Bitcointalk Account Strange Email Added?

[jerry0]

I notice when I click on my profile, it shows an email address that is on it and it has nothing to do with me.  Can others here see that email address on my profile?


Why do I have this strange email address on my profile?  Did someone access my account and put that email address there or something?  I had an older bitcointalk account before this account where someone had accessed it as it had these strange things on it and I recall it was mentioned years ago lot of bitcointalk accounts got hacked.


Is there a way to check all the IP addresses that accessed my Bitcointalk account? 

[Nwada001]

What did the email you saw on your profile look like? Let’s know if it’s the one changed by the forum admin or if hackers have actually accessed your account.

Your email settings are hidden by default; only you can see them from your end. Check the quoted comment below to identify if your account was among them or if it was actually changed by a hacker.

This is something we recently started doing. If email sent to your email address bounces with an error message like, "This email address doesn't exist", then your email may eventually be changed to u...@bounces.invalid. (It's not possible for users to change their email address to something ending in .invalid, so this can only be an administrative change.) Because your old email didn't exist, somebody could've registered your non-existent email address and used that to steal your account.

I didn't particularly intend for the trust warning to appear for these automatic changes, but it's a niche situation and a bit difficult to fix, so I probably won't fix this unless several other people complain. It only lasts 30 days, after all.

[TryNinja]

I notice when I click on my profile, it shows an email address that is on it and it has nothing to do with me.  Can others here see that email address on my profile?

Does it look like this?

xxxxxx@bounces.invalid

That's the email the forum uses if it detects you used an invalid email before.

Is there a way to check all the IP addresses that accessed my Bitcointalk account? 

https://bitcointalk.org/myips.php

[Chibit01]

Is there a way to check all the IP addresses that accessed my Bitcointalk account? 

Go to your profile click on "account related settings" scroll down and your will see your logged ips for the last 30 days under  "limit IP retention subsection" you can see the last IP from which your account was accessed.

[jerry0]

I notice when I click on my profile, it shows an email address that is on it and it has nothing to do with me.  Can others here see that email address on my profile?

Does it look like this?

xxxxxx@bounces.invalid

That's the email the forum uses if it detects you used an invalid email before.

Is there a way to check all the IP addresses that accessed my Bitcointalk account? 

https://bitcointalk.org/myips.php

Yes the email does look like that with the @bounces.invalid.  So that is normal then?

[TryNinja]

Yes the email does look like that with the @bounces.invalid.  So that is normal then?

Yes, it just means bitcointalk's system tried to send you an email (i.e someone PM'ed you) and the email was invalid. Good news, no one hacked you.

You can change to your actual email on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;sa=account

[khaled0111]

I took a look at your profile page and the email field shows "hidden". This means that even if you have used a valid email address, no one can see it but you. That's good for your privacy.

TN already explained why you see a "strange" email address on your profile (I wasn’t aware of this, tbh). My advice is to follow his recommendation and replace that address with a valid one of yours.

[Livingleged]

Is it ideal to change  your email  address  on the forum even if the old one is active but just because you prefered the another one? Or it is not advisible  to change email address at all since it may look like  there is change in ownership  of the account. I just want to know because  I had a thought  of changing  my email  as the old one I'm using  is not the preferred  email  I want,  but I don't know if that will actually  violate  any forum rule.
Please  need some inputs on this!

[Botnake]

Is it ideal to change  your email  address  on the forum even if the old one is active but just because you prefered the another one? Or it is not advisible  to change email address at all since it may look like  there is change in ownership  of the account. I just want to know because  I had a thought  of changing  my email  as the old one I'm using  is not the preferred  email  I want,  but I don't know if that will actually  violate  any forum rule.
Please  need some inputs on this!

I think no one would suspect you if you change your email, normally what I see is some would suspect if the user changed password, as that could possibly mean the account was hacked. There is a security log in the forum where we can see if someone has changed their password, but on email, it is not really a big deal, except if the password was changed via email as we can see here.

https://bitcointalk.org/seclog.php

[SatsPH]

And this is what @theymos says:

This is something we recently started doing. If email sent to your email address bounces with an error message like, "This email address doesn't exist", then your email may eventually be changed to u...@bounces.invalid. (It's not possible for users to change their email address to something ending in .invalid, so this can only be an administrative change.) Because your old email didn't exist, somebody could've registered your non-existent email address and used that to steal your account.

I didn't particularly intend for the trust warning to appear for these automatic changes, but it's a niche situation and a bit difficult to fix, so I probably won't fix this unless several other people complain. It only lasts 30 days, after all.

[jerry0]

Okay.  I had thought someone had accessed my account because I noticed that strange email on it.

Do most people use their email to confirm their account here first?  I had thought I did but I guess I didn't then right since it has that?  So people that did, then it shows your email address that has been confirmed?

The thing is was this email always there that shows up now?  I thought it never showed any email.

[Chibit01]

Okay.  I had thought someone had accessed my account because I noticed that strange email on it.

Nobody has, even if anyone has access to your account, they can put in an email that ends with invalid, which is what only someone with administrative access can do.

Do most people use their email to confirm their account here first?  I had thought I did but I guess I didn't then right since it has that?  So people that did, then it shows your email address that has been confirmed?

The forum doesn't send an email verification code or requires such upon registration if that's what you are asking, so you probably did not verify it, and you registered using an invalid mail thus that leads to the administrator changing your mail to what you are seeing. That step is taken to prevent hackers from creating your inexistent mail and use it to reset your account security.

The thing is was this email always there that shows up now?  I thought it never showed any email.

As far as I know, you can't create an account without email, so the invalid email used to be there, but only you can see it just as now. You can always reset the mail to your recent valid email to make it easier for you if need be in future or for notification purposes.

[TokenTikas]

Is it ideal to change  your email  address  on the forum even if the old one is active but just because you prefered the another one?

Changing an email address is a personal matter for the user. If the previous email is no longer convenient, they can create a valid new email and set it up without any issue.

Or it is not advisible  to change email address at all since it may look like  there is change in ownership  of the account.

In fact, changing an email address does not cause any problems. But when long time no use inactive account suddenly becomes active again and both the email and password are changed and start posting, it can appear suspicious. So said that, if it's the real owner of the account, then there is nothing to worry about.

[notocactus]

Changing an email address is a personal matter for the user. If the previous email is no longer convenient, they can create a valid new email and set it up without any issue.

Forum allows people registering accounts with invalid emails or changing the initial valid emails to invalid emails if they want privacy but there are something to know about your account security. Read this following quoted advice from theymos about it, and take proper action for your account security, firstly with your email address for the account.

If you use the forgotten-password function, then there's an option to remove the 2FA. So 2FA does not provide any protection in case of a compromised email. Make sure that your email address is secure. If you don't want to set an email address, use something like yourUserName@invalid.bitcointalk.org; don't use a random nonsense email like y@x.com, since somebody might create that domain/email.

[TokenTikas]

Forum allows people registering accounts with invalid emails or changing the initial valid emails to invalid emails if they want privacy but there are something to know about your account security. Read this following quoted advice from theymos about it, and take proper action for your account security, firstly with your email address for the account.

Yes, I have already taken the necessary steps to secure my account. I also followed the directions given by (theymos) regarding email usage, although unfortunately the email used to create my forum account has some similarities few thing.

I have also been thinking about another idea: purchasing a domain that matches my name and email, using it to enhance my profile.

[Cryptoprincess101]

Do most people use their email to confirm their account here first?  I had thought I did but I guess I didn't then right since it has that?  So people that did, then it shows your email address that has been confirmed?

Of course, if you use a valid email address, it will be confirmed but if you use an invalid email during account registration and a message is sent to that email address without delivery, it will automatically reset to something like this -- u3587264@bounces.invalid. When i registered my username i used an invalid email address but after some time i sign up the email address on google mail and it became valid.

[Livingleged]

Forum allows people registering accounts with invalid emails or changing the initial valid emails to invalid emails if they want privacy but there are something to know about your account security. Read this following quoted advice from theymos about it, and take proper action for your account security, firstly with your email address for the account.

Do you mean to say; changing  the initial  invalid  email  to a valid email? Or you actually  mean changing  initial  valid  email  to an invalid  email?  Thought  since the  forum doesn't  not check or verify  the validaty of your email address  when you're registering, therefore  when a pm is sent to the email  provided  by you and it's doesn't delivered, the forum reserves  the right to create  a similar  email  with that inviid suffix for you and nullifying the one you provided  which  is invalid  right? Just as the case  of the Op here I think I get the whole point now. Thanks for the response  from every other  person  that actually  try to provide me with the information  I was looking for.

[Betwrong]

Is there a way to check all the IP addresses that accessed my Bitcointalk account? 

Go to your profile click on "account related settings" scroll down and your will see your logged ips for the last 30 days under  "limit IP retention subsection" you can see the last IP from which your account was accessed.

You mean, someone could just visit my profile or someone accessed my account as an owner? Because this freaked me out a bit when I saw my account was accessed from "Covasna, Romania" two weeks ago, and I knew for sure that I wasn't in Romania and wasn't using VPN either.

[LoyceV]

You mean, someone could just visit my profile or someone accessed my account as an owner?

The forum doesn't tell you who visited your profile, myips logs from where your account has been used.

[Upgrade00]

This happened to me sometime last year and I freaked out a little when I saw it cause I missed the theymos update. Once you change your email address to a valid one, you're good to go.

Is it ideal to change  your email  address  on the forum even if the old one is active but just because you prefered the another one? Or it is not advisible  to change email address at all since it may look like  there is change in ownership  of the account. I just want to know because  I had a thought  of changing  my email  as the old one I'm using  is not the preferred  email  I want,  but I don't know if that will actually  violate  any forum rule.

If you need to, you can change your email address. When I had to, I signed a message from an address I had used in the past and posted it in the thread to stake your Bitcoin address. This confirms that it is the owner of the account making the changes. The notification that you've recently changed your email address disappears after a while and that's it done.

You're not violating any rule by changing anything you can change on your profile, this includes emails and password. Just only do it when you have a good reason to.

Because this freaked me out a bit when I saw my account was accessed from "Covasna, Romania" two weeks ago, and I knew for sure that I wasn't in Romania and wasn't using VPN either.

Are you close geographically to that location? My ips usually shows logs from states I have never been to in my country. I think if you stay close to that location, that could happen too.