If your password isn't working...
It's important to be sure that your password is cAsE sEnSiTiVe. Be sure you are entering your password EXACTLY as it was registered.
When you enter your username and password,
if you're not taken to the members' area, you will see one of the two
screens below:
| If you see this... | If you see this... | |
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| Then you entered your username and password differently than required (either you have made an error entering your codes, or we have changed your password and haven't been able to contact you to give notice of the new password). If you contact us via e-mail, we can tell you whether or not your password has been reassigned. | Then your password has been "suspended," meaning multiple individuals are using your username and password. Please do not cancel your subscription. Please read the information below to understand how this may have happened. We will contact you as soon as possible, or you may contact us. |
If you think your password has been hacked...
First thing to do is relax. If your password has been guessed or stolen by another individual, that doesn't mean your personal data has been stolen. Your personal data (such as bank information) isn't even stored on our servers. Furthermore, our billing companies will NEVER share your password, e-mail address or other private information.
Within hours or a few days, we will manually assign a new password to you, and e-mail it to the address you used when you joined. If you have changed your e-mail address since joining, you will need to notify us. If the e-mail address in our records is inactive, we won't be able to notify you of your new password.
If your password has been obtained by unauthorized individuals, our security system automatically scrambles it, rendering it useless. This is done because Firegirls.com has nearly 12 gigabytes of content, and we're adding more all the time. Bandwidth (data transfer) costs about $2 per gig, and if 10, 20 or 100 non-paying users access the site, it would cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars each day in bandwidth. Since we offer so much and charge so little, we have to stop unauthorized users as fast as possible.
How did other people learn my password?
Firstly, it's virtually impossible
that someone obtained your password from our end. All of our member
information is stored offline, and is accessible only by Alex Firestone
and the senior technicians at your billing company.
Secondly,
99% of all compromised passwords are obtained by the methods described
below. The
most common hacking activity on the internet is stealing passwords, especially
to porn sites. Most hackers aren't after bank accounts or personal
records--they want free porn! They're usually young males
looking for porn, mischief or bragging rights within a hacker group.
Often, when a hacker obtains a working user/pass combination to a porn
site, he shares it in a newsgroup, hackers forum, or hacked passwords
site, at which point, hundreds, even thousands of unauthorized users may
misuse it.
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Password
Sharing |
This doesn't happen often, but some members decide to give away their passwords in exchange for something, or when they lose interest in the site. Some just don't realize what that might cost a webmaster. | |
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Snoops
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Snooping
can be done internally, like if a family member, a coworker, or your
employer has installed a monitoring program in your computer--they
can steal your passwords, and even share them. External snooping can be done easily if you have a high speed internet connection and no firewall. Your high speed connection is a two-way street with a fixed address. Hackers find your IP address, and can look around inside your computer, or monitor your data stream for passwords. A firewall is a software or hardware device that limits incoming queries from the internet into your computer or network. They're often tricky to set up, but they can save you from having information stolen or your computer sabotaged. Firewall software can be easily found and purchased online or at most computer stores. Hardware firewalls are also available. Some network routers, including home routers and wireless routers have built-in firewalls, which must also be configured. |
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Commonality
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Some
username and password combinations are simple, proper names, or "dictionary"
words. Any username/password combination is hard to guess, but
some do get used more commonly than others. Most hackers use
"brute force" software that guesses hundreds of thousands of combinations
in an hour. Firegirls.com has security software to shut down
brute force attempts within just a few seconds, so this is rarely
the cause of a compromised password at our site. If you have a simple or common username and password, and you use it at many sites, you may wish to return to the sites where you are registered and change your passwords to unique ones, and record your passwords in a booklet. |
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Other
Sites
Compromised |
If
you use the same username and password at multiple websites, you put
yourself at risk. Every IT or administrative employee at each
of those websites is in a position to swipe and publish passwords
from their database. Sometimes free sites that require registration
may go out of business, and be sold to someone else. The buyer
of that site might decide to sell the database. Any major security breach of another site means your access information might become public information. Once hacker groups know one user/pass combination works at one site, they'll try it all over the internet, hoping its original user cared more about convenience than security. One way to protect yourself is to keep a small booklet with usernames and passwords of all the sites you subscribe to, and never have the same combinations at multiple sites. My booklet is 100 pages thick, and written in a code that only I understand. I keep it in a locked briefcase. |
Tracking Hackers
Hackers
and password traders feel clever stealing and sharing passwords, but it's
no different than duplicating the keys to someone's house, then passing
them out with the person's address. It's breaking and entering,
it's theft, it's trespassing, it's copyright violation, and the person
enabling it deserves fines and jail time. I have managed to track
down a few hackers and get their ISPs to cancel their internet access.
One of these days I'll put one in jail.
But most intermediate and advanced hackers and crackers are hard to track
down, since they often work from "ghosted" IP addresses, meaning
their internet connections were manipulated to appear as different, legitimate
internet users, sometimes even you or me (my IP and e-mail addresses are
as easy to locate as yours).
When you receive your new password from us, you can write to us and we
can send you the last eight IP addresses of those who misused your password.
Don't be surprised if the freeloaders came from all over the world.
It's often possible to trace the IP address to the actual user.
You might notice that some of the IP addresses include letters indicating
the network or country of origin, such as mx (Mexico), hk
(Hong Kong), tw (Taiwan), jp (Japan), be (Belgium),
de (Germany), ru (Russia), ro (Romania), nl
(Netherlands/Holland), kl (Kuala Lumpur), au (Australia),
at (Austria), se (Sweden), no (Norway), uk
(England), fr (France), br (Brazil), ar (Argentina),
ch (China), ca (Canada). Just keep in mind that sometimes
the IP addresses are "ghosted," and might not be the actual
origin of the [mis]user.
If You Want to Cancel Your Subscription,
or Start Over with a New One...
Even after we assign your new password, you might decide you'd like to
choose a new username and password. The only way to get a new username
is to get a new subscription. You may cancel your original subscription
by going to the support page of the billing company: www.billingsupport.com
(Epoch.com). If you joined via Money Order, e-mail the webmaster:
alex {at} firegirls.com
(formatting maniuplated to reduce spam harvesting).
After
cancelling your old account, you can join again at our discounted join
page, made just for returning members. This page allows you to renew
at the recurring price, which is $6.00 less than the basic first-month
price. http://www.firegirls.com/join/return.html
THANK YOU for taking the time to read this page. I hope
the information here has been helpful. Every member of Firegirls.com
is valued and appreciated. This password reassignment process and
this page both exist for your benefit. Please feel free to write
with any questions, comments or suggestions you may have.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED