i knew it could be done

since it's been done to me....i just didn't know how easy and cheaply it COULD be done (note, i think mine was just done by a spammer, i don't think anyone in particular was checking up on me)

seems rather odd these organizations are allowed to advertise without consequences though

Password Hackers Are Slippery To Collar

By Tom Jackman

Washington Post Staff Writer

When Elaine Cioni found out that her married boyfriend had other girlfriends, she became obsessed, federal prosecutors say. So she turned to YourHackerz.com.

And for only $100, YourHackerz.com provided Cioni, then living in Northern Virginia, with the password to her boyfriend's AOL e-mail account, court records show. For another $100, she got her boyfriend's wife's e-mail password. And then the passwords of at least one other girlfriend and the boyfriend's two children. None had any clue what Cioni was doing, they would later testify.

Cioni, however, went further and began making harassing phone calls to her boyfriend and his family, using a "spoofing" service to disguise her voice as a man's. This attracted the attention of federal authorities, who prosecuted Cioni, 53, in Alexandria last year for unauthorized access to computers, among other crimes. She was convicted and is serving a 15-month sentence...........

some very good advice

don't think YOU are safe. you are not. everyone is at risk. i know this from experience.

BE SAFE

Twitter's security breach: a reminder to choose and use web passwords wisely.
Posted by Xeni Jardin
Someone who goes by the name of "Hacker Croll" breached the cloud computing accounts of one or more Twitter employees, and obtained access to extremely sensitive personal and corporate documents. I won't link to the documents, but they're floating around. I first read about the breach on the New York Times "Bits" blog.

This seems as good a time as any to remind everyone about choosing and managing passwords wisely. The New York Times' Gadgetwise blog has a helpful post up today along those lines. Snip:

The lesson Twitter employees are learning the hard way is a lesson for us all. If you use cloud services for personal or work purposes, you need to:

* Use strong passwords
* Use a different password for each of your accounts
* Pick tough security questions
* Keep your passwords and answers to security questions to yourself.........