Topic Of The Month -- Chat Room Hackers

TOPIC OF THE MONTH
CHAT ROOM HACKERS

For those of you that are regular to on-line service chat rooms, you no doubt, already know what a chat room hacker is. For the benifit of those that are not regulars in these types of rooms, I will attempt to explain the types of situations that are created by these users.

There are many people who find it entertaining to disrupt the flow of a chat. They do this in many different ways....I will describe just a few here.

Clone

Cloning is when they copy your screen name and then attribute undesirable words or actions to you.

Flood

Flooding is using a scrolling program to fill the chat window thereby stopping all cohesive conversation until the flooding stops.

Abusive Conversation

When a person enters a room and begins to use inappropriate language to or towards another chatter.

Obnoxious Behavior

When a person engages in any of the afore mentioned behavior with the objective of creating an atmosphere of hostility.

This problem is reaching monumemtal proportions in community chat rooms hosted by the WOW! Service. Many chatters have expressed their dissatisfaction with the continued bombardment of insults and insinuation. One member has given suggestions here, on ways to deal with the problem. Let's start the discussion with these comments.

Dear Ms. Analysis,
The situation in the Computer Chat room should be dealt with by WOW. I have complained to WOW...and I think we all should. I suggest that anytime that these klans or hackers or whatever you want to call them...start with the vulgarity and abusive language and insults in the computer chat room that it be reported. Suggestions: If you are in chat room and abusive language or insults are being used:

1: Copy the chat screen. Go to the Member Care area and "Paste" it in the Send Your Comments or Suggestions to WOW.

2. Go to Chat Center, Find the Chat_Monitor in "Find Someone". Then go to that chat room where he/she is located and announce "CHAT_MONITOR NEEDED IN COMPUTER CHAT". Maybe a few times.. or more..

3. Call WOW on the phone and report it.. Ask to speak with a supervisor. Give the names. While you have the supervisor on the phone, be sure to remind him/her that AOL now has a flat rate, and does not tolerate this kind of behavoir!

"The Wheel that Squeaks the Loudest Gets The Oil"...

Signed Fed Up

Another WOW! Member states another important problem. They wrote-

Dear Ms. Analysis,
Last night one of the "hacker" kids in computers on WOW got my wifes full legal name. She is real concerned as am I. I called wow this morning and spoke with John Birmingham. John told me that their are urls that contain WOW hack programs that allow one to access personal info from the WOW server. I was astounded! So they can get her legal name now. Can they also get my credit card number, my home address and my home phone number? Unless WOW changes my wifes name to Jane Doe, puts in a bogus credit card number and a fake home phone number in their server, I am going to cancel my subscription.
Teens now are hostile, vindictive and violent. They dont throw eggs anymore...they shoot bulletts. Anyone with my wifes legal name and who possesses a little knowledge, can look up my address and phone number and "Get me" as they have already threatened. The police didnt take a physical threat to me on the internet seriously. I have a wife, a son and a nice home. I have also met many nice people on the internet, including you. I am in a quandry as to whether or not to cancel my WOW subscription.

Im really getting to dislike WOW anyway...but WOW is my link into mIRC and websites such as yours.

By the way...It may be a public service to warn people their personal information is now public information on WOW.

Its nice to have information....but info on peoples private lives for the world to see is a real nightmare. Has 1984 and Animal Farm come fo fruition?

Signed Ready To Cancel

Two very important and legitimate contributions. What is happening with WOW? Why do they have so many problems that never seem to be addressed to the satisfaction of their users?

Dear Ms. Analysis,
Computer hackers are too addicted. Go out and get a life!

Signed Pink grapefruit

Here is different solution. Could it work
for you if your service provided it?

Dear Ms. Analysis,
I am not a user of WOW!, America Online, Prodigy, or any of the standard big name Online Services. I have used them briefly and decided that they are just not worth their high price. I access the internet and chat all through a local ISP (Internet Service Provider) It's much cheaper, and more secluded. Here, the problems of hackers and anyone who would test system security for personal gain do not exist.

The 'chat rooms' on this server have 2 commands, called ignore and forget. These commands make it so your screen does not display any messages or actions from the user you specify. I do not see why WOW! or AOL cannot do the same thing in their chat rooms.

You have the right to go up to someone on the street and tell them to bite you. They have the right to ignore you and walk away. by enabling commands to ignore people in chat rooms, online services can protect their users from disturbing users.

However, users must be aware of these commands and how to use them. An archer does not blame the target if he doesn't know how to shoot.

Signed Secret Agent Man

This is another great suggestion! Knowledge IS Power!

Dear Ms. Analysis,
For those who are concerned about computer privacy, I would like to suggest some books on the subject, which I have found interesting and helpful.

Title:Computer Privacy Handbook
Author: Andre Bacard
Publisher: Peach Pit Press

Title:Get The Facts on Anyone (use this in reverse to protect yourself)
Author: Dennis King
Publisher: Prentice Hall

The information in these books were "eye openers" for me. Technology is making your personal information public. I hope you find this information helpful.

Signed Fed Up (Still)

Dear Ms. Analysis,
I only have one phone line, so I'd have to leave wow to call customer service, and by then (occasionally) some of what was going on is over, for the moment. Since my contacts in wow are limited because of constant error messages, I don't have any place much to go, so I'm really missing my *friends*, who can go elsewhere to chat in an adult manner! I, for one, hope something is done, and not just the teen chat, because they won't go there, it's not fun, if one isn't annoying(rite)?

Signed Lonely Chatter

Dear Ms. Analysis,
Hello, this is perhaps the first time I've written into a discussion forum such as this one, but I was made aware of this page just today (11/21/96). I don't know the first thing about the WOW chatroom, how they operate or anything like that, but I've lots of experience in dealing with the so called 'hackers' that come into the chatrooms that were designed by the Internet Factory, such as Cyberzine, Aristosoft, etc. These are very populated rooms and when nonsense such as you have described and worst starts, there is only one way to deal with it effectively. As someone previously mentioned, room designs are different, but something they all *usually* have in common is the abilitly to lock out certain trouble makers. Once you lock them out on your screen, they can do NOTHING to you. There are also other problems that haunt the chatrooms with these hackers, and the chatrooms ...usually do not do anything about it because they are provided free of charge..for anyone! to find...and since the chatrooms are not making money off of it...they would rather shut them down then to deal with the complaints from the good chatters. If anyone is interested in 'chatroom' defense as far as the 'internet factory' chatrooms are concerned..or how to protect yourself..with something as simple as your browser..please check out this page ...it gives useful tips..that you can pass onto other people..because once you know how to deal with the problems..and pass these things along..the happier our chatrooms will be in the long run.

Signed Educate Yourself

How do you handle this
situation in your favorite chat area?
Add your thoughts or feelings or tell of your experiences in the
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