Filkhaven security note

[madfilkentist]

Recently I got one of those extortion messages that claims to have recorded me on video watching pornography. These are nonsense but are accompanied by a password to give alleged "proof." They seem to think I've been reading porn on Filkhaven IRC, since that's where the password they sent came from. (At first I thought it was LiveJournal and mentioned that to several people at OVFF, but checking when I went home revealed I was mistaken. It wasn't LiveJournal.)

I take good care of my passwords, so if the password for my handle was breached, it's likely others were. This could be a problem for anyone on FilkHaven. I haven't been on there in ages, so if you see anything that claims to be from me, be suspicious of it. You may want to change your password.

Comments

[katyhh]

Are you positively sure that you never used that PW on Livejournal? I was fairly sure that was where they had the PW from (I also received that mail, as have many others). I frankly do not even remember having to use a PW to get onto filkhaven ... But then, it's all been soooo long ago and I do not use that PW anymoe anywhere ... These days, passwords tend to be longer and more elaborate.

[madfilkentist]

I may have used it at one time on LJ and changed it. My first thought was that it was a LiveJournal password, so that is possible, but I rarely use the same password in more than one place. So I'm not "positively sure." IRC password security seems to vary a lot from one server to another.