AquaFox

i was talking to someone about this today... and i was curious to see how you guys would respond??



when your on a public computer, or a lab-computer, it's easy to find stuff about what and who was on there before you... you can see who signed onto AIM, what sites they went on, and often times you can even get onto there accounts left open...


is this fair use or infringment of privacy??


i know one thing, alot of people on public computers who sign onto AIM leave there passwords saved for some odd reason (stupidity), and there is no real notice or terms of use that you see when logging onto aim.... soo techinically there is warning that says you can't sign onto there aim account... its wrong, but is there really anything that can be done if you do it??? they left there password to public access, and any random user isn't going to know the terms and usage policy of AIM, if it even includes signing onto other peoples accounts....

....if someone says signed onto e-mail/aim/forums, is it fair that you can look around??




i think it's kind of a privacy infrigment, but it isn't punishable, if they leave it for you... knowingly or not.... just as long as you don't steal there identity, i think it's allright to do.... if i would do anything, i would leave a note on thre for the person to change there password or something

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...AquaFox...

maleficent

It's an invasion of someone's privacy, but how different is it if someone leaves an opened credit card bill on the table of a restaurant. If you look, you aren't breaking any laws, except you are a busybody, until you use that credit card number for something, you are not breaking any laws.

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ARTelevision

I'm not interested in what other people do.

I suppose that there are as many ways of describing, justifying, rationalizing, and excusing the practice of invading other people's privacy as there are people who have an interest in pursuing it.

If this is an ethical question, I don't have answers to ethical questions. If it is a question about worthwhile use of one's time, I don't find pursuing other people's business as a worthwhile use of my time.

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TheFrogel

I've kinda wondered about this too. Sometimes when I open a browser in a computer lab, I'll check out the past site that they've been on, just for curiousity's sake. I never, though, sign into AIM, emails, forums or anything like that. I think that they're pretty stupid for leaving it open like that, but I won't exploit it.

But I think Maleficent is right. It's okay to look, but once you start exploiting the knowledge you've gained, you've crossed the line.

Manuel Hong

Walking the razor's edge, if you ask me. Why even snoop? Why even temp yourself to take advantage of someone?
"Be careful of the thoughts planted in the garden of your mind, for seeds grow after they're cast...good thoughts bring forth good fruit; bullshit thoughts rot your meat."
(Funkadelic)

Hey, why not just sign out for them and consider it a good deed?

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Believe nothing, even if I tell it to you, unless it meets with your own good common sense and experience. - Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)

AquaFox

my one friend who i was debating this with, signed onto someone's AIM account and goofed around with it, nothing bad, just re-arranged everything and signed there name off when it was at another location soo they would get a clue.....

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...AquaFox...

teflonian

Using an internet cafe in australia a few months ago there was an AIM program open. I hadn't noticed the program until in the middle of my surf session a contact began talking to however owned the account. I notified the person that I was not who they thought I was immediatley, that their friend had left the program open in an internet cafe, and that I would be shutting down the program. A few minutes after shutting down the program the owner of the cafe came up to me and asked if I had been using Sarah's (I don't remember the actual name) chat program. I had forgotten about the program by then and I had no idea who Sarah was so I just looked at the owner stupidly for a few seconds before thte light went on and I said, oh yeah that open but I closed it. She looked at me like I was being devious and was at fault here when I felt like I had acted in the most responsible manner possible. Witch... Anyway, I got out of the cafe and back to the topless beach.. what the hell was I doing on the computer anyway?

So, long story to simply make the point that it is very much a grey area and it shouldn't be up to the most recent user to clear the tracks of the previous users. I think the best solution would have public terminals implemented with software to help limit what information is stored from a person's use as there could be very valuable information that people could leave open for nefarious purposes.

IC3

I don't think i would pursue what the person before me was doing on the computer..If it's a public computer or any computer if it's not mine i'm just gonna do what i got on thier to do and then leave.

If it's my computer however, I think i have the right to keep track of what anybody except myself is doing, Nobody but me uses my computer..but if it ever came to somebody using it i might look into what they are doing..But that's a whole different thing than what your asking.

So..No, What somebody else is doing on a public computer is really none of my buisness..I would also make sure that if i was doing something that i felt to be somewhat private that i would cover my tracks as best i could before leaving that public computer.

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"To win any battle, you must fight as if you were already dead" -Musashi

turbofish

I wouldn't. I guess you could get into a lot of trouble for it... But there sure are some blackhats out there

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Jag bara gissar o spekulerar o det jag skriver behöver inte ha någon förankring med verkligheten alls.

Psycho Dad

I don't give enough of a shit about AIM to use it (or any other personal messengers) myself so I'm not likely going to have any interest in another's account. To snoop around to see where someone has been or who they chat with is just a question of either minding your business or being a busybody.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

RogueHunter65

I sometimes will check to see the past cites visited too, But I have never signed in on someone else's aim or forum account. Then again I have only had the opportunity to do it a few times. I would say a bigger privacy infringement issue is the use of remote access programs like VNC Viewer from http://www.realvnc.com. These allow you to access another computer through your own computer. You can watch what people are doing on the computers and in-fact control them. I saw that one of the public computers in a computer lab had the program on it (it shows a small vnc icon in the bottom right when active). That’s why I would never check my financial accounts or anything important to me on a public computer.

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I suffer from amnesia and deja vu at the same time... I think I have forgotten this before

Slavakion

Change a simple registry flag and that icon doesn't show up. For all you know, there's an admin watching you do everything. Scary. I don't use internet cafes because I know I'd forget to sign out of something and somebody might use that against me.

guthmund

Personally, when I use a public computer anywhere (library, school, etc.) I don't go to any site that requires any personal information. I don't check my e-mail, I don't come here and I certainly don't go diddling with my bank's website.

I was at school one afternoon and the big braggart of the class (everyone has them, right?) was telling everyone that he was going to order his computer today. In fact, he said, I'm going to order it right now. He made a big show about what he was getting, pulling out his credit card and making sure that everyone knew how much it cost. When he was done, one of the fellows from my group went to the same pc, brought up his history and displayed the pages where he had entered all his personal information. The last page had cleared out his credit card info, but everything else was left alone. Home address, phone number, shipping info and all the rest, just waiting for someone to come along and find it.

It's very rare that I mention it to somebody if they're doing something risky. I feel that if you're going to use the technology, you better have, at least, a nominal understanding of how it works, especially if you're going to diddle around in personally sensitive stuff. I won't take advantage of them, but I'm not their nursemaid either. The only exceptions I make are for the older folks who look like they're struggling. If I see a little old lady on a pc in the library accessing her credit card account and such, I'll stop and mention politely that that probably isn't a good idea.

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Stan Fields

I have a look at the history when I get bored or when waiting for something to load but I don't think I would be creative enough to pretend to be someone else for an IM conversation.

betula

I'm always surprised bythe number of people that leave my School's computer lab without signing out. Each login has access to certain shared directories (depending on course schedule and research) and their own personal drive. And people just get up and leave with this open for anyone to access. Personally, I instantly log them off, and log myself onto the computer because I don't want to look at their stuff.

This reminds me a bit of living in the dorms a few years back as an undergrad. Via the ethernet connection, you could set up shared folders than anyone on the campus could get to. Usually, people did read-only folders of music, videos, porn and whatnot, and some of us set up read/write folders for the sole interest of friends uploading some things from time to time (these folders were generally only shared for a few minutes while the transfer occured to keep others from messing). Well, a few of us were looking around the network, and found a person that shared their entire C:/ drive, and it was read/write access. We had no idea who it was, but we knew that anyone could seriously fuck up their computer and data really easily. One of my friends ended up creating a text file on the computer's desktop that basically said, "you shouldn't share your whole C:/ drive like this because people can mess it up." The user got it and remedied the situation.

Point is, you have to be careful about digital stuff. Do unto others, man.

Tirian

why don't these cafes just set up their PCs to remove the profile when a user leaves the workstation ?

Users beware too, you should not rely on anyone else - learn to close your own stuff and remove cookies etc. etc....

Slavakion

Easiest thing to do would be to have Windows clear the history, temp files, etc. on startup. Then post a note next to each PC saying something to the effect of: "When you're done, click Tools>Internet Options..."

StanT

That's one of the reasons I use my own laptop. My own internet usage is pretty boring, anyone tracking me is going to be really disappointed. I'd log off any open sessions I found on a public terminal, I really have no interest in snooping.

Charlatan

On one website I used to belong to there was a user that kept finding another user's ID logged in at the website when he would go to a public internet cafe...

He made a couple of posts in the other users name saying how into Scat he was... He was trying to teach the guy a lesson.

It was relatively funny and the guy learned a lesson about security I don't think he will soon forget.



Before I got my Treo, I would use public kiosks when I was attending conventions... I would always be careful to "sign out completely" when checking my email... Ineveitably I would find that someone hadn't logged out prior to me...

I would see their inbox and just shake my head... very sloppy. There could be anything in those inbox from personal stuff to proprietary business info that could be stolen... I always make sure to remind my sales people to log out properly if they are going to use those things...

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MSD

At school, the computer labs have the Internet Options disabled, and you can't clear stuff. All you can do is Ctrl+H and delete history items individually, and hope there's a log out link or button.