Ah, Soap Fans
Reading the boards for my favorite soaps is about as entertaining as watching the soaps themselves. Some of the folks on there really have a hard time separating characters from the real life actor. They get into heated discussions of why this character did what and to what other character it was being done to. They try to get into the minds of the characters, completely forgetting that someone else is making up the story as they go along.
Today they’re arguing about the almost Jonathon/Lizzie/Bill thing (Guiding Light). Some are saying that Jon would never love Lizzie and that Bill is using her and blah blah blah. Except we’re talking about a soap, ladies. People come back from the dead, what makes you think a sappy love triangle isn’t possible? Personally, I’d like to see some of the Coopers killed off for a while, but that’s just me and I’m a little evil.
I read these boards and imagine a little old lady sitting with a cat bed next to her feet, tap-tap-tapping away her frustration with the fantasy world someone else has built for her. Then I see the avatars and the personal pictures and realize that these ladies are just regular folk, like me, trying to get through their boring days. That’s why I watch the shows. Just to pretend for a little while that my life isn’t mundane and without sizzle. Why wouldn’t some other chicks like me feel the same way? No one sees anything wrong with “Survivor” or “American Idol” fans, right? Soap fans seem to be the same- except they get to watch their show every day. So, I laugh and then read the spoilers and wish I didn’t think their suspension of all reality was so funny. Then I could jump right in.
As it is, I just want to say “Hey, ladies! It’s just a show.” Which, of course, would get me banned right away. No one wants to be reminded that their fantasy isn’t real.
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Sphere: Related ContentSecurity Breach?
I’ve been a little absent minded lately. Especially when it comes to blogging. I have my reasons- which are private. But now I’m getting back into it. I figured since people are still wanting to advertise on my widget (why?) then I’d do the EntreCard thing. So, I jumped in the widget and started surfing.
I came across this post from Evil Woobie. Apparently SEO Rob noticed a “small” security leak on the IZEA support page. He was able to go into the support page, as a guest, and see the support issues of other IZEA members. Specifically someone asking for their password and the IZEA support person giving them the password. (Screenshot here).
Pete, from IZEA, said in the comments section:
Wow that was scary. Thankfully this is NOT a security leak. The issue here is that Parature, our support provider, allows anonymous and guest access to the system which they obviously need to do (if you can’t log in, or just have a question, you won’t have an account to log in with).
The problem is that a customer support member issued a password to an anonymous user and that showed up in the guest user history at Parature.
Obviously we’re going to address the policies around issuing passwords immediately, and we’ve contacted Parature to make sure the My Support link is not there for non logged in users - it doesn’t make sense and only serves to confuse.
Hope that clears everything up
Pete
It could potentially be a security leak if, for instance, some unscrupulous person went onto that page just as the support person was posting the password and username. That unscrupulous person could then potentially access the account of the first person and get some kind of information. Even change the password to something else. Maybe said bad guy could get a paypal address and help themselves to some hard earned money. I’ve read some reports of paypal accounts being hacked could this have been how they got in? I don’t know if anyone has that much information available in their IZEA account, but it’s something to think about. The point is, that the potential was there and someone fell way short on security.
SEO Rob commented on Woobie’s post:
There are 8 pages of support tickets viewable by anyone who clicks the Contact Support link at the bottom of the page. I didn’t view them all, I just clicked on the first one and found what I found. I’m sure there are a lot of email addresses, names and what not that are viewable as well.
That’s a little worrisome, isn’t it? I’m sure the hole is fixed now, but how long has it been there? Hopefully this was a one day thing and was taken care of immediately. Otherwise, IZEA has more trust issues to overcome. If you can’t secure the customer support properly or outsource it to someone who can (apparently it was a third party who handled the support here) then how can you hope to get this RealRank stuff off the ground?
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