Quote from: cphoto on April 21, 2008, 17:37

Quote from: lisafx on April 21, 2008, 17:28

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on April 21, 2008, 13:33

Good for Dreamstime!!!!!   Right on!!  =tom

Agree!  This is the kind of decisive action we need to protect our images from thieves.  Hopefully FT will follow suit and shut this guy down once and for all.   

Unfortunately the reality is that the most Micro agencies will do is close the user account.  That's it.  It does not matter if the user is in Russia or US.  They simply don't have the resources to engage in a law suite.

I remember when someone hacked my Fotolia account, Fotolia told me that it was happening quite often and that they would not even do an investigation.

When my account was hacked at the same time with StockXpert, I don't think they ever tried to even contact moneybooker to have access to the hacker personal data and bank info...

That being said I agree, agencies should take it much more seriously and also be a little more proactive.

why your account was broken into at least twice? Was it a short password problem ? I wonder if we should change passwords more often.

My account was broken into the same day with Fotolia and StockXpert.  The password was the same, and a very complex one, combination of letters numbers that did not have any particular meaning.

Interesting enough at the time StockXpert and Fotolia were the only 2 micros not using HTTPS to encrypt the password when you connect to their server.  As of today StockXpert still does not

I remember when someone hacked my Fotolia account, Fotolia told me that it was happening quite often and that they would not even do an investigation.

I got ripped on FT way back when I first got into this thing.  They were using my credits to buy photos.  I never got a satisfactory explanation out of anyone at FT.  I did get my credits back after a bit of email wars... but it left a bad taste in my mouth.  It was obvious that it was an internal security matter.  I got that out of a woman who was answering phones in NYC.  Evidently they had some people on staff helping themselves??? I don't know, never got an legit answer.

I dumped my folio there except for a couple that sold on a regular basis, in hopes of getting up to the payout level.  But now, they don't sell at all.  I'll never see that money.  I don't reccomend FT to all my photog friends.  =tom

I know of at least one member on this forum that I believe might be stealing passwords from their own personal website.  I don't have any proof of this, so needless to say I can't provide any more details.

That's worrying, but it would explain something I've often wondered about.

That would only work if the same passwords were used for everywhere, if you have a different password/method for every site then it would not be a problem?

That is correct.

For example, say I create a microstock website that requires registration and you join it.  If you use the same login/password combination that you use on other sites, then it would be easy for me to take that login/password from my site and go to the other sites and "hack" them.  I could even go to eBay, Amazon, and various email sites and see if you use the same login/password combination on those sites.  If you do, then I have struck gold.

But if you use different logins and passwords on sites, then the registration info that you entered on my (hypothetical) website won't do me any good.

I have used keypass in the past
http://keepass.info/

it is free which is nice but i haven't figured out how to automatically log me into sites... maybe it can't.

I think those password protecting programs seem pretty good and useful.  they make it easy to have different passwords everywhere and also can create very strong passwords if you want.

The problem then is... what happens if someone manages to hack into the program....  Maybe they are fool proofed somehow...

Very interesting about the account hacking.

The other day, I did a Goog search on "Shutterstock secrets" in quotes. What I had in mind was maybe turning up a website or blog with submission tips, you know, just little hints or methods to boost sales. I did not turn up any hints or tips.

What I did turn up though, was a bunch of links to hacker portals, warez sites, torrents to get get shutterstock images (particularly hot vectors). On some further deeper searches (you know I am curious) turned up stuff on hacker sites like "reliable accounts" passwords etc.

With all the virus/trojan stuff out there, I didn't click through to any of the found sites, but it does look like they are out there and Shutterstock is a popular target in the hacker world.