For your security (off topic)

[paul]

This post is definitely off-topic but I'm posting here because it's the busiest part of the forum.

I've noticed several home and mobile phone numbers posted on the forum. Some users might not realise that this can leave them open to all sorts of scams; some users have their real names as usernames, their club affiliations or positions and their locations. Put this info with a telephone number and identity theft is but a step away.

I would recommend putting phone numbers in an image (like this example) as it can only be read by a person (not a bot) or better still using private messaging.

Some people might find this saves them a whole bunch of grief.

[3405jimmy]

Wots a bot ?

Jim

[gwrfan]

3405 said:

Wots a bot ?

Jim

A bot is a parasitic worm, found in horses. I guess this is what it refers to, but in computer terms!

Geoff (Just mucked out the horses!) ;D

[JohnP]

I always thought that bot was short for robot, but I like the horse parasite idea better. BTW if anyone's interested - and I bet nobody is - "robot" comes fro a Czech word meaning "worker", and first came to fame after it was used in the play "RUR" or "Rossum's Universal Robots"

JohnP

[SteveW]

Guys,

A 'bot' in this context is a computer executable script. Yea! I know that doesn't help either. If you think about them as being little programs written to read the contents of web pages and report back anything of interest to the 'bot-master'. We're talking phone numbers, identities, bank details, passwords et al. Anything that looks like bank account, phone password type data.

These little things are why you need very good security on your internet access point, firewall to keep them out or if they're already in stop them reporting back YOUR details, a good virus scanner on your email to prevent known versions getting delivered and something like Spybot search and Destroy to prevent them arriving on the back of a web page.

It's scarey stuff and they are out to get you/your money.

[havoc]

Bots are what sites like google use to get internet pages indexed. They scan a page for "stuff" and the good ones like google use the result to make your page searchable, the bad ones use things like email addresses found to send you spam.

Paul's idea is very good. Never put on the net more than absolutely necessary. Even the birthday on this site isn't a very good idea from a security viewpoint.