TCH-Thomas Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 A friend asked me today how this is possible. She has her cousin on her msn contact list. My friend is here in sweden, the cousin is in argentina and this 3rd person the story is about is in france. Yesterday she see the cousin online and starts talking to him. The person on the otherside is just a big "?" cause it is not my friends cousin. This "new" person and my friend speak for a while and it turns out that the cousin and this new person has same email for logging in to msn messenger (if same password the story isnt telling). How is it possible that 2 people gets same adress to log in? Is it same kind of spoofing (i think you call it), that we see posts about here (about our emailadresses)? I know this got to be a little messy explained, but i am so confused how this happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 Is it possible the names are not exactly the same? For instance tch_bill versus tchbill versus tch-bill versus tch_bill[some non-printing character]? In "the old days" a trick we used was to type a space after the name to make ourselves look like someone else. They don't allow that stuff nowdays but there may be others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted May 12, 2004 Author Share Posted May 12, 2004 Is it possible the names are not exactly the same? Thats the problem as i understand, the adresses are exactly the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 Are you absolutely, positively CERTAIN thats its the same name. I know I have had trouble with chat names in the Older Prodigy Classic chat and in IRC with similar names. They substitute letters that are very close in appearrance like the uppercase i and lowercase L and sometimes numeric 1. So "BiLL" can be BIll or B1ll or bl|| and when using the fonts in these chat programs you can not tell the difference easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 I had a friend write me and tell me he was going to get my husband at the airport and would have him home soon. Now I would never call my wife "husband" let alone say she looks like a man. Trust me, it is not taken well and I have the scars to prove it. I let him know that I wasnt who he thought I was, either that or I have a secret life I dont know about. He cut and pasted the text of out IM and my replies had the other persons screen name. This happened between us twice. I can say that it is possible but I think it was an error in how the program was working on a global level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted May 13, 2004 Author Share Posted May 13, 2004 I have now let my friend read all these answers and she is a little confused of the exact spellings over the adresses now so here is what she will do. 1) Ask both to type their adresses as they do when logging in (with same speed and concentration etc) in the chat window. 2) Copy both adresses in to notepad and with using same font compare if l (small L) can be a 1 for instance. 3) Same time they type it in to chatwindow she will hover over the name in contactlist to see what msn says what adress they are logged in with. Both me and Cynthia wants to thank everyone involved. I will reply here when i know what happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 2) Copy both adresses in to notepad and with using same font compare if l (small L) can be a 1 for instance. what I used to do is find an old log and cut and paste one name on top of one another, two lines, in WRITE or NOTEPAD and the highlight both and change the font. I would use the WINGDINGS font since that font had distinct characters with no repeats or similar characters. I could easily find the changed characters this way. What I would suggest to folks in IRC to avoid this is to use nicknames without these characters in them. The "i" and "L" and "1" are the worse and the alpha o and numeric 0 next. They would also combine letters to confuse folks, two "v" put together look like a "w" and you put a "pipe" (|) on each end of a v to make an "M". VV or |V| O W or M 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 That's scary Rob. To think that a massively global and mostly trusted service has that kind of problem is not a very comfortable thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 well, I was on Trillian and they were on AIM so there may have been translation issues. Not sure but it was a bit funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borfast Posted May 14, 2004 Share Posted May 14, 2004 (edited) That's scary Rob. To think that a massively global and mostly trusted service has that kind of problem is not a very comfortable thought. Trusted? Come on, Jim, you're not serious, are you? http://www.google.com/search?q=hijacking+msn+messenger That's what I like the best in MS products: a flaw in one of them allows access to other programs that (shouldn't) have nothing to do with each other Edited May 14, 2004 by TCH-Raul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annie Posted May 14, 2004 Share Posted May 14, 2004 There are all kinds of weird things happening. Once I got an IM, I think from Yahoo. This guy told me I'd added him to my buddies, which I hadn't done. I had no interest in talking to him, so we didn't go past explaining how come he IM'd me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted May 14, 2004 Share Posted May 14, 2004 Trusted? Come on, Jim, you're not serious, are you? http://www.google.com/search?q=hijacking+msn+messenger Oh, I am quite serious. From a MS website: MSN Messenger is the most popular free IM service, with 120 million users each month worldwide. I did not say it should be trusted, just that it was... by 12M users each month. This does, in fact, show why I was saying it is so scary. A few of us know it's evils but the "unwashed mases" think it's safe and that makes it a problem. Which is more dangerous to have, a loaded gun or a bad bolt in your car? We know the gun's dangerous and treat it with respect, but the can is a hidden danger that we aren't prepared for and when it hits it is more deadly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borfast Posted May 14, 2004 Share Posted May 14, 2004 Yes, I know what you mean and I agree. I was just kidding about the messenger being trusted thing. Unfortunately, computers are not like cars and so anyone can use one even without knowing what they're doing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 Hehe, Like I said before, I am a big computer geek, well MSN Has a flaw, same as yahoo. It is easy to hack/steal Usernames for them. All you have to do is send in a email to the correct email address, and format it right so that the server thinks ur Yahoo/MSN staff. It then sends you their password. This way might have been fixed, not sure though. I learned that from hmmmm, a friend helping me when I forgot my password to my account and did not remember the answer to my secret question. It worked back then, not sure if it still does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Thomas Posted May 21, 2004 Author Share Posted May 21, 2004 Uh oh... We have to watch out for Alan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted May 22, 2004 Share Posted May 22, 2004 hehehe lol nah, that way has been fixed. the best way to not get threatened by people who wanna do harm, is to be their friends. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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