First of all I want to make one thing clear: No matter why people use it or how can I keep it alive with such a big bandwith usage. That has nothing to do with the “security problem”, Twitter is also free and they have like tons more of users than blockoo does.

1) MSN allows third-party websites to do it. You won’t believe how easy it is to block the access to the users adress book if they want to. Yes, it’s suspicious, but that’s each user opinion. More than 300.000 thinks not.

2) Yes, it does send it if you DON’T UNCHECK the “Recommend blockoo to my contacts” option. Wich is followed by a “?” symbol that explain what that option does. If someone sent the messages it’s because they wanted to. We don’t hide how the site works in a long Terms and Conditions, whe explain it all crearly with links in the homepage to each FAQ.

3) Yes, we used to change their nicknames, but once again we explain it in the homepage very clearly and also in the “How this site works?” section.

Of course you can be suspicious about the site, but I can tell you that we are doing our best to keep it simple and honest. In fact we bought a SSL 128 Bits certificate yesterday: https://blockoo.com we are just waiting for the new DNS to propagate.

As you can see we are trying our best to bring a good service and a really secure site. It’s not our goal to steal passwords or accounts, we really can’t find a good use for that (or is anybody willing to check more than 300.000 accounts?).

Hope you can change your opinion about the site and if there is anything I can do to help that just let me know.

Either you’re incredibly naïve or you are a consummate liar. I won’t say which because I just don’t know you well enough, but in either case, I will still point out the numerous questionable aspects of your “service.”

1) You’re a third-party vendor asking for MSN user names and passwords. This is probably the greatest single factor that makes your site highly suspicious. Already, your site is off to a rocky start. I suspect that your enterprise draws its inspiration from Facebook.com, which does the exact same thing in order to bolster membership, and I don’t trust them either with their, “Trust us. We promise we won’t store or use your password” assurances. Until your site implements encryption with digital certification as a TRUSTED third party, your promises mean less than the bandwidth it took to relay them. To this day, I still can’t figure out why so many people willingly pony up their passwords to any site that has no official relationship whatsoever with their e-mail providers, just as you don’t, but there you have it. If it weren’t for gullible people, I wouldn’t be here posting this message.

2) Your site sends what is very clearly an automated message to people in the address book of users who previously used your site. In addition to several people who posted above, I received this message this morning through Messenger:

“hey!! you really have to check this site http://www.blockoo.com/en/ it’s awesome, now you can see who blocked or deleted you :D:D!! try it right now (Y)”

This is IDENTICAL to the message listed in the above warning, and has the stench of “automatied” all over it. The person whose account this came from has absolutely no knowledge of sending it, and having used your site as recently as YESTERDAY (June 6, 2007), never gave permission for you to send out spam in her name. That’s an unauthorized use of user information, and qualifies as malware, any way you look at it. Which brings into question all of your assurances given since May 24, 2007 on this site when you came to plead your case.

3) You admit yourself that your site USED TO change the Messenger user nicknames of people who used you service. That’s malware. Why, in the name of anything that makes sense on the ‘Net, would your company do something so presumptuously obnoxious as change user nicknames without their permission in the first place? It doesn’t matter that you “don’t do it anymore, ” as you claim. The fact you’re your site was doing it in the first place is a pretty good indicator that your initial intent was either, again, naïve, or just plain malicious.

The above three points alone are more than enough to qualify your site as potentially dangerous, or at the very least, really annoying. But add to this the one question that stuck out when your invitation first appeared uninvited in my friend’s name on Messenger: What exactly is the purpose of your site? I mean, really: “FIND OUT THE TRUTH! You can see who blocked or deleted you.” Were you serious when you came up with this idea? Besides relying upon the blatant emotional insecurity and lack of self-confidence among people who might feel compelled to use your site to “find out the truth” (a common tactic among phishers, hackers, and malware creators alike. Again, another strike against your service), your site has no practical value whatsoever, other than to appeal to the most primal of human emotion, namely “Am I loved?” No harm, no foul. After all, that’s why Reality TV is such a hit. People like to see strangers make fools of themselves so they can feel better about themselves. Such is human weakness.

But what strikes me is that this service, which, as we’ve already established, culls info from user address books, likely results in no small number of hits for your site. Which means a lot of people are visiting your site. Which means a lot of bandwidth is getting eaten up. Which means your monthly costs must be rising considerably. And yet . . . You offer this service . . . .for free.

Look, you may very well just be some honest entrepreneur looking to create the next big thing, but if it looks like malware, walks like malware, and quacks like malware, then the odds are pretty damned high that it IS malware. Your service is suspicious and useless, and I’m going to spread the word, if for no other reason than to nip in the bud your juvenile exploitation of people’s baser insecurities.

Good luck with your endeavor.

El podcast lo voy a hacer, pero era sobre el sistema de productividad de TechTear. El tema es que ahora estoy bastante ocupado, de estos últimos 15 días estuve la mitad en Rosario y laburando bastante (en algo que sale en estos días).

Por ahi lei que ibas a hacer un post cast sobre como se organizan en Bos. Que paso? Te arrepentiste?

Saludos.