I keep getting these emails from friends to sign up for file sharing. The latest was from a service called Ringo. I'm fine with the concept but the service asks you to give your yahoo password... how can that be a good idea?

Is this for real and safe or is this just another phishing email?

Ami,
I usually ignore these emails when I get them, as alot of are fake. I dont trust an email that says "Your friend has sent this to you" but doesnt mention or even when it does mention, the name of the person, or their email addy. Personally, I wouldnt bother with them.

chris

These are emails from my friends and I've confirmed that they have sent them to me.. they are named in the emails. I appreciate your response and that is what I do too, but I think these are legitimate or may be, so I'm hoping someone will reply with more complete information.

The only Ringo applicaton I am familiar with is one that allows you to make calls from your computer.

Regardless of whether a site is "safe" or not you should never use an ID from another site to access a site unrelated. Hackers live for this and there is a particular group of hackers that feed off of Yahoo IDs. They are sending out IMs and e-mails that appear to be from people who are in your address book telling you to click on a link and when you do the site asks for your user name and/or Yahoo ID to continue. Thing is, that info is going straight to the hacker's computers who in turn are using that info to wreck havoc. Thankfully I was warned by someone on my Yahoo list before I fell for this. He knew what was going on and was sending out warnings to everyone telling them to disreagard any IMs or e-mails that came from his yahoo account. And sure enough, within days I got an IM from someone using his account - lol. Turned the hacker in too

So no, Ami, I would not trust that site no matter if your friends are confirming that they sent the e-mail. But don't respond to the e-mail and ask them to confirm....call them in person and ask them. Because someone probably hacked into their account and are using their addresses....just like what happened to my Yahoo contact.

Can you just email your friends and ask them what this Ringo is all about? Use your own email address for your friend, not a link in the received email message. Perhaps one of them can explain what the Ringo service is and why they think you should join it. I did a search for "Ringo" and file sharing at Google and did not find anything that seemed right.

You do know what file sharing is? You can download files from other computers (your friends, for instance) and they can download files from yours. This is usually called "P2P" file share or Peer-to-Peer file sharing.

The problem with this is that worms and viruses can be easily sent between systems this way. If you get a file from a friend who doesn't take good care of their system, that file could be infected with a virus. By granting permission to share files, your Anti-Virus program will not automatically scan the files. You can of course scan them manually yourself.

Why the Yahoo password? I don't know, but if the Yahoo account is something you use and value, I would suggest you not give up the password.

I hope something here will help!

Dwight

Dwight, if this is the same hacker problem that Yahoo encountered a few months ago, e-mailing her friends won't help because the hackers have control of these e-mail addresses now. What was happening is that people were falling victim to this hacking scam, submitting their yahoo info, and then the hackers were taking over their accts. The only way Ami can contact her friends via e-mail is to send to another e-mail address that she might have for them...rather than send to the e-mail address that her friends initially contacted her from. My guess is that if she tried to contact her friends at the same address that their message came from she would indeed get a reply that the program was safe and to use it....but the reply would be coming from a hacker and not her friend. Of course, you can always trick these hackers and ask them something that only your friend would know. That way you know the response is indeed from the friend

From Yahoo Security Center:
Your Yahoo! ID and password are confidential information Do not respond to any message that asks for your password.

For questions contact:
Yahoo! Inc.
Customer Care - Privacy Policy Issues
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
(408) 349-5070

Ha!
phishing/pharming Warning (Ringo)

This spam scam is circulating, preying on (what do you know!) Social Networking sites

I don't know much but I do know a few things....that and the fact that I work with Yahoo