Hacked Accounts:

[S]

Would it be possible to search inactive accounts of 6+months and automatically remove the recovery email attached to them? That's how most of the accounts have been recovered of recent and in the past, which has lead to countless hackings and scams.

I think these past two weeks alone ~ 20 inactive semi reputable accounts were recovered and used to scam.

Hotmail is terrible, and gets exploited frequently - An exploit was made known a few weeks ago, and hence a high chance that these hacked accounts are due to that.

I know it would be a pain in the ass for Staff if these members did come back, and tried to regain control of their accounts... however I'm sure the staff can handle a few recovery threads if those users return.

This is all theory, there is no definite way to know that the accounts are getting recovered due to the exploit, however it's by far the most plausible at this point.

 

[Fendle]

Support, this could stop so many scams.

 

[Punjabi3]

Support but NNK just got hacked somehow as well... and he's been active for a while now.

 

[Elena]

Support as well could potentially cut down on scams.

 

[S]

Support but NNK just got hacked somehow as well... and he's been active for a while now.

Prob email recovery, via hotmail, aka exploit.

 

[Fendle]

Shame about NNK, sucks even more when the user is active because it has 2 victims the person who got scammed and the loss of the Sythe account and the repayments they have to make.

 

[S]

Bumping

 

I did a query based on what you suggested. Around 60,000 accounts with hotmail emails have not posted for a year.

I'm not keen on removing the recovery emails from so many accounts. Many of them may be legitimate and those users may wish to come back at some point.

Taking suggestions on how to tackle this.

One thought is to modify the recovery emails so that they can be read off by staff for the purpose of a legit recovery, but not used to automatically recover. For example changing @hotmail.com to @hotmail.null.

 

[S]

I'm not keen on removing the recovery emails from so many accounts. Many of them may be legitimate and those users may wish to come back at some point.

Taking suggestions on how to tackle this.

They can make a recovery dispute, and the staff can handle it from there. It's rare to see people return after such a long period of time, unless they were known within the community/ex-staff/ex-market traders.

Personally I believe it would prevent a boatload of hackings and scams.

 

[szskateman22]

What about sending out a notification to those that have inactive accounts for 1 year+ & hotmail extensions.

If they do not respond about changing e-mail addresses within 2 weeks, then their account's e-mail will be modified to a void mail (like you suggested Sythe).

 

[S]

What about sending out a notification to those that have inactive accounts for 1 year+ & hotmail extensions.

If they do not respond about changing e-mail addresses within 2 weeks, then their account's e-mail will be modified to a void mail (like you suggested Sythe).

I'm pretty sure that would put alot of strain on the server. Also the fact that those emails could already be compromised.

 

[szskateman22]

I'm pretty sure that would put alot of strain on the server. Also the fact that those emails could already be compromised.

It was just a suggestion. And if those accounts are not compromised, then the users could still be using them. You can't NOT inform them about the change. If they have another means of contact you could use that instead.

Request they change to a different mailing system (gmail/yahoo/etc.) until the security issues are cleared up. I mean I'm just tossing ideas around.

 

Cannot send 60k emails at once. Will be blacklisted by mail exchanges.

 

[BamBamBiim]

Interesting, support.

 

[S]

Cannot send 60k emails at once. Will be blacklisted by mail exchanges.

This might be too far fetched, what about adding other factors in? E.G, accounts that have been inactive for 6+ months, have 1k+ pc, 2009 or earlier join date. Would it be possible to have an automatic search function do all that?

 

[Savitar]

Since hotmail is so well-known for having its exploits, why not just prevent users from registering with hotmail in the future? It doesn't help with the main problem of people recovering old accounts, but it does prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

 

[ASAPgang]

Since hotmail is so well-known for having its exploits, why not just prevent users from registering with hotmail in the future? It doesn't help with the main problem of people recovering old accounts, but it does prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

What about the people who only own a hotmail account? that would scare them off upon registration, as they would have to register with a new mail provider.
Support this notion, don't know how we would go about it though.

 

[Savitar]

What about the people who only own a hotmail account? that would scare them off upon registration, as they would have to register with a new mail provider.
Support this notion, don't know how we would go about it though.

If people really want to be on this site, one of the biggest markets on the Internet, creating a new email address isn't a big deal. Why, it could be done in approximately 3 minutes.

 

[S]

Another 2 trusted and well known members hacked today; and accounts scammed with. (Not relevant to the OP as such, but yea lol).

http://www.sythe.org/members/266135-aus-aaz.html

http://www.sythe.org/members/290114-xkronic.html

 

[I_DONT_BOT]

I did a query based on what you suggested. Around 60,000 accounts with hotmail emails have not posted for a year.

I'm not keen on removing the recovery emails from so many accounts. Many of them may be legitimate and those users may wish to come back at some point.

Taking suggestions on how to tackle this.

One thought is to modify the recovery emails so that they can be read off by staff for the purpose of a legit recovery, but not used to automatically recover. For example changing @hotmail.com to @hotmail.null.

That's a brilliant idea, if they want to recover their account they can post in the acc recovery section and if the I.P's match it can be recovered. Good shout.