Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Serious passwords problem.

Important ATF post.

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Something very serious has occurred that has made me realise that we all need to change our "unimportant" Twoplustwo passwords, now, to something unusual that no one could guess, even if it's only, say, the name of a country with numbers that mean something to us. (For example: 400BELGIUM400.)

A scammer has obviously picked a common password and simply gone through a number of names trying the password for each name until he found a respected poster. (Who knows how many he has found?) Then he wrote to some (who knows how many?) other readers as the respected poster, asking if they would transfer money with him at poker sites.

He has tricked at least one person so far, and there could be others who hardly even know yet that they have been scammed if they sent this "respected poster" money and are waiting for money to be returned to them at another site.

He would also have total access to the other (who knows how many?) readers' saved PMs.

I would bet my boots that there are a lot of simple passwords out there and that their owners haven't thought that such fraudulent events could follow from the simple passwords.

In other words, it's probably not you that could be scammed, but it could well be someone relying on the reputation of your good name that is scammed, and you will then have the public embarrassment of trying to persuade everyone that you are not the scammer.

Please change your password immediately if you feel it could be guessed.

Thank you.

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Perhaps some of you may wish to add the suggestion to your stickies to assist in trying to reduce the risk?

Thank you.