Serious Online Privacy Vulnerability Exposed for Forum Users & Vulnerability Management for Dummies

Wanted you all to be alerted to this -about the MouseTrace spy software that some forums use on their websites.

ATS surely isn't one of them..

but

There is a growing concern on the Internet these days about online privacy. Whether people use Facebook, email or take part in other online communities, the security and privacy of personal information is on the forefront of security concerns

“The MouseTrace software was discovered by an Open Minds member to be running on their forum. Naturally they were concerned about it so they opened a thread on the subject [snip] asking if the OM staff also used key loggers and snooped on private messages.

Other members also became concerned and asked questions, but a staff response was slow in coming. Five days slow to be exact. One member even asked Patrick Clinger, owner of the ProBoards software if this was something ProBoards had done, but he confirmed MouseTrace wasn’t used on any of their sites. Incidentally, the member who questioned Mr Clinger has now been banned from the OM forum.”

Hmm, wonder why?

Steve Broadbent explained in a blog post:

“Once everything was up and running, RU member ‘Philliman’ and I both registered an account at John’s test site. Once activated, we sent PMs to one another with each of us receiving or sending a PM to the other. Meanwhile, MouseTrace is quietly running in the background and lo and behold….it recorded our activity perfectly. The traces John viewed allowed him to read the messages between the two of us. The ‘private’ in Private Messages was now a useless word.”

As far as I know, this Steve Broadbent was a well respected ATS member in the past: Not sure but he could possibly still be active here.

Please see full article here:

www.topsecretwriters.com...

One can never be too safe these days and I do value my privacy. This shouldn't be happening.

Again, wanted you guys to be alert to the latest ...

Oh and you also might want to take advantage of / DL the free "Vulnerabilities Management Book for Dummies"! It can't hurt... Just wanted to help you guys out and give you a heads up.

ATS, you DON'T have this installed here , do you? Thought I would ask!

Thanks !

Thoughts/Comments?

So basically this MouseTrace stuff seems to be a _javascript (which is completely obvious) based application that can record user activity at a much more precise level than your typical SEO software (which usually just records browser, IP, etc). If the admin here wanted to read our PM's it would be simple. I guess this MouseTrace thing would let the admin view messages as they were being typed? Seems like it would be a huge waste on bandwidth. Why would it be necessary to know every mouse movement and keystroke a user makes on your website?

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Kinda like the gov... the "all seeing eye"... big bro and others like want fULL control and watching every move so they can be ONE step ahead I guess... ??

All I can say, is it seems there is no privacy left these days... I try to at least save a little bit of mine. No, I 'm not doing anything wrong.. I just value what's left of my privacy. It's like what is this world coming to? Are we going to be made to go to the bathroom next IN FRONT of others. Are we not gonna be able to crap in private next? Are they going to have out the microscopes to examine the corn?? lol ... but it's NOT funnY!

People need to be aware -- and fight this kind of intrusion! ..Stand up for what is right and fight back against these sort of things., imo. I'm tired of being walked all over! grr.