HOW SECURE/SAFE ARE AFT's

foggy_lad

it would seem that almost anyone can set up these programs and can then gain access to all the mobile phone accounts of the people who use them:eek:

this leaves these services open to abuse from people doing marketing or involved in criminal activity as therotically the owner can read all your texts and access your call history as well as screen/monitor all texts for key-words

and could in effect know where you live and when you are home or out with a mistress....:rolleyes: or involved in some dodgey dealings yourself!

i have never used any of these services as i feel that as most operators offer free texts or at least 5cent texts there would be very little/no saving to anyone paying 2cent per text for aft's

what do you think?

Jonathan

This is a very pessimistic view... If you have security concerns keep it to yourself.. I trust yman and donut and the rest of the aft guys.. I support aft!

Sam Vimes

as someone who runs one of these program i can tell you that they're as secure as i want them to be. In case there is any doubt: yes, if I wanted to, I could take your user name and password. You are entering the information into a program that I've designed and you don't know what's going on under the hood. You essentially have to trust that I'm not going to do that, the same way you trust microsoft when you type your password into internet explorer. Any time your password is typed into your computer, you're trusting someone


I have made the source code for the program public so anyone who doesn't trust me can have a read through it and verify that the user/pass information is being sent directly to the network site and nowhere else*. You'll have to install visual basic 6.0 to do so.


i spent hundreds of hours writing the program because I enjoy programming and then I gave it away for free. I resent people such as yourself casting doubt on my motives. If you don't want to use it, no one's holding a gun to your head but don't try to spread your paranoia to other people


btw, i voted yes i use them and yes i have security concerns. when you use my program, unless you are a programmer and can go through the code yourself to verify it, you essentially just have to trust me. Just remember that my program has been going since october and AFT has been going since august 2006 and no one has said their details were used inappropriately


*except for o2 accounts because I could never figure out how to do that client side. That's sent to an intermediate server but the code for that has been made public too and I've encouraged people to set up their own servers rather than use mine to keep load down.

Sam Vimes

also, if someone was to get your password, remember its just a mobile phone login. its not as if they've got your bank details or something important

foggy_lad

please don't misunderstand my concerns as i am aware that many genuine people yourself commander vimes and others have put a lot of time and energy and also some funds into these programs

but i cant help feel in todays society of identity theft and fraud using people's personal details the door is open for unscruplous carachters to use these programs for their own gain!

and many people send sensetive details birthdates bank pin numbers etc by text!

Sam Vimes

foggy_lad wrote: »

and many people send sensetive details birthdates bank pin numbers etc by text!

i would recommend no one ever send a pin number by any method, be it AFT, text, email or carrier pigeon. but besides that, don't send sensitive info with my program. I can't guarantee it won't be intercepted because its not encrpyted when its being sent

Fresh Pots

sounds like someone has little to moan about, yeah fair enough there is the chance that someone could get your login details but, lets face it, who'd want them. as for not saving much, you can save loads, for €3 u get 300 texts, not gonna get much better than that. as Commander Vimes said don't use it if u don't want to. The rest of us like to live on the wild side!

Sam Vimes

lonely_soldier wrote: »

sounds like someone has little to moan about, yeah fair enough there is the chance that someone could get your login details but, lets face it, who'd want them. as for not saving much, you can save loads, for €3 u get 300 texts, not gonna get much better than that. as Commander Vimes said don't use it if u don't want to. The rest of us like to live on the wild side!

and i use it with my 3 phone, using my meteor account of course, so it costs me nothing

gurramok

foggy_lad wrote: »

this leaves these services open to abuse from people doing marketing or involved in criminal activity as therotically the owner can read all your texts and access your call history as well as screen/monitor all texts for key-words

As a regular user, i trust the creators and host to be not involved with the above activities.
They can read my txts if they want, they'd get bored of them once the laughter does down, there is no personal info in my txts when i login to the phone providers site other than what numbers i've texted non-AFT and calls hence i trust Commander Vimes to be a good upstanding citizen of the community not to use my numbers(he could use the numbers of the enemies in work with full permission! )

They wouldn't find out as to who i am, where i am(well maybe in Dublin, filter me out from 1.2million others, good luck ), what my bank account is or any of that, just plain conversational english which you would overhear on while walking down the street!
A similar situation is engaging in adverts.ie, i trust the people i deal with over there, some know my address so there is danger there for me

foggy_lad wrote: »

and could in effect know where you live and when you are home or out with a mistress....:rolleyes: or involved in some dodgey dealings yourself!

Good luck at that, id give them a medal myself if they could figure out my address via AFT and keep track of me GPS like

foggy_lad wrote: »

i have never used any of these services as i feel that as most operators offer free texts or at least 5cent texts there would be very little/no saving to anyone paying 2cent per text for aft's

what do you think?

I don't have 5c txt offers as i hardly spend 20 per month anyway to qualify for them so AFT suits me fine.

Sam Vimes

gurramok wrote: »

i trust Commander Vimes to be a good upstanding citizen of the community not to use my numbers

*rubs hands together*. excellent, they're all falling for it. mmoooohhhhhaaaaaawwwwwwwww

gurramok wrote: »

They wouldn't find out as to who i am, where i am(well maybe in Dublin, filter me out from 1.2million others, good luck ), what my bank account is or any of that, just plain conversational english which you would overhear on while walking down the street!
A similar situation is engaging in adverts.ie, i trust the people i deal with over there, some know my address so there is danger there for me



Good luck at that, id give them a medal myself if they could figure out my address via AFT and keep track of me GPS like

well since you've entered your phone number and password into the program, if i wanted i could have them sent to me and log into your online account and check the name and address you've registered, which of course doesn't have to be the correct info.

and as foggy_lad says, i could also look at your call history. the main reason i tried to make the whole program work client side (ie the info goes straight from your computer to the network site and never to my server) is so i could never look at the info even if i wanted to or if someone hacked the server. unfortunately, due to the nature of AFT itself, a server has to be used. otherwise each text would cost about 30c and would miss the point

again, if anyone's concerned about it, then don't use the program or i'll provide you with my source code and full instructions to make your own client

gurramok

Yes exactly, i don't have a name/address supplied to phone provider website so the most you could do is txt my txt/call receivers list spamming them all with whatever you like

You might get a txt back saying 'why did you say that[insert first name]' in your quest but that would be about it i think unless you asked them where i live which would be very odd as they would think i\you has just alighted from a lunatic asylum