Why would you bother

[Picko]

Had an email from our sponsors today saying someone had tried to unsuccessfully log into the forum more than five times using my account and had been blocked. I don't understand what anyone could gain by doing this. Am I missing something?

[thelumberjack93]

The society we live in

[China]

On e of the various stages of setting up a false identity

[Mobyturns]

There are some mischievous types out there, only seeking pleasure by creating chaos for others.

[doug3030]

There are sad people in this world who have spent most of their miserable lives sitting in front of a computer screen in a darkened room. They have no concept of how to interact with others other than through a keyboard and even then only through the chat channel of a violent game.

When they were teenagers their parents used to buy flat food like pizzas to feed them because they could slide it under their bedroom doors so as not to disturb them or expose them to the light. A small percentage of them actually grow up and move out of home, where they immediately sign up for online grocery shopping so that they still get their food delivered.

They have no prospect of ever getting a job so the rest of us support them for the duration of their miserable existence.

They do not have the creativity or the hand-eye coordination to take up a satisfying hobby like woodwork so they spend their time playing games where their miserable efforts make them look like heroes and high achievers in their own minds, amusing themselves by abusing themselves to the channels and wasting their time hacking other people's accounts just because they can.

Just change your passwords occasionally. It will give them something to think about.

Cheers

Doug

[ubeaut]

Had an email from our sponsors today saying someone had tried to unsuccessfully log into the forum more than five times using my account and had been blocked.

Email is automatically generated and only blocks your account for 5 minutes. It is usually generated because the owner of the account incorrectly enters his/her username or password. So it is self generated and usually ends up with me being sent an often irate, email from the originator saying "It was me!"

I don't understand what anyone could gain by doing this. Am I missing something?

Yes you certainly are.

This is a safeguard to stop your account from being hacked, which might seem a bit pathetic to some but it is very important safeguard. If someone can get hold of your account. They can run riot with spam, adult content, emails and private messages to members, uploads of pictures and movies with advertising and adult content, insertion of links to toxic and dangerous sites along with viruses, and other malicious code like tracking content and a whole heap of other pretty nasty stuff. Including possible identity theft or at lease a kick start to it as they will be able to view all the information you may have included in your signup. Email address, date of birth, possible place of residence (usually town) and any other information you felt relevant to include.

Just change your passwords occasionally. It will give them something to think about.

Don't do that too often as you will probably end up getting the same email again because you tried 5 tomes to get in with one of your forgotten passwords.

Hope this shines a bit of realistic light on what someone could gain by doing this.

Cheers - Neil

[Picko]

Thanks Neil. I hadn't thought of the spam and access to emails etc. .My mind doesn't seem to work that way. Keep up the good work.

[Picko]

Further to this Neil, I forgot to say that it wasn't me or my IP address. So if you want to, and are able to permanently block that IP address from access to my account, go for it. Thanks.

[malb]

One aspect people don't seem to have mentioned so far is that people often use the same email/username/password combinations for multiple sites.
So if someone has a small amount of knowledge about you, they can try to lever to more knowledge if they can crack a password. If they think they know a likely contender, and can guess your user name on a general site like this that is fairly lenient, they get a few chances to test their ideas, and if they can do that on a few sites, they get more chances.

So it could be someone interested in trying to access you work computer account or similar, and using general sites to test assumptions for tighter accounts, or it could be someone trying to do something similar to someone totally unassociated, but sharing a nickname and general interest in woodwork, which is enough for the perp to find a 'Picko' on a woodwork forum and try to test their assumptions.