Free Gripped Subscription

[raingod]

.....
Okay okay... Let's forget all this stealing of subscriptions BS. Privacy violation is the big concern here. This is the NUMBER ONE issue.

Anybody who knows your email address can find out your home address! You want me to prove my point? I just Googled your name, found a page that lists your email. Then I put your email address into Gripped's subscription (dis)service and found out that you live off of Cambie. Feel violated?

.......

Actually I would find the subscription theft a bigger issue, after all your address is something that can easily be found in places such as the phone book. So if you are really concerned you should be already taking precautions, like Anders and his PO Box.
That being said once pointed out Gripped should be more willing to fix the problem.

[hardcoreclimbers]

Fair enough Anders, I found your PO Box. But I see that you understand the point. Businesses who are entrusted with our personal info are obligated to keep it protected. Do you not agree that Gripped should be doing something to fix this problem?

In this day and age, it can be hard to hide, although certainly businesses have an obligation to protect the privacy of their customers. It's quite surprising what you can find if you're persistent and imaginative.

[slopr]

Anders,

I just Googled your name, found a page that lists your email. Then I put your email address into Gripped's subscription (dis)service and found out that you live off of Cambie. Feel violated?



Consider that.

Seems like the only internet creep trying to steal identities etc. on here is you, most climbers don't usually look for ways to steal from each other or try to publicly humiliate their country's only major climbing publication. I'm sure there are more constructive ways to solve this "problem" that didn't really exist until you plastered it all over the internet. Gripped probably never considered this to be an issue since 100% of it's readers are climbers who, until now they probably assumed were largely a community of like minded individuals happy to have something to look @ while it pisses rain - not looking to steal, slander, or f@#k each other over. If it bothers you that much you should cancel your subscription and maybe get one to a publication that may be more suiting - i would recommend US weekly or one of the other ones @ the checkout @ Save On. This is the worst post ever.

[Brendan]

Actually, no. I don't live off Cambie, at least not in the sense that "off Cambie" is usually used - I'm about 4 km west of there. And Gripped is mailed to my post box, which I use for business mail. You may find it harder to discover my home address.

Dunbar?

Seems like the only internet creep trying to steal identities etc. on here is you, most climbers don't usually look for ways to steal from each other or try to publicly humiliate their country's only major climbing publication.

How is he stealing identities? Bringing up a concern isn't theft. And it was discussed in the sixth post (read below) how Gripped was notified and didn't react. Canadian company or not isn't the point here.

I sent an email to Gripped and told them exactly what the problem was. The person who got back to me passed the blame on to some other company that manages Gripped's subscriptions. I told him my subscription was with Gripped and that it's his responsibility to fix it. I said I'd give him some time, but if nothing got done, I'd let the World know that their private information isn't safe on the Gripped website. Hence this post...
Also note that I put the same post up on Gripped's forum, but as expected, they pulled it within 15 minutes. It's kind of like 1984 over there.

[hardcoreclimbers]

Slopr,

I'm sure there are more constructive ways to solve this "problem" that didn't really exist until you plastered it all over the internet.

It's funny, you and the leaders of Gripped have the same attitude. So if you don't know about something, it doesn't exist? Do you also live by the "Ignorance is Bliss" Mantra?

If I were trying to steal identities there's no doubt that I wouldn't expose this problem to the world. I would happily keep the secret to myself and f**k with everyone's account. I would steal your addresses and sell them to spammers. If I were trying to ruin this for everyone I'd change as many subscriptions as possible just to f**k with Gripped.

I'm not doing any of this.

But the potential for anyone else to do these malicious acts is there and has always been there even before I discovered it; even before you knew about it.

Gripped is a magazine that climbers, like myself enjoy. I will continue to subscribe despite this problem. However, Gripped is also a company like any other. They have an obligation to their customers to provide a trustworthy service. If they are storing my personal information on a database sitting in their office, they are responsible for keeping that information secure and inaccessible to the outside world.

You should see the email thread I have with the leaders of Gripped. I pointed the issue out to them long ago. I suggested ways they could immediately get rid of the problem and then how to solve it for the long run. It's really not that hard. In my opinion it was a no-brainer.

If you were the leader of a company and received a customer complaint that identified a problem with your service would you not look into it? Instead I was replied to with disdain. To them, if the problem is kept secret then it doesn't exist. Sounds a little ignorant to me. Just because I exposed the problem doesn't mean I created the problem.

People take internet privacy seriously. There's even a government website dedicated to privacy issues. http://www.priv.gc.ca/

Us being climbers or not doesn't change anything.

[t-bone]

agree 100% with the poster on this one. It is a relatively easy fix for Gripped....any company with an ounce of credibility would have fixed this immediately.

[John Doe]

Seems like the only internet creep trying to steal identities etc. on here is you, most climbers don't usually look for ways to steal from each other or try to publicly humiliate their country's only major climbing publication. I'm sure there are more constructive ways to solve this "problem" that didn't really exist until you plastered it all over the internet. Gripped probably never considered this to be an issue since 100% of it's readers are climbers who, until now they probably assumed were largely a community of like minded individuals happy to have something to look @ while it pisses rain - not looking to steal, slander, or f@#k each other over. If it bothers you that much you should cancel your subscription and maybe get one to a publication that may be more suiting - i would recommend US weekly or one of the other ones @ the checkout @ Save On. This is the worst post ever.

So you're saying that:
If there's a big hole in the side of the vault at a bank and only one person knows about, is it not a problem until that person tells everyone? I think not, it's a problem regardless if anyone knows about it.

From what I understand, Hardcore told gripped about this issue over a month ago and they didn't even try to do anything to fix it...

[slopr]

People take internet privacy seriously. There's even a government website dedicated to privacy issues. http://www.priv.gc.ca/

So why did you not pursue this avenue rather than proving to us how you can stalk anders and find his email and po box? I agree that this is something that gripped should fix,and the concern is valid. IMO your entire approach to this and joining the forum for this reason is wrong. Most of us are here to talk about climbing & climbing related issues regarding squamish and the surrounding area. Your vindictive attitude seems like you have something to prove that has nothing to do with contributing to the climbing community in general - let alone Squamish. It is highly possible that i am ignorant and maybe you can forgive me for having some faith in humanity(climbers @ least), the fact is that these examples of bank vaults and accounts do not apply here - it is a magazine subscription! As well it was mentioned that something as this would be traceable. If i stopped receiving issues i would call and find out what's up, they would likely say that my address has been changed to 1234 made up rd. via the internet... Perfect - next stop 1234 rd to go get my magazines back. As mentioned previously addresses are easy to find, it's not like you can access credit card info or other financial info from gripped. You are making a huge something out what is essentially nothing.
I also think that you and John Doe are the same person since you joined the forum at the same time, have the exact same opinion, you post within minutes of each other, and have the exact same writing style. As well hardcore never mentioned that he contacted gripped a month ago anywhere on here, he said he discovered it in Sept. but did not mention when he contacted them with his threats of internet exposure for their bug -which i'm sure @ this point they are regretting big time. How you would know this otherwise i'm not sure...
This is the worst post ever and even though it may be about a climbing magazine i don't think it has anything to do with climbing. I hope the next time you start a thread that it has something to do with the reason that this website exists - Climbing. Gotta go now and create a new user to back me up!!

[hardcoreclimbers2]

Ya this post is the worst ever for sure

[John Doe]

So why did you not pursue this avenue rather than proving to us how you can stalk anders and find his email and po box? I agree that this is something that gripped should fix,and the concern is valid. IMO your entire approach to this and joining the forum for this reason is wrong. Most of us are here to talk about climbing & climbing related issues regarding squamish and the surrounding area. Your vindictive attitude seems like you have something to prove that has nothing to do with contributing to the climbing community in general - let alone Squamish. It is highly possible that i am ignorant and maybe you can forgive me for having some faith in humanity(climbers @ least), the fact is that these examples of bank vaults and accounts do not apply here - it is a magazine subscription! As well it was mentioned that something as this would be traceable. If i stopped receiving issues i would call and find out what's up, they would likely say that my address has been changed to 1234 made up rd. via the internet... Perfect - next stop 1234 rd to go get my magazines back. As mentioned previously addresses are easy to find, it's not like you can access credit card info or other financial info from gripped. You are making a huge something out what is essentially nothing.
I also think that you and John Doe are the same person since you joined the forum at the same time, have the exact same opinion, you post within minutes of each other, and have the exact same writing style. As well hardcore never mentioned that he contacted gripped a month ago anywhere on here, he said he discovered it in Sept. but did not mention when he contacted them with his threats of internet exposure for their bug -which i'm sure @ this point they are regretting big time. How you would know this otherwise i'm not sure...
This is the worst post ever and even though it may be about a climbing magazine i don't think it has anything to do with climbing. I hope the next time you start a thread that it has something to do with the reason that this website exists - Climbing. Gotta go now and create a new user to back me up!!

I'd like to start by saying that this will be my last post. This has gotton into a shouting match from opposing sides. Obviously, you're not gonna convince me that Gripped didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not gonna convince you that Hardcore is "right".

Hardcore mentioned that he contacted Gripped on the actual Gripped bulletin board. Gripped didn't like the negative image that was going on their board so they would remove the post and act as though it never existed. If you check the gripped bulletin board at the right time, there's sometimes random posts by people even referencing THIS post.

That aside, it makes no sense to create two accounts for the same person, your accusations have no proof to back it up. The examples that I've given are just analogy's, a problem is still a problem irregardless of how many people know about it. In a perfect situation, Gripped would've patched this whole thing up before anyone even found out about it. Now that it's been made public, one can only assume that they'll have to do something about it.

I don't even have a subscription to Gripped but I would NEVER subscribe if I knew my information would be handed out like this. Slopr, you also can't say that "most of us are here to talk about climbing & climbing related issues regarding squamish and the surrounding area" when this IS in fact a climbing related issue.

Another thing... what if you COULD access credit card information from the Gripped site, is it now a problem?

Anyways, whatever happens, Gripped is almost forced to do something about it. Maybe if this situation gets resolved, I'll subscribe, who knows. I'm sure Hardcore isn't a malicious person, he probably just didn't like the way Gripped handled a potential hole in their system.

[hardcoreclimbers]

I did let Gripped know back in September when I first discovered this problem. In my original email, I had told Gripped that if they didn't fix the problem in a reasonable time I would let the issue be known publicly. I sent them another email two weeks ago re-expressing my concern, but was ignored. Since I'm the type of person who does what he says, I posted this on a public forum.

The point that I have stuck to throughout this entire thing is that users should know if their personal information is being mishandled. (And yes, my home address is considered private.) I trust that my point has been made and that Gripped will fix this problem asap.

I'm surprised it ever got this far. It should have been dealt with right away. If I were their web guy, I'd only have to change a few lines of code to disable the account management feature. It would take 15 minutes and the bug in the system would be temporarily patched. Then I could take as long as I wanted to fix the problem for good.

To Gripped: Just fix this problem already and all of this goes away!

Also, I'm not John Doe. My words alone are strong enough to make my point. I don't need some alter ego backing myself up.

[hardcoreclimbers]

Sorry to piss some of you off. My motive here is only to get Gripped to act in the best interest of their customers. I'm not planning to discuss this further. It's in Gripped's hands now...

[Fre]

Man, this is still an excellent post to re-read on a rainy day. Ah well, time to get myself a Gripped subscription. Will I go legal or utterly illegal...

[Brendan]

Will I go legal or utterly illegal...

Hmm...
That's a tough question