[PasDeDeux]

Are we safeguarded from hackers here on PC, so that what happened on that other board doesn't come here? I am freaking out and worried about this.

[SeptemberMorn]

I wouldn't worry about it. Just make sure you run your virus/adware programs either when you leave the site or at night before you shut your computer down.

Let Doc John worry and take care of a major hack job, ok? He's good at taking care of us and keeping us safe.

there is no guarantee that any site is secure. i'm sure they have teams of people working on online banking security, for example, but there are hacks into the system sometimes. i'd imagine that the security involved in online banking is a lot better than what one could realistically expect from an online community message board. that being said, the motivation for hacking into an online banking system is also considerably greater and i'd imagine that often there would be a team of hackers devoted to the project. typically, not much harm is done, however. not much harm to the consumers at any rate. one might feel violated, sure, and that is understandable, but the banks tend to put the situation right (in the sense of nobody losing money over it).

but anonymity isn't a feature of online banking.

i think it is worth thinking a bit about how much your anonymity means to you. while it seems that this site is more current with respect to security (thus making it harder to hack) it also seems that this site encourages people to provide a lot more in the way of personal information to the server such that there would be a great deal more for people to lose were that information to be hacked.

if one is posting about ones mental health issues and it is really very important that ones employers / future employers etc not have that information then i'd really suggest you not provide information that would enable anyone to identify you were they to hack into the server. that is fairly much common sense, but i think it is worth stating. there could be the possibility of blackmail, for example, if a person had posted posts that they would really not want their employer, supervisor, spouse, children, parents etc to be reading.

something i'm also a little cautious about is how people who have been regarded as 'mentally disordered' may be treated in future (with respect to the government wanting to compile databases for various reasons). i have heard of someone who went to court for a custody battle and her posts were hauled up as support for the notion that she was an unfit mother. there are circumstances in which legal agencies can require doc john to provide the information that he has available. all of this is somewhat seperate from the hacking problem, but these sorts of considerations are important with respect to your deciding how much information you provide to an online mental health community EVEN IF hacking was not a possibility (which, of course, it is).

the safest path of all is of course abstinence.

but the benefits to participating and being able to talk about deeply personal stuff can make the trade-off such that the benefits outweigh the risks. i guess here one has to go 'what risks', however. there are things one can do to minimise risk (such as not providing information to the server which would enable someone with that information to identify you IRL).

i'm not as careful as i should be.

this incident has reminded me of that.

[SeptemberMorn]

I think you're thinking too much, Alexandra... but then, that's just me. I don't worry about things like that probably because I've never made any part of my life a secret.

I've gone by my screen name for quite a few years so I suppose that might be a giveaway of sorts, although there was a time that I was battling to keep my screen name intact but there were too many others wanting and copying the same screen name. So... "would the real September Morn please stand up!" LOL

It's my feeling that the greatest damage would be done to the site itself rather than to individuals. But then again, I could be naive, too.

hey there. i agree with the sentiment that the greatest damage would be done to the site itself. my thought is that hacking into a site violates the site owner more than it violates the individuals who participate on the site.

i've gone by my screen name for a number of years, too. have something of an 'internet identity' built up around that. that being said i probably haven't been as careful about keeping that seperate from my 'real identity' as i should have been. i don't expect that someone would be particularly bothered to link them, but that being said i have a distinct preference for that not to be done.

i'm not sure what is in my future... but i like to keep my mental health stuff very seperate indeed from my working life.

i'd also be concerned about acquaintances reading my posts and condemning me for some of the self-disclosures i've made about my thoughts / feelings / emotions to do with my mental health stuff. i'm pretty %#@&#! up in a lot of respects and while people going through similar stuff are typically really understanding there are a lot of people in the world who probably wouldn't be very understanding.

it is hard to figure out the difference between steps that are appropriately cautious and steps that are bordering on paranoid.

that being said the moral i do take from this...

is to think carefully about what information i do disclose because if my internet posts were made available to my supervisors / parents / future employers / colleagues / acquaintances etc it would result in a lot of hurt and embarrassment (and almost definately have a negative impact on my career.

take care.

[Rhapsody]

The world we call the Internet is NEVER - can NEVER be guaranteed 100%......

yeah, thats right.

but there are steps that we can take to protect ourselves.

and of course doc john works hard to keep the site as secure as he can as well.

[SeptemberMorn]

I can understand where you're coming from. At my age, I don't have those concerns anymore since it's all behind me. One of my daughters-in-law did sign up here and read way too much behind my back. It was a violation of privacy among other things but we've managed to work through what she read and her infringement here. I don't think anything could be worse! LOL Well... at least, not for me.

I'm sure you have your protection well in hand. Maybe PDD has read something here that will ease her worries.

[DePressMe]

I know it is possible for hackers to discover who I am or for a family member to read my posts, but I only post the truth, so I don’t worry about it. I even put my picture with my posts. I wear my psychcentral t-shirt and when people ask about it—I tell them about the site and what I get out of it. At work I don’t cover up my scars from my past cutting. I consider its all part of who I am.

I believe in making a stand against sexual abuse, incest and related topics. If somebody wants to find out that I am an abuse victim, in recovery or deal with depression, they just have to ask me or go to places where I talk. I put myself out there because I believe my “issues” should not be hidden. If a place of employment would search the net to find out crap about me, then I don’t want to work there. As for insurance, I have a clear health record of my issues—doctors’ visits, pdoc visits, hospitalizations, medications—they can find out enough about me by just getting my medical records or through a typical screening. There is no way I can hide from them.

So, I post what I want, I say what I want…sometimes, people see my scars or hear me and they come to me to explain that they were abused too. I hope in some little way I can help them. If that is true, then I am willing to risk losing a potential job or insurance policy.

Also, I understand that not everybody wants to be “out there” and I respect others decisions to keep these issues confidential.

hey. i think it is great that you guys have thought about the consequences and have made an informed decision :-)

i'm glad that you managed to sort the situation out septembermorn. sometimes... people can be more understanding than we expect and that is terrific.

one issue is... registration as a psychologist. opinions vary, but it seems that that can be an issue. same with respect to admission to med school and registration as a medical doctor. same again with psychiatry training and speciality etc. i personally... choose to keep my history as quiet as possible. why? because i want to be accepted as a professional rather than being accepted as a consumer advocate. if i make it as a professional then i'll out myself as a consumer one day in order to inspire others but i don't want my making it to depend on other peoples sympathies OR hostilities to my history as a consumer.

i also post a great deal about such things as transference feelings for my therapist and stuff like that. i'd be fairly mortified if employers / colleagues / supervisors / acquaintances etc were to read that kind of stuff. some would be understanding, i'm sure. but others would not be, i'm fairly sure of that.

the thing that i find most useful about online mental health communities is that i find the courage to write about things that i think i could never tell anybody about in one million years. all those things about myself that i'd be too ashamed about saying irl. that is the major benefit i find to participating. to be able to say those things... and then to see how people don't judge or condemn me, rather they share similar things and sympathise for where i'm coming from. of course i hope to find the courage to talk about those things with my therapist... but not my colleagues etc... not in fifty million years lol.

so i guess thats why my online privacy is important to me...

[SandyWeb]

Hi everyone,

Please read my posting under the General Discussion area, within the Internet Travellers Forum, entitled Hey Babblers! I think it is on Page 6. By SandyWeb.

I know we are all pretty concerned about our own personal computers after what happened at PB, and these are just some suggestions for what I did when I found that I was invaded within that timeframe (and never once before in my years of computing....I'm not talking about viruses attempting to gain access, but Norton always knocks them right out of the ring! Lol).

Just give it a read-through. Remember that the hacker at PB was not trying to harm your computer, but rather to sneak programs in so that it could get information from you. Just running a virus check won't show that.

Good luck and God bless,
Sandy

[gardenergirl]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
SandyWeb said:

Just give it a read-through. Remember that the hacker at PB was not trying to harm your computer, but rather to sneak programs in so that it could get information from you. Just running a virus check won't show that.


</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I'm so glad you had the resources and skills in place to find and remove those bugs, Sandy. The potential for breeches of internet security and identity theft are real in this day and age, and we have to do what we can to protect ourselves. Anti-virus and firewall protection are great. I'm sure someone has already mentioned this, but we've also got to regularly update anti-virus and other security software so that they can identify the latest junk out there.

I say this next part in the spirit of using information to quash rumors, gossip, and/or worry based on misinformation or faulty assumptions. We don't actually know that the person or persons responsible for hacking Babble have done anything to anyone else's personal computer. I understand you found stuff on yours, Sandy, and that the timing appears to coincide with when Babble was hacked. Still, correlation does not equal causation. Unless you can find out where those came from, and also have knowledge of who hacked Babble, you really can't know if they are one and the same.

Thanks for reading.

gg

[DocJohn]

At the very least, if you had a Babble account and have an account elsewhere with the same password, you should change all of your passwords to something else.

Ideally, you should change your passwords for online accounts used at least once a year, or every 6 months if you can. Passwords should always include numbers, letters and even a symbol, and should *not* include any word found in the dictionary.

I keep at least 3 different kinds of passwords for different kinds of accounts. For financial or other sensitive accounts where someone can buy stuff on my account, I use a strong password that's regularly changed. For admin accounts, a different "strong" password (strong being letters, numbers, symbols). And for everyday accounts at other websites (like a community like this one), a third password that's also strong. You're supposed to use a different password for every different account, but honestly, that's just too much for me to remember. (There is "password management" software you can install on your computer to help remember them if you go this route, but that seems more trouble than it's worth in terms of what it gets you.)

Yes, you can write your password down on a sticky next to your computer or keep it in an address book if you need to remember it, especially if it's only *your* computer used only by you. (If it's a shared family computer or a work computer, you can still write it down to remember it, just keep it someplace only you regularly have access to.) It's generally better to write down a "strong" password than to say, "Ah, that's too much trouble, I'll just use a weaker password I can remember."

Best,
DocJohn

[Sabrina]

I tend to use the same password for almost everything - probably not an intelligent thing to do. Maybe it is time to go changing all my passwords. What a job!