Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
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Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#2"instead of actually deleting it, they simply appended '1000' to both the username and the email address. anyone could thus create an email address with that suffix and request a password request to access my info."
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#3Why 1000? Probably arbitrary but I can't help but wonder why 1000 instead of the faster 1111 or 1234, perhaps someone using NumPad?
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#4How was it possible to discover it, though?
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#5[deleted]
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#6Why 1000? Probably arbitrary but I can't help but wonder why 1000 instead of the faster 1111 or 1234, perhaps someone using NumPad?
Because the change was done manually.
Their system probably doesn't implement a function to delete account, or it is not easily discoverable in the UI, or it is known to be bugged. So the employee who did that thought that renaming an account was a good idea to make it appear "missing". A big numeric suffix is an obvious idea to avoid collisions with the existing and future accounts.
But when people are asked to choose a large number, numbers around 1000 and its multiples are chosen particularly often. So 999, 1000 and 1001 are very likely numbers to be picked "randomly". I don't find the reference on that, but I suppose we all have enough anecdotal evidence. Just recall what are the common port numbers of various programs. X*1000 + Y is a very common formula, where |Y| < 100.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#7"instead of actually deleting it, they simply appended '1000' to both the username and the email address. anyone could thus create an email address with that suffix and request a password request to access my info."
[deleted]
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#8No information on how they found out? Did the service rep tell them?
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#9"instead of actually deleting it, they simply appended '1000' to both the username and the email address. anyone could thus create an email address with that suffix and request a password request to access my info."
not an issue as long as there is no tld which ends with 1000 though
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#10Why 1000? Probably arbitrary but I can't help but wonder why 1000 instead of the faster 1111 or 1234, perhaps someone using NumPad?
Because the change was done manually. Their system probably doesn't implement a function to delete account, or it is not easily discoverable in the UI, or it is known to be bugged. So the employee who did that thought that renaming an account was a good idea to make it appear "missing". A big numeric suffix is an obvious idea to avoid collisions with the existing and future accounts. But when people are asked to choo…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
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