How does Password recovery work

[Jimmy Hsu]

This may not be the right place to ask this. Forgive me as I am a newbie.

I often register on some sites that requires one to provide a Username and
Password. Often, after not going to that site for some time, I would
forget that password. Now usually on the site, there would be a button
called "Forgot Password" to click. Clicking that password would enable them
to send the password to my email client.

I can understand this if I had given them my email adress on registering
initially. But on some sites, they d'ont even ask for your email address
when registering. How in the world did they track my address down. I am
on an ADSL connection, and it handles Client IP addresses dynamically ie
assigning addresses randomly each time I connect on. I thought they might
have sent a cookie to my PC for tracking. But deleting all cookies and
testing it again, the site could still direct the forgotton password to my
email. Grateful if someone can explain how this works

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Unless you entered an email address when you set up the account, I can't see
how they'd ever know it.

 

[Jimmy Hsu]

Hmmm...... good point.

Perhaps, let me re-phrase my question. We often read in the press about
guys who create a fictitious account (username) using Yahoo or Hotmail, and
then from there send out porno or defamatory materials to their enemies.
Some recipients of these offensive material file a police report against the
ISP, and somehow from there, the ISP tracks the culprit down.
I'm sure you must have read about these in the press occasionally.

I'm sure the culprit wouldn't leave his real email address when
creating/registering the fictitious Yahoo or Hotmail account.

Thks and rdgs

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"