What is the value?

V6558 · 2023-09-26 6:10 pm

What is the value or benefits of your activity?

Not so long ago, I wanted to ask specific question on the popular discussion forum. I have filled the registration form and as soon as I verified my email address I received the message that I am banned.

I thought - very strange! First time in my life something like that happened. I sent my feedback to the administration of the discussion forum via internal messaging system flagging up that this is strange because I didn't have any chance at all to interact with their platform and I have searched for the 2nd most popular discussion forum to discuss my matters.

To my surprise I have received an search alert saying that someone has published my personal email address on your website. And here it is, my email address, my username and my IP address - all exposed to the public and ready to be harvested by various scammers and spammers.

So, I'm asking you: what is the value or benefits of your activity? Why are you making lives of normal people difficult? Please explain. Thank you.

Alex Kemp · 2023-09-26 7:39 pm

Hi V6558, welcome to SFS.

I've used your registration with SFS & can discover zero entries within the SFS API for your username, email address nor IP. Therefore I cannot address any of your concerns. If all of those 3 are different on "the popular discussion forum" that your OP mentioned then send me a PM with the banned items & then I can respond.

V6558 · 2023-09-26 7:48 pm

Sorry but you are missing the point.

Let's just ignore for a moment that you are branding normal person without any bad intentions a spammer and publishing my personal information about myself in the public domain without any reason.

I understand - mistakes happen.

But the question is: is this a commercial activity? Are you legally registered entity? And what is the point of this? Where is the value?

I'm now spending my personal time trying to get my personal data removed from your website.

PS. I already requested removal and I also use now VPN and different email address because I don't trust you.

Alex Kemp · 2023-09-26 10:17 pm

This is a non-profit, user-supported venture.

We do not "brand" anyone as a spammer; those that contribute to our API do that. If a terrible mistake has been made then we offer the ability for those wrongly posted as spammers to remove themselves. Be patient, since we are not paid, and everyone has other things to do. It will take a little while to be acted upon.

The value is for those that run Forums to prevent spammers from wrecking their websites. Many hundreds of thousands of such forums use us for this every day.

V6558 · 2023-09-27 12:06 pm

Alex, does it mean that in theory I can launch discussion forum and use your service to output users' account name (can be real name if someone is too honest or privacy-naive), their email address and geographical location without any checks? To me, this is a huge security issue.

Have you ever implemented any checks or criteria of using of this service? What is something is faulty and malfunctioning? What if people are not aware of the fact that their personal details are published in the public domain to be captured by bad actors?

What is your current waiting time (average) for my personal data to be removed?

Alex Kemp · 2023-09-27 2:20 pm

Yes.
Maybe.
Of course.
We fix it.
Most are naive.
No idea.

PS
Do remember that you do not trust us. Therefore, it could all be lies.

V6558 · 2023-09-27 3:58 pm

Sounds like you don't care. Fair enough, your choice. Probably not feeling accountable because you are not registered entity.

No, I don't trust you. You are just someone on internet for me. I am waiting for successful removal of my details. Afterwards I can consider what level of trust you deserve.

Consider that your service is dysfunctional because my suspicion is that I ended up here because my phone had different IP address (when I verified my email address) to the network I used to create account. I don't see any other logical explanation and you can't provide any either.

BlueEyed Zebra · 2023-09-27 6:12 pm

Hi!

I felt now in need to register and write something to exactly such requests. I'm using the IP-data of SFS for 10 years on a different level to protect the complete server. Always reading all posts here every day.
And now it is time to write something.

Most forum systems require a 2-step verification/confirmation for registering there via email. Here on SFS with sending the random password, other systems send a link to complete the registrationprocess.
What happened?

You must have registered on some forum with all of your details. You clicked that link (or grabbed the password) from your email account to finish the registration process. Then some Admin decided, that you have spammed them. It might be true, SFS does not know, or some admins use this tool here to remove unwanted users, in that case the API keys are deactivated and the entries are deleted.

You are able to use the serch function here to lookup for the data. If not listed, then nobody here knows, why that dwarf revolution here, if listed, it can be sorted out.

Your first sentence in your first post reminds me of all of the people, who are listed in the threat-category (why it is not continued anymore?). De-Escalation is always the keyword.

"Publishing" information can be done on a different level, a lot of websites (including websites, where you might have registered) are scrapped by different services, because the "admins" have no idea, what happens (usually such idiots have no idea, how a http-referrer works, opening doors for xrumer and more). You should look for information, came not from SFS, like full conversations, PMs..., then you know, who leaked your personal data.

It is unusual, that someone is marked as spammer because of a different IP. A huge part of the world is not using fixed IPs for people at home (seems to be an US-thing only), to avoid static connections.

,,,^..^(")

V6558 · 2023-09-27 8:27 pm

Let me just clarify: I have started creating an account on the popular discussion forum. As a part of the process, I was asked to verify my email address by using the url sent to me. Immediately after using url I saw a message that I'm banned. I didn't get a chance to do anything, any kind of the interaction with the forum.

I'm not blaming anyone in particular here. I'm just highlighting outcome. Outcome is not good for myself as a person without bad intentions.

Not sure what do you mean by "threat category" but it is quite obvious that I wouldn't put any effort into discussing matters here IF I WOULD BE a spammer or bad actor.

BlueEyed Zebra · 2023-09-27 9:30 pm

SFS does not control, how admins of other system uses the API, or if and how they might combine other ressources.

You can always send the data to the staff here, Alex, Pedigree, and they will lookup, what happened. If there was a misuse of the Api by the admin of the forum, the key will be deleted, including all entries. Usually there should be evidence in the datasets.
But it is possible, that your email/IP/username is already known and/or used earlier for spamming. If your ISP gave you a spammer IP, then you are not to blame, the admins there are not to blame, SFS is not to blame. Ask your ISP to get a new IP. Same with username. It is not limited to you only. If it was the email-addy, then YOU have a problem.
Usually all of the data should be weighted, that is the problem of the software, the forum uses.

Anything is possible, I think, Alex is already digging around there.

Please take a look at top here, the ressources tab, the threat-button. A lot of the confirmed spammers usually start a thread like you did, always the "I'm not a spammer, I want my data deleted, I want your service to be taken down". De-escalation. Ask politely, and things get sorted out, but such behaviour will likely buildup a block to do something.

And yes, in the past 10 years I have seen a lot of bad people registering here and/or write mails (thats why the threat-tab exists), I have seen in a different security wrapper methods to try to remove the abilities of such wrappers (ZB Block and all of the "I am not the spammer"-exaptions and more).

,,,^..^(")

V6558 · 2023-09-28 6:37 am

I don't have to convince anyone here about my intentions.

There is a system. A system works as designed by creators to decide and act based on the input data.

My only goal is to get my personal details removed from the public domain.

What you do with the rest of the facts in this discussion is up to you as a group of people. You will make the decision based on the volume of work to do due to the false positives. That's it, thanks.

I still have not received information what is currently average waiting time to get my data removed?

#1 2023-09-26 6:10 pm

What is the value?

#2 2023-09-26 7:39 pm

Re: What is the value?

#3 2023-09-26 7:48 pm

Re: What is the value?

#4 2023-09-26 10:17 pm

Re: What is the value?

#5 2023-09-27 12:06 pm

Re: What is the value?

#6 2023-09-27 2:20 pm

Re: What is the value?

#7 2023-09-27 3:58 pm

Re: What is the value?

#8 2023-09-27 6:12 pm

Re: What is the value?

#9 2023-09-27 8:27 pm

Re: What is the value?

#10 2023-09-27 9:30 pm

Re: What is the value?

#11 2023-09-28 6:37 am

Re: What is the value?

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