[Businessmtg] Archiving shares

[Anne K]

Hi! I’m Anne K

I am completely against archiving shares. I think we should stop archiving immediately and delete the archived shares that are there - which will make them harder to find - but not impossible. 

I think that people looking to add to their recovery can read CAL or the Forum or listen to podcasts or belong to more than one online meeting (if they cannot get to a face to face meeting or if they do not have a phone list). 

I think that the archive of shares could potentially be a violation of the new European data privacy regulation that went into effect this past May. 

Mostly, I believe that the archive of shares -and the continuing archiving of shares - is another door for a hacker to exploit information. I am not talking about the technically savvy alcoholic. I am referring to the hacker-activist (hackavist) and criminal element - where gathering information and then targeting a group of people with a realistic sounding scam or phishing email (usually a fake email that looks legitimate and has a link to a realistic looking but fake website where one is tricked into entering their name and password - giving that info to the hacker) is just a way to exploit people for gain / money. It’s not personal. So from these shares I get email addresses. Running some free software I could likely crack some passwords. From there I can go to all sorts of websites (banking, work related, social media, etc) and try that user name /password combo because most people use the same email /password combo across their accounts. Heck, I used to! It’s easier to remember :) But online, as in Al-Anon, when I knew better, I did better (or however that saying goes lol) So if my Asp email is my work email and I’m hacked - what can the hacker get into? 

How likely is this? Well -our provider Esosoft has safeguards. Does that mean we are protected? Yes and no. Yes - because the harder it is to get in and the less there is to find, the less of a target we are. No because if the attacker is persistent -this could definitely happen. I usually use the analogy of protecting the data is like protecting the stuff in your home. Many people have locks on the doors and windows, maybe an alarm, maybe cameras. Does that mean no one will ever break in? Of course not. Are your chances more likely if you leave a box of gold coins on the table in the front window? Of course they are. So a whole bunch is personal shares with email addresses and some names - what is that worth - to a hacker? To us? 

As for the argument that people should know when they put info out there that it lives forever and can be hacked so it’s shame on them - BS I say. I feel that is blaming the victim. 


Anne K
Webmaster