OT? Accidentally gave away ISP password.

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micky

OT? Accidentally gave away ISP password.

I apologize if this is off-topic. If it is, can you suggest a ng?

How serious is it if someone, in the process of registering/enrolling
in some website, gives a password that he also uses for his Comcast
login? (or maybe it's his gmail email), My brother started to
register but it asked a lot of semi-personal questions and he quit in
the middle. But now he figures they have his password.

Are they likely to use his password somehow? He doesn't keep any
bank or credit card records on his computer.

I said what I figured any pro would say, Change your password now, and
he knows the password, but he didn't know his Userid for Comcast, so
he couldn't log into to Comcast. I tried going to the page Lost your
Userid, and it didn't' find him the first two times, and it asked for
information he didn't have with him, and then he thought, Well, my
wife opened the account, so maybe she used her cell phone number and
her last 4 digits of SSN. So now he's thinking, Well it probably
doesn't matter anyhow. What can they do to me just because they have
my password? Is he right.


My older brother, who doesn't like computers, was trying to find a
phone number, and the listing somewhere gave all but the number,
but it had a link marked Free to find out More. He clicked on that
and it wanted him to register. He started, gave the same password he
uses elsewhere (probably to log in to Comcast, but maybe he's wrong,
and he means his Gmail account. ( Why he doesn't just use a Comcast
address for email I can only guess, which is, I'll bet someone else
set up a gmail account for him.)

I urged him to use different passwords for everything and to write
them down since no one can remember them all. .

Thanks.
 
micky said:
OT? Accidentally gave away ISP password.

I apologize if this is off-topic. If it is, can you suggest a ng?

How serious is it if someone, in the process of registering/enrolling
in some website, gives a password that he also uses for his Comcast
login? (or maybe it's his gmail email), My brother started to
register but it asked a lot of semi-personal questions and he quit in
the middle. But now he figures they have his password.

Are they likely to use his password somehow? He doesn't keep any
bank or credit card records on his computer.

I said what I figured any pro would say, Change your password now, and
he knows the password, but he didn't know his Userid for Comcast, so
he couldn't log into to Comcast. I tried going to the page Lost your
Userid, and it didn't' find him the first two times, and it asked for
information he didn't have with him, and then he thought, Well, my
wife opened the account, so maybe she used her cell phone number and
her last 4 digits of SSN. So now he's thinking, Well it probably
doesn't matter anyhow. What can they do to me just because they have
my password? Is he right.


My older brother, who doesn't like computers, was trying to find a
phone number, and the listing somewhere gave all but the number,
but it had a link marked Free to find out More. He clicked on that
and it wanted him to register. He started, gave the same password he
uses elsewhere (probably to log in to Comcast, but maybe he's wrong,
and he means his Gmail account. ( Why he doesn't just use a Comcast
address for email I can only guess, which is, I'll bet someone else
set up a gmail account for him.)

I urged him to use different passwords for everything and to write
them down since no one can remember them all. .

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Call your ISP's customer service department and have them change the
password. Any other places that use the same password should also be
changed ... and as you said above - using the same password for
different things is a bad idea securitywise.
 
Call your ISP's customer service department and have them change the
password. Any other places that use the same password should also be
changed ... and as you said above - using the same password for
different things is a bad idea securitywise.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

I told my brother you said to do that, but he said,I don't want to
wait on the phone and I don't think they can hurt me. My computer is
in my apartment and they don't know where I live. .

And I didn't know what to respond because this was a webpage and he
hadn't entered his Comacast userid. He doesn't even remember his
Comcast userid because it's in his computer at home.

What can I say to convince him?
 
micky said:
Thanks for the reply.

I told my brother you said to do that, but he said,I don't want to
wait on the phone and I don't think they can hurt me. My computer is
in my apartment and they don't know where I live. .

And I didn't know what to respond because this was a webpage and he
hadn't entered his Comacast userid. He doesn't even remember his
Comcast userid because it's in his computer at home.

What can I say to convince him?
Click to expand...

Nothing, I suppose.
 
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