Folks, this is not a joke or a prank. Someone has stolen/hacked my FlyerTalk password and has been posting in my name.

Please do yourself a favour and CHANGE your FT password NOW.


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Gaucho100K

But exactly what sort of damage has done to your reputation?

Guy Betsy-- It appears my password was only hacked between yesterday and today. To set the record straight, my rant against some of your attitudes on the SQ and other boards were posted by me, and I fully stand by them.

As for my reputation, both on these boards and elsewhere... Ive always had the reputation of being a pompous & difficult a$$, and that is of course fully deserved.

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Gaucho100K

Punki's account has now been hacked. The nonsense is going on in the Only Randy Peterson forum. Change your password, particularly if it is the one you use on another travel board.

Punki also...??!!! When did that happen...??

This is Punki, posting under the name, Fake Handle. OBTW, Randy is fully aware that I have this handle.

Yes, my account was evidentally hacked and my password changed, so now I can't post under the name Punki. Anything that you read under my old handle is not being posted by me.

Is there a reason why you don't go and edit the inappropriate posts, Gaucho100K?

I can't edit the post made in my name because my password was stolen.

I think Gaucho said he was maintaining his false post intact for tracking purposes.

Just changed my password.

Did Gaucho or Punki log into FT on a "communal" computer like at an airport lounge club computer?

Perhaps a computer had "cookies" and "saved" their info.



[This message has been edited by writetorich (edited Feb 01, 2004).]

That does happen. At Bernie's flat at DUS last July a number of folks were posting to various threads on FT from his computer.

One person then went to delete his cookies after posting and tried ... and tried ..... and tried ... all to no avail. Typing in his user name saw password obligingly pop up each time.

Probably half a dozen FT'ers, several pretty computer savvy, tried various suggestions and ideas and tricks over 10 minutes and all to no avail. I have the tech literally of a plankton, but I had assumed it doable via some simple delete command.

Now that person and Bernie of course have absolutely zippo to do with the current mess, let me make that 105% clear, but it surprised me that it seemed so hard to deliberately clear cookies. I have little doubt some airline computers offer the same problem?

FWIW Bernie presumably still has my password on the compouter, so ....

N O ... I don't, Oz. All the usernames / passwords are gone as times passed by

The scuttlebut in the Only Randy Petersen column is that someone who formerly had access to the http://www.moremiles.org database harvested the passwords.

If a poster used the same password there as here, he may have been compromised.

Incidentally, doing so would be a federal offense.

Makes me glad I didn't get in, because I was too busy to properly complete the authentication process!

There is no possibility that anyone involved with MoreMiles is connected with today's identity theft fiascos.

I am comfortable in so saying because I have had two identities stolen today. The first was my original FT Punki identity which did have a connection to MoreMiles and was stolen this morning. The second was my Randy approved FT fake handle which was exclusive to Ft and was hacked within the last couple of hours.

There is obviously a very smart, but misdirected, sicko on the loose on FT. It is a little scary that people like this exist, but, such is life.

I hope that the FT crew will restore my identies tomorrow. After this incident, I really do want to maintain multiple identities. I assure you that I will never abuse them, but will only maintain them for emergencies such as this.