles.cgi).

Does anyone else have concerns about security? I doubt anything would happen to anyone, but it's not the best or most secure practice either. honda-acura.net and off-topic.net now require you to log in before doing anything (even a search), which I prefer and think this board should start doing. This will also filter out some idiots from posting as much, as only the true enthusiasts and owners would bother to sign in.

* * *

I know 2 people whose cars were stolen: a Civic hatchback, and an Integra Type R.

When they were recovered, after being stripped, it was discovered that someone had "shopped" for them on a Honda internet message board whose name I won't mention. The owners obviously didn't post their home addresses. Just the mods to their car, and careful monitoring of their posts are what made their cars easily found and targeted for theft.

Laugh if you want, but IF I wanted to, I guarantee I could find (in a couple hours) enough info on many s2ki members (whose last name is available) to ruin credit ratings, steal some of your cars, etc.

If you care, the civic did not have full coverage, and the whole affair put the guy in debt.

My point is simply that there could be some unwelcome lurkers, and we could easily filter them out with forced sign-ins and careful posting!


ps. can the mods view the IP info of people only viewing threads?

 

2:00 AM where? 2:00 AM where you are is not 2:00 AM where I am. It's only natural that a new thread will get a few views right away - it's at the top of the list. When it trickles down a bit it gets less interest.

 

What I would like to know is if you could limit the views to un-registered members (i.e. lurkers) to just the forums, and threads, and no posts, profiles, info, etc.

The FAQ's could still be known without disclosing any info.

axcilla

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by naishou
[B]2:00 AM where?

 

.......welcome to the internet

throw your ideas at the site info forum for better response.

 

This is one of the benefits of not living in the US and not sharing the local paranoia. Lets face it, if someone wanted to steal your car then it is most likely going to be stolen when you have it parked on the street or some other public area. If it is stolen from your home then it is likely to be from people following you once they have seen it on the street.

I personally find it farfetched that people are lurking on this site just so they can target an inidividual vehicle.

 

Exactly, welcome to the internet ... security on an open bulletin board system varies upon what sort of information is exchange, exhibited or displayed. I have faith in C3 and the boys in regards to site security in general, I'm a professional in this line myself and more than certain I have to say than it's more often than none that it's the board users who put themselves to high risk or risk if there is prone to be any.

Everytime when you post a picture, name a offline private address or speak about a group gathering ... It's all about who is reading what and who is using this information in whatever appropriate manner is up to discretion. For example the way H-A.net operates without the use of a login ID to access viewing the site is as dumb as the idea itself, how hard is it to get a login ID nevertheless? I cannot explain why they got hacked but certainly the site operators must have made it quite easy to reach.

So everytime someone decides to put anything out on public and fear security and other related issues, it will be wise to note that this is quite the real thing between offline and online. Sometimes hiding a plate isn't going to be good enough to hide the identity of a certain vehicle especially when it has unique features quite noticable. I urge members to think about their personal information as an asset and think twice before doing any posting of any form of electronic data that might affect one offline.

 

Welcome to the internet age... Although I highly doubt that the a$$holes who stole my car shopped for it online via this website (this is the only car forum I frequent), it wouldn't be too far fetched.....

I normally post during the day, while at work, since I have nothing better to do. Let's say if a hacker/car theft is looking around to steal a car, comes to this site and decides to target me... he can hack into this board's database and look at my IP Address. Then run an IP Trace and find out its source. Performing a quick search on the internet will reveal my company's address and bingo.

Most likely, in my case, it didn't happen this way... but its not impossible. The fact is nothing can be 100% hack proof. IP's can be obtained easily, IP traces can be run even easier and anyone can be physically located if you have the motivation, skill and time.

Blocking the site from lurkers or non-members is a partial solution. Then what is the real solution? Well short of closing down www.s2000online.com, these is none. It's the slight risk we all are exposed to by being members. I'm not saying this to put fear in anyone - again, you have a better chance of winning the lotto then a thieve stalking your car online and stealing it. And I say its well worth the minute risk...

 

Sir Tom, have you been studying this or what?! I think your conclusions about the patterns of viewing (and this mysterious 2AM reference) are a little unsound. As was pointed out above, it's only natural that new posts get more frequent views and then level off. What inference are you drawing? Do you think some bots are gathering valuable private info?

There's an easy fix: Don't post anything on the Internet that you don't want creeps to know.

 

This is a very thought provoking subject that I never considered. In fact, if I had the intentions to "lurk and steal", I could very easily target owners.

The best target would have been the Laguna Seca meet, and from monitoring who's showing up, I'd know what car(s) to hit....based on mods and how to identify them. If I lurked, I would have known that GTRPower's cars was going to be there, and would know what it looked like...........

I guess it would be easy for for people to do this....

Solutions to stopping this? I like the idea of limited view capabilities for non-registered lurkers. I also think that registration should be even more specific....give the admin your mailing address and phone number. S2Ki.com will mail you your temporary id and will call you with your temporary password....this will limit those registered owners like Viscreal2000. <---Scum....ask Scot and Randy about this one. (Or do a search on this guy).