Please ban this non-poster who is a hacker.

[FoodFuser]

Mods, Check him out:

http://www.chow.com/profile/1226995

His name is "contact paper", and he has auto-pasted himself to read many hounds.

[michele cindy]

I've seen the same thing - no one reads me so I found it really unusual, there's one more isinfosec http://www.chow.com/profile/1205074, no posts from this person were ever made, yet it's like a sucker fish as someone reading me.

[sunshine842]

isinfosec shows up as reading me, too.

[michele cindy]

I looked up infosec and that is a company for training internet security.

[sunshine842]

Hmm. Wonder what *that* means.

[michele cindy]

I didn't want to post their website to give them any publicity. Perhaps it's a way for CH to latch on to our every post to be sure we are keeping in line!

[Gio]

I really don't think They would do that, michele cindy. OTOH, on my "who's reading me list" there is a generic blue avatar which when I click on it shows no name and doesn't open any one's profile page....(O_O)

[michele cindy]

I wonder if everyone has one of these, sunshine842 also noticed the same one I have, "isinfosec". I'm being a bit sarcastic, there's probably a reasonable explanation.

[onceadaylily]

Mine too, Gio (along with infosec). I noticed this yesterday when the contactpaper avatar cropped up.

I just thought it was someone who *was* reading me, but changed their mind. ;)

[Gio]

Hah... now I'm feeling left out. infosec isn't reading me. LOL

[Servorg]

Just added to mine. Looks to be the same deal as Contact Paper. No content and just adding itself to hounds home/profile page as if they are "reading" them.

Maybe better infosec than witsec? (Just ask Mary and Marshall)

[Gio]

I once monitored a forum that had a series of hackers selling non-prescription drugs. We were a community supported seafood organization. I would delete 5 and 12 more would appear. All with different names. It was outrageous. Finally, after conferring with colleagues it was decided that the hackers were probably only 1 or 2 people being excruciatingly annoying. The site was made private.

[Servorg]

Before Jim and Bob sold CH to C/Net there were more than a few "board bombings" by various spammers who posted 40 or 50 or more posts to multiple boards. Really an ugly mess.

[BobB]

Hmm - my two latest hangers-on are also isinfosec and a blank blue unlinked icon. Not sure what it means, but as Jacquilynne pointed out, it does us no harm. And I believe they've been there for a couple of months at least.

[BobB]

And today - isinfosec is gone! I wonder whether the mods deleted the account for misbehavior or (s)he saw this thread, realized the jig was up, and ran!

[Servorg]

Running from ones account won't eliminate it. Only the Powers that Be can do that.

[BobB]

But you can choose to unfollow someone, which would have removed the icon from my profile page.

[Servorg]

Somehow I get the distinct feeling that Contact Paper or the other "non posting poster" Infosec, wouldn't be inclined to do that (even if the P-t-B asked them to - which they never would). So my bet in on some variation of that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie - "Eraser" being applied in this case.

[The Chowhound Team]

It was something we did.

[sunshine842]

and we appreciate it.

[GraydonCarter]

Did he ever post a message? Like in Cooking Equipment he might have put in a plug for re-lining the shelves in your kitchen with contact paper, and gotten away with it since it is a legitimate kitchen discussion, and he would have wasted far less time on the project with just as fruitful results, if not moreso.

[sunshine842]

but he had no actual LINK to contact paper that anyone could find....just a name.

[Gio]

When I clicked on his blog address I eventually got a web site with the title Contact Paper which was like a fact sheet describing what CP was, what it was used for and a few colorful designs but no links to any other pages. It really was an advertisement. And look... we're still talking about contact paper.

[I used to know how to cook...]

Thank you for the quick work Jacquilynne.

Much appreciated...

Lucy

[Jacquilynne]

I've cleaned up that posters connections so he should no longer appear on your 'people reading me' list. Our best guess is that he was trying to get an SEO bump by having lots of pages link to his profile and his profile link to his site, but since we set those profile links to nofollow, there was no SEO juice to be had anyway.

I want to assure everyone that adding you to his reading list didn't give him access to anything about your profile or information that isn't generally public. All that function does it make it a little more convenient to see people's posts -- unlike sites like Facebook, etc, we don't have varying levels of privacy for friends vs. non-friends -- so there was no security risk to your information.

-- Jacquilynne, Community Manager for Chowhound

[Chemicalkinetics]

Thanks. That is my impression too, when I investigated the link and didn't think he was a hacker per se.

[Gio]

Thanks Jacquilynne. It's disconcerting to see something like that happen on a site we believe to be safe.

[FoodFuser]

Thanks for the fix.

[invinotheresverde]

Stuck on mine, too.

[Chemicalkinetics]

This is beginning to sound like a song: "Stuck on me... stuck on me.... la la la"

[coll]

I'm stuck on Band Aids, because Band Aids stuck on me....now try and get that out of your head!!

[HillJ]

Thank you for reporting this FF. Looks like "contact paper" is "stuck" on CH's.

[Gio]

I'm thinking CH's not stuck on him, though.

[The Chowhound Team]

Thanks for the report. We're investigating the situation.

[Servorg]

I did a little sampling and "he" has added himself to every hound I looked at. He really must be busy reading every chowhound's post on this site... ;-D>

[Servorg]

It looks to me as if this person is on everyone's page that has ever posted on Site Talk. Maybe not, but that's what it appears to be.

[lbs]

It's on mine too.

[Gio]

A few of my cyber CH friends who are otherwise occupied have told me they also have been Stuck, so I'll just quote them: +2

[Veggo]

I have it, also. The same thing happened about 3 years ago, some interloper calling himself "StephanP" ( #167291) left the identical message, and is still on my reader list.

[onceadaylily]

I saw that this morning, but when I clicked on the icon CH froze up.

[scoopG]

I think Contact Paper is stuck on every posters profile wall! Even Sam's.

[I used to know how to cook...]

Me too.

[Gio]

Yup... He's stuck himself to my profile wall.

[Chemicalkinetics]

How do we know he/she is a hacker per sa.

[Gio]

check out its blog address...

[FoodFuser]

ChemKin,

I would love to play Poker with you.