Password reset questions and feedback

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

And still no answer to the simple question "has there been a security breach".

The lack of a "no" implies extremely strongly that the answer is "yes".

Elona_2

I have lost my original user name and pms after being here since about 2005.

My original e mail went odd over the new year and cannot be used so I am scuppered.

I can't be the only one whose e mail address has changed and then found they could not change it on this site.

JReacher1

I think the site may have been hacked.

It has asked us to change our password now twice in a week.

This is either due to a security breach or some IT incompetence!

Wizard_of_Id

How can changing our password every 90 days stop spammers that use throwaway accounts and have average time on the site of less than 90 minutes?

eta
unless of course you intend to stop newbies posting for 91 days.

newatc

If MSE want to kill off the forum, they are on the right track!

BooJewels

redux wrote: »

As I've said a couple of time before, investigate improving the captcha mechanism on sign-up.

I used to administer some forums for a large organisation that had many and as an experiment, we tried splitting the captcha graphic into three smaller ones and in the page code separated them into separate cells in a table. To a human it was indiscernible, but the spambots couldn't get past the first 2 digits in the first cell. Spam plummeted significantly and they implemented it across all forums. It's a few years ago now, so technology may not work the same way, but it was a change that cost nothing to implement.

I also got the 5 day password reset early on, but couldn't be bothered, so closed the tab. When I came back later and visited again, I was still logged in. So whatever they hoped to achieve didn't seemingly work.

ben501

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

I agree with this too, though I suspect there is probably no budget available for such improvements.

Sal_Harper wrote: »

:think:

Martin Lewis sells MoneySavingExpert for £87m | Money | The Guardian 2012

I'm no expert but I don't see a connection. Martin sold MSE so it's no longer his to fix, and the new owners had £87m less to spend.

That said, while the comment about 'no budget' may be true, I would have thought adding a new CAPTCHA would be quite cheap, and possibly easier than all the disruption currently ongoing. Only my personal opinion though, and I have no knowledge in the area.

Superscrooge

Surely there must be better ways to cut down on the number of spam posts?

Newbies can't post links. Would it not be possible to have a similar arrangement where newbies either can't start a new thread for a number of days, or alternatively can only start one new thread a day?

BooJewels

Superscrooge wrote: »

Would it not be possible to have a similar arrangement where newbies either can't start a new thread for a number of days, or alternatively can only start one new thread a day?

Or have newbie new threads subjected to mod approval first - as many newbies will join specifically to ask a question when they have a problem, so I would guess that statistically many newbies first post will be in their own new thread.

suki1964

Superscrooge wrote: »

Surely there must be better ways to cut down on the number of spam posts?

Newbies can't post links. Would it not be possible to have a similar arrangement where newbies either can't start a new thread for a number of days, or alternatively can only start one new thread a day?

Whilst I know Martin no longer has input to this site, the site ethos was never to stop new members posting. As he said they may finally reach here when they are desperate. Not being able to access help when searching for it may be the final straw for some

Perhaps having to captcha for the first 20 posts might help