Roleplaying can be dangerous!

[MisterWhite]

I would like to personally warn people that are into roleplays on IMVU or going to roleplay on IMVU. Since it will happen multiple times a month - that people loose their acounts to hackers.

Everyone knows that some roleplay groups, use hackers and hacker-members. You would not be the first to run risk at this and being hacked by a encountered roleplay group. I can verify this and IMVU is also aware of this. So if you roleplay, than please stay outof my way and you will not be able to become my friend on IMVU.

I can even offer a list of people with these negative experiences.

So please if you are going to do have fun roleplaying - than be aware and warned and use a secundairy account to be fully anonymous while engaging roleplays. And do not ever share your personal information with them while roleplaying not when you start not when you are advanced or even not when you trust your roleplay group. They will sleep it off...till they can strike.

First they gain your trust...while you slip out more and more information to them...than they strike. And all your friends on your account will run the same risk!!! Since they hop from one to the other...using friendlists!!! Is why I do not befriend roleplayers.

[EsReverniDrawrof]

I would like to personally warn people that are into roleplays on IMVU or going to roleplay on IMVU. Since it will happen multiple times a month - that people loose their acounts to hackers.

I dont RP online (but play D and D), and this may be a dumb question, but the people who have been hacked, were they just not careful? If I can be hacked just by chatting (for instance) with someone who RP's, than anyone and everyone should be getting hacked. A hacker could just randomly hit up a list of users on imvu, and hack away. Maybe because I dont RP online, I dont know what these groups ask of you, in order to join them. We need undercover RP police or something.

[GuySBot]

I would like to personally warn people that are into roleplays on IMVU or going to roleplay on IMVU. Since it will happen multiple times a month - that people loose their acounts to hackers.

I dont RP online (but play D and D), and this may be a dumb question, but the people who have been hacked, were they just not careful? If I can be hacked just by chatting (for instance) with someone who RP's, than anyone and everyone should be getting hacked. A hacker could just randomly hit up a list of users on imvu, and hack away. Maybe because I dont RP online, I dont know what these groups ask of you, in order to join them. We need undercover RP police or something.

1st of all a hacker isn't going to be hacking imvu accounts . . this would be a complete waste of skillz , time and effort .
The proper term is account cracking , even the programs used to crack accounts are cracker kiddy script not " hacking " tools .
Sorry that is just a pet peeve of mine and no offense meant by the mis-use of the word as everyone does the same as you .

Anyways . . .

What MisterWhite meant was they will learn about you through fake roleplay then to use that information to crack yourk email and/or
IMVU - ID , by gaining your trust , knowledge of things like your email addy , possible favorite things you may use as a pw , birthday , year
born and so on . Like this - oh you're so fun , me love you long time - you like star wars ? me too ! can I have your email ?
- red flag who the F uses email and is going to email you things when they are there with you in a LIVE chat ? - lol
really that is your vulnerable point is your email account because if they get that they can change the pw for it and then do the same to your imvu , otherwise it isn't worth while as you will get your imvu back sooner or later with little effort or even having to file a help ticket . So they don't ask anything for you to join in the roleplay but the account crackers will ask , how old are you , whens your birthday , do you have any pets , whats your pets name , where do you live , sisters brothers , boyfriends girlfriends names , school et al and so on . They seem harmless questions and the roleplay type like the attention they seem to be getting but it should be obvious though it is not attention and they are doing what is called -
" social engineering " - you to get information to crack your various online accounts . Never give your email to anyone as just that alone , while a lot of sites have prevention for this - people can run pw cracker programs which will sit there all day with key words that they can input from what you've told them ( or not ) and try different combinations of frequently used pw's .

Most people use simple passwords like qwerty - 123456 - abc123 and so on making them ez targets .

To add here - most people who get accounts cracked on imvu comes from clicking links - the links will often be fake log in pages
or browser hijackers with keyboard script readers that send them things you type in . So again they gain your trust and say oh
check this page out - they click the link and it looks like an imvu log in page but its not - its a fake one so it records the ID and pw

[Elsen]

I don't see the difference in roleplaying online and talking online- or even going out in public, irl. They all share an equal possibility of some breed of dangerous encounter, but the chance is extremely slim.

You can't let fear of possibilities govern your life or you won't have a life that's worth living. I think the trade-off is worth it. And so long as one uses their common sense (i.e. the basics: don't give out personal information or monetary information online, don't click unidentified links, don't visit shady websites), there shouldn't be a problem anyhow.

[EsReverniDrawrof]

I hear both points, and agree with Elsen. Living in fear ( though Fear is a weighted word) isn't a life at all, and common sense has to prevail. I appreciate the alert to be cautious as well, just like I tell my 16 year old daughter rules of precaution, I'm not going to chain her to the front porch.....though, now that I think about it....haha. Kidding aside, I grew up in a huge inner city, not boasting that, or saying that I'm smarter about shit, but my view of people and public trust isn't based in how inflated someone can stroke my ego. I didn't have to be burned to know Joe Blow from Tolledo isn't "TwinkleStarzshine4u" my BFF. I get static that I'm paranoid ...remember fear is a weighted word....cuz I refuse to use Facebook ( forced to use google cuz I'm not a hermit) And anything personal "out there" about me is 100% deliberate. I'm familiar with spokeo, dirt search, and blah blah blah....and guess what? I have no idea where I was going with this! Damn!
Actually thanks for the cracker warning, it's appreciated. I just think there's nothing wrong with online role play if you're not being stupid.

[EsReverniDrawrof]

A side note on "click this link"... Yeah, I like my eyes to bleed from geriatric porn shots, so I'm gonna click it <----my attempt at sarcasm

[admin]

I don't know, D4s on the floor can be very dangerous.

[Elaini]

Those aren't the real roleplayers, the ones that try to steal the control of someone's character by OOC means.