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Saturday, July 07, 2007

 

Don't fall for this one

I recently received an email inviting me to 'Desktopdating'. It came with the name of a friend on it but not from my friend's email address. I was interested to see what 'Desktopdating' is so I clicked the link that said 'Accept the invitation'. The page that opened is shown in the picture here, except that it had my full name and one of my email addresses filled in. As you can see, it is asking me to enter my password for my email addresses.

Now, why would I do this? Why would I give my email password to a site I am unfamiliar with except they were able to send me an email with my friends name on it?

If I give this site my password, they will have access to all my private emails. If I have mail stored from a bank or other financial institution they can read it. The can get access to all the addresses in my address book. They can also log into my account as me and use it to send spam. While it says 'Your information is 100% secure and protected. We never share your information or spam', I do not trust them. Why should I when they ask for information that they have no reason to request except to use it for purposes that could be harmful to me and others?

I forwarded my friend the email that came with her name on it. She replied that she was surprised that I had received the invitation as she had not authorised it. This confirms for me that this site is not above board. If you receive an invitation from them or any other site that asks for any of your passwords other than the one to that site do not proceed. If you already have, I suggest that it's time to change the password on your email account.

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Comments:
received the same e-mail but didn't bother to click through to the site - googled it first and read your blog. i agree with you, why on earth would they need the password to your e-mail address!?? sounds really dodgy to me. thanks for the heads-up!
 
I got the same email. How did they get my friends name?
 
Your friend had a friend who accepted the invitation and then obviously your friend accepted the invitation too. BTW, they're not the only ones doing this now. Most social networking sites are doing it. Feel free to give them access to all your personal information if you must, just remove my email address first.
 
Here's why you shouldn't give facebook, desktop dating (or any other site) access to your address book: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/robbed-by-facebooks-enemy-in-the-camp-20090908-ff5q.html
 
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