Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Someone is posting for me

This is topic Someone is posting for me in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=008540

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-01-2007, 11:37 PM:

I came home tonight and got on Film-Tech, and discovered a few posts that were made under my name. I was out all evening and these were made around 8:50 p.m. tonight. Except for this thread I will not post anything anymore. When this thread is done, all I can say is it was nice chatting with you.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 03-01-2007, 11:47 PM:

mmmm, somthing smells pretty stinky,

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 03-01-2007, 11:50 PM:

Then go back to those posts and correct them...

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-01-2007, 11:55 PM:

Have you tried changing your password? That might sound like crazytalk, but it just.might.work.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-01-2007, 11:55 PM:

Phil, not worth it. Whoever did it is a waste of my time.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 03-01-2007, 11:59 PM:

Rick, my long-time friend, I disagree. Go back and disown those posts you found to be bogus... AND as Joe suggested, change your password 1st!

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 03-02-2007, 12:03 AM:

Please Richard, fix them/ delete them and stay with us all, I have been looking forward to your next overseas thread. Loved the China one now so long ago. [thumbsup]

Posted by Christopher Meredith (Member # 3767) on 03-02-2007, 12:10 AM:

Do you ever post from work, or any other computer that might be used by another Film-Tech'er? If so, they might have accidentally posted while logged in as you. Whoever it was knows something about the field, at least enough to sound semi-knowledgeable. It might not have been intentional.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-02-2007, 12:20 AM:

Christopher,I only work from home with my laptop. It was turned off and in my computer bag when i left this evening.

Posted by Christopher Meredith (Member # 3767) on 03-02-2007, 12:29 AM:

Have you ever logged in anywhere other than your laptop? As far as I can tell, once you log in, you're logged in forever until you manually log off.

Probably a longshot, but it would be nice if this could be explained by a simple mistake. Course you could have a malicious password-stealer on your hands. And that would be bad.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2007, 01:36 AM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
I only work from home

How can you be a projection installer or whatever it is that you do and work from home? Unless you only install stuff at the house.

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 03-02-2007, 02:47 AM:

Can't the mods or admins run an IP check?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-02-2007, 04:15 AM:

Although I've never had this happen to date, Andrew is correct that we certainly can track it.

The fake posts were from Omaha, Nebraska on a Cox internet line. We will have to run a check on the database to be able to pin things down further. Didn't you use to work for Strong in Omaha? Is there any chance that somebody at Strong who is also a member on these forums accidentally used a computer that had your password stored in it?

At least until we figure this out, please DO change your password so whoever (or whichever computer has it stored) can make no further posts under your name. I would certainly hate to see you go.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-02-2007, 04:40 AM:

While the board software DOES track IP addresses, it's a pain in the ass to actually search for an IP address. So I wrote some half-ass code to search through all of the posts ever made searching for that particular IP address. There were only four posts made with an IP matching one of the impersonated posts.

Having said that, a reverse IP lookup reveals that the IP address is assigned to Cox Communications and appears to have come from Omaha. You do the math; maybe you had a laptop at your previous job that you used to post on Film-Tech? The forum cookie is set for a life of two years.

At any rate, change your password and you should be fine. If you used that password for anything else, you should change those as well since the forum cookie is not secure.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-02-2007, 06:31 AM:

Changed my password. Looks like I'll be calling Ballantyne today and see who has my old laptop!! They were posted too late at night for anyone to be at my old desktop.

As far as anyone else at Strong posting here, the only other member was Pat Moore, and he isn't there anymore.

I'll keep you posted as to what I find out [beer]

Rick

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 03-02-2007, 07:30 AM:

The fake post offered advice on fixing a Strong power supply. Mighty suspicious given you once worked there and the post came from Omaha. I bet someone does have your old laptop.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-02-2007, 05:47 PM:

Whay happened to Pat Moore? He was at Showeasy....

Mark

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-05-2007, 01:10 PM:

Adam or Brad,
Is it possible to get the IP address of the posts? My old boss from Ballantyne blew it off, and I would just like to pinpoint where the posts came from. They said they "threw away" my laptop.....Bullshit. Any help is appreciated

Thanks, Rick

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-05-2007, 01:20 PM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
Except for this thread I will not post anything anymore. When this thread is done, all I can say is it was nice chatting with you.

Why are you angry with the forum for that?

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-05-2007, 01:24 PM:

quote: Michael Schaffer
Why are you angry with the forum for that?

Michael, when I first saw the posts, I assumed they were from someone on this site. I never imagined it was possibly done by someone from my old workplace. My apologies to forum members [beer]

Rick

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-05-2007, 01:48 PM:

I seldom have to log in to post here; my details must be cached somewhere. If somebody has taken over your laptop, and it has not had a clean system re-installed then they could be posting here without even realising the the posts would seem to be from you. I only saw one post, but it didn't look like someone would want to post under a false name, e.g. to discredit you.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-05-2007, 07:00 PM:

Live and learn... F-Disk any laptop you return to an employer or keep the hard drive and get them a new one.

Mark

Posted by Eric Robinson (Member # 2966) on 03-06-2007, 01:09 AM:

Mark is right. Just rip the drive(s) out when its time to go. Or, if they are going to complain, run Darik's Boot and Nuke on them.
Darik's Boot and Nuke

quote:
Safe. Irrecoverable data destruction. Prevents most forensic data recovery techniques.

Why leave anything useful behind...especially if your employer gives YOU the shaft for someone they found from a third world country.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 03-06-2007, 07:07 AM:

Depending on your company's policy, you may not be allowed to erase data on your company-issued and owned computer. If I was an employer, I'd first say there should not be any personal info/data on MY computer, and that any data that was 'generated' during your employment belongs to ME, because I paid for it. I can see erasing personal data, and whoever it is posting as Rich is wrong to do so, but a total erasure could get someone in trouble.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 03-06-2007, 09:43 AM:

If indeed the errant posts came from a computer at Strong, what does that say for their ethics?

Surely Strong would be just as interrested as to who was posting fradulently as we are.

Usually policies for deletion of information referrs to company Intellectual Property, not personal data. If all the companies IP has been transferred, there are several applications out there that will scrub the drive, rendering the data unrecoverable, such as WipeDrive

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 03-06-2007, 10:22 AM:

I've used a few computers at work to use the forum, and been surprised to see myself still logged in a long time afterwards. Probably a cookie is set that doesn't expire so unless I log out before quitting, the next time I go to Film-Tech I'm automatically logged in. Maybe this feature should have an expiry, like after a day or three not accessing Film-Tech on a given computer I would have to log in with password to post?
I don't think anyone here (work) would post under my name on purpose, but it would be perishing easy to do so if I hadn't logged out (it's not unususal to get called away while browsing)- possibly not even realizing they were "me" if they just saw a forum post and wanted to comment.

Posted by Christopher Meredith (Member # 3767) on 03-06-2007, 10:25 AM:

fdisk doesn't erase anything. dban is a good solution, as is any other erasure method that erases the disk then rewrites random bits over the entire writeable surface. If I am not mistaken, dban uses DoD standard procedures for classified data erasure. That should be more than sufficient for keeping someone from posting as you on an internet forum.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-06-2007, 11:13 AM:

I was assured that my laptop was wiped clean. I don't know about my desktop though.

I have a few concerns. "If" the posts came from Strong, regardless of if they were intentional or not, they were posts that were not mine, and questioned by my peers. Also one was a post agreeing that Americans do sloppy installs, and a blatant attack against Brad, which I would never do.

My main issue is "if" the comments came from Strong, they are my only competition when I am dealing with large format contracts. I don't know if my email was set up to automatically log on when I opened it. I changed the password now, so it's not a concern now, just something I didn't even think of doing. All of my business dealings have been done via my same personal e-mail account that I accessed on both my old Desktop and laptop.

Needless to say, I am very interested to see the IP address and find out exactly where they came from.

Rick

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 03-06-2007, 11:26 AM:

quote: Jason Burroughs
If indeed the errant posts came from a computer at Strong, what does that say for their ethics?

Indeed. Lately I was asking myself this question in general with this particular company. What is with them lately? [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-06-2007, 04:43 PM:

"they are my only competition "

Rick,
Actually if you have to have any competition at all its best to have the worst out there attempting to compete against you [Big Grin]

quote: Dennis Benjamin
Lately I was asking myself this question in general with this particular company. What is with them lately?

Actually I've been asking that for as long as I've been in this buisness(and many others I know have been asking the same thing too... for decades)... not that all the other companies are all good and perfect too. But Strong seems to have the knack to go out of their way to screw up things and has stayed screwed up for decades. Its really high time for a cleaning out of the good ole boys club... starting at the top on down. Some new blood with a clear mind at the very top would do them a gob of good.

Mark
The statment above not only reflects my experineces but dozens of others as well!

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 03-07-2007, 07:50 AM:

How exactly is Strong doing badly? They seem like pretty much one of the top dogs in their market.

PS: Hi, Dennis!

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 03-07-2007, 10:28 AM:

I don't want to get into that discussion in the forums. I've sent an e-mail.

Hey John!

How are things in the Northeast?

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 03-08-2007, 10:22 PM:

I wouldn't overreact to this. It's pretty obvious that your laptop wasn't tossed, but other than that, it's possible that someone had your machine, logged on to FilmTech, was automatically logged in under your name, didn't notice that it was your name and posted.

Since this doesn't automatically take one to their post unless you click on the link, it's possible they responded to several different threads without realizing they were posting under your name.