Is email hacking a crime?

[OU_Sooners75]

If so, what charges do they usually bring up? Invasion of Privacy? Identity Theft? What?

My girlfriend's email account was taken over this morning. Now she cannot get into it and she has tried to send a password reset, but whoever hacked it changed the secondary email.

She told me her billing information, (no credit card info), was in a bill folder on her email account. Bills that had our address, phone numbers, account numbers.

I did do some searching, but I have not found much to help me out. I did find that the guy that hacked Sarah Palin's account back in 2008 is facing 50 years.

I just need to know what legal avenues we have since we do not know who it was or anything.

[1890MilesToNorman]

Who is hosting her email? Contact them, they should know what your rights are and how to pursue this.

[OU_Sooners75]

Google. She already contacted them and filled out the form to reclaim the email account. But they operate slow.

I am sure they can find out everything about what happened, IP, location of the computer, everything...

But I am trying to figure out what her legal rights are.

I guess whenever she hears back from google, we will contact the county DA's office or the State AG office to see what we can do.

[1890MilesToNorman]

I don't have a clue what the legal stuff is on this but good luck Bro, I hope you nail the bastage.

[OU_Sooners75]

I don't have a clue what the legal stuff is on this but good luck Bro, I hope you nail the bastage.


Thanks.

[StoopTroup]

Google. She already contacted them and filled out the form to reclaim the email account. But they operate slow.

Lazy Union Google Muther ****ers....lol :pop:

[49r]

NICE TO KNOW YOUR PASSWORD ISN'T SAFE :mad:

[StoopTroup]

Never use 1234BoomerSooner for a password.

[OU_Sooners75]

NICE TO KNOW YOUR PASSWORD ISN'T SAFE :mad:


Well, to be honest your passwords are never safe...Here are some pointers I gave my girlfriend after this crap happened:
The longer the password, the more secure it gets. I suggest creating a password at least 10 characters long. But longer is better just ask the women!
Mix in a variation of Capital Letters, Lowercase letters, Numbers, symbols (i.e !@#$%&* ). Example: !MaDmAx^THunderDOMe19#81 That may be a little long for some log ins yet it is pretty easy to remember.
You can create a password similar to the example above using many different things from your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite musician, your favorite whatever. You can also use something that someone else does not know about you or that your family may only know as your password. Use a couple of things that you like or know or combine what you like and know.
Just make it easy for YOU to remember, but HARD for someone to hack or guess.
Change them periodically, I change mine once every two weeks.I have been trying to give these suggestions to my girlfriend for quite awhile. Ever since I noticed she was just using between 7 and 10 characters and never a variation of characters.

Now she is taking me a lot more serious in my suggestions.

[NormanPride]

You change your passwords every two weeks? Damn.

[1890MilesToNorman]

You are correct 75, use the shift key symbols. Anyone running a password cracker against a character file will add days to the process if the even include them in the reference file. I have used them for years. :D

If you get a key logger on your PC you are pretty much ****ed either way though.

Edited: I speak from experience, I used a password cracker against a Microsoft Active Directory with 1200 users and it took about 5 days, even then it only produced about 60% of the passwords because I didn't include every character available.

[49r]

Well, to be honest your passwords are never safe...Here are some pointers I gave my girlfriend after this crap happened:
The longer the password, the more secure it gets. I suggest creating a password at least 10 characters long. But longer is better just ask the women!
Mix in a variation of Capital Letters, Lowercase letters, Numbers, symbols (i.e !@#$%&* ). Example: !MaDmAx^THunderDOMe19#81 That may be a little long for some log ins yet it is pretty easy to remember.
You can create a password similar to the example above using many different things from your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite musician, your favorite whatever. You can also use something that someone else does not know about you or that your family may only know as your password. Use a couple of things that you like or know or combine what you like and know.
Just make it easy for YOU to remember, but HARD for someone to hack or guess.
Change them periodically, I change mine once every two weeks.I have been trying to give these suggestions to my girlfriend for quite awhile. Ever since I noticed she was just using between 7 and 10 characters and never a variation of characters.

Now she is taking me a lot more serious in my suggestions.


Um...I was kind of referencing something completely different, but thanks for the tip anyway...

[OU_Sooners75]

You change your passwords every two weeks? Damn.

Yep I had my accounts stolen from me before back in 2006. That is when I decided I was beefing up my passwords and changing them periodically.

[OU_Sooners75]

Um...I was kind of referencing something completely different, but thanks for the tip anyway...


Well then I am denser than I thought...because I am still not sure what you were referencing.

And your welcome.

[yermom]

it's old school SF humor. DBHuge :D

i've read that the uber complexity isn't all that important. same with short change durations. it leads to people just writing their password on their desk, etc...

social engineering is more of a problem. don't give your password to anyone

also though, you really shouldn't use the same user/pass for everything

i don't think keyloggers are as much of a problem as public wifi and non-encrypted passwords

sites like facebook and hotmail don't encrypt login info, at least by default and checking those on your laptop/phone on the coffee shop/hotel wireless network could expose your junk to people regardless of how complex it is. then if you use that same password for your bank or whatever, there you are

[49r]

...expose your junk to people regardless of how complex it is...

:D

[49r]

By the way, yermom is right

Good complex passwords are great and everything, but if they're always changing and you keep a different password for different stuff, chances are the average person is going to have to keep it written down and at that point a lot of the security advantage is thrown out the window.

[StoopTroup]

I worry about those Avatar telepaths.