posted on November 8, 2005 03:18:57 PM new
This is really odd. I went to sign-in to eBay and I got an error that I entered the wrong password. There a security code box underneath it and I had to enter what I saw in the box. You know the kind - the wiggly letters that are next to impossible to read. I changed my password just in case. I'm wondering if this is a new thing? I've never entered my password anywhere I wasn't supposed to and I have no spyware on my computer. Odd.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
posted on November 8, 2005 10:58:38 PM new
Cheryl,
One reason for getting that login is that there have been too many failed login attempts on your eBay account.
Got this one direct from an actual, knowledgeable eBay support person. (I think he was fired the next day.) He wouldn't tell me how many is "too many", only that it's a relatively low number.
I was afraid that was it. I know I entered the right password the first time, though. I'm wondering if someone else was trying to get into my eBay account. My password is such that I have to enter it slowly because it's made up of letters and numbers that would make no sense to anyone other than myself.
I changed the password anyway. Better safe than sorry.
Cheryl
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
posted on November 9, 2005 06:45:53 AM newI'm wondering if someone else was trying to get into my eBay account.
That, or it was part of a denial of service attack.
A denial of service attack is what happens when some joker calls your answering machine over and over again until they've used up all the message space and you can no longer get phone messages. Or when someone mailbombs you and fills up your mailbox so that legitimate email to you bounces. Or when a baddie deliberately tries to login on your eBay account without even trying to get the password right (though that would be a bonus) in order to trigger eBay's security and make your life difficult.
Changing your password probably doesn't hurt unless you're forced to do it often. Sometimes people give up and choose something easy to remember even though they know they shouldn't.
It could also be something completely innocuous, like someone with a similar ID who doesn't login very much.
posted on November 9, 2005 01:29:02 PM new
The graphical challenge is called a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) and prevents automated attempts to login to ebay accounts since a human is currently needed to decode the text and numbers in the picture. eBay belatedly added this after a run of hostile account takeovers or hijackings made by so called "kiddy scripters"...
