The Hoax

THE HOAX

Let's dispose of one technique that is absolutely a hoax (meaning a fraud: something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage.) If you see a newsgroup post or web page with something like the following, it is a hoax and will not work.

: : : (([[THIS REALLY WORKS ]])) : : :

(1) send an E-mail to passwordrecovery@yourdomainhere.com

(2) In the subject box type the screenname of the person whose password you wish to steal

(3) In the message box type the following: /cgi-bin/start?v703&login.USER=passmachine&class=supervisor&f={your aol password}&f=27586&javascript=ACTIVE&rsa

(4) Send the e-mail with priority set to "high" (red ! in some mailprograms)

(5) wait 2-3 minutes and check your mail

(6) Read the message.-Where YOUR password was typed before, NOW, the password of the screenname in the code string is there!!!

Why does this work? ItÒ's a special decryption-server that AOL-employees can use to decrypt passwords.The aolbackdoor account is a bot that reads your authentification from the message body and identifiying you as a valid AOL Staff-member, you will get the password mailed back to you. The trick is that this BotÒ's script seems to be a little bit buggy and it automatically recogises you as an supervisor (AOL-Staff member), even if you use a normal AOL account. This means, that EVERYONE having a valid AOL account can hack as many other accounts as he wants.

This is just a scam to steal your password and may explain some of the calls we get from people saying they were hacked. Never give your password to anyone. No legitimate web service or customer service representative will ask for it or need it. There is no magic email address or series of