https://www.threetowners.net/forum/

Enjoyed a nice breakfast in a small cafe up the Coast yesterday. About a hour later a message arrived on my mobile phone not a" text" asking me how i rated the food. How does this work ,considering they did not even know my name .

Could you maybe have filled in some sort of form with your phone number and/or e-mail address on it Brian ?

Many mobile phones track your location even if you don't want them to. If you have a weather app or if you use a maps app your location is turned on and can be used by other programs.

Big brother is watching you

Thanks for all your help I know nothing about mobiles and only have one for family members to contact me in an emergency. My son borrowed my phone ages ago for a while when his was broken and i should think it was him that downloaded the APPS or whatever they are called.
Retsum it seems to me we are living in a dangerous World . Stalking comes to mind.

brian f wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:25 pm Retsum it seems to me we are living in a dangerous World . Stalking comes to mind.

You are absolutely right Brian. Up until recently I had a simple mobile phone that was just a phone but I dropped it and destroyed it. So I bought a new 'smart phone'. It came with all sorts of apps (programs), most of which I don't know what they do and have no interest in finding out. With this phone I can access the internet and send and receive e-mails (which is useful when I am away from home). I also like to see the local weather forecast which turns out to be very accurate. However to do that I need to let it 'see' where I am and that allows all sorts of programs to use that information. Like you I get requests to review somewhere I have just had a meal! There are also lots of BOTS (robot programs) that rome the internet collecting data on the number of visitors to various websites. If you look at who is on this website you will see that there are a number of BOTS logged in.

Retsum wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:54 pm
There are also lots of BOTS (robot programs) that rome the internet collecting data on the number of visitors to various websites. If you look at who is on this website you will see that there are a number of BOTS logged in.

Retsum, the bots that come onto a website are mainly capturing the raw data which is then indexed and used by search engines when someone requests a search. If you go onto Google now and search for “today in history Ardrossan” you’ll get the Threetowners webpage at the top of the list. Nothing sinister, I promise

What you say is true of declared BOTS but since we don't use a CAPTCHA there is nothing to prevent an undeclared BOT from gaining access for whatever purpose.

Yes, we do have the most up to date CAPTCHA and we have had no bad bots gain entry to our board other than to view the posts like any other guests - they don't cause any anxiety. The bots you see in the "Who is on-line" are sanctioned by the software makers and are necessary so we can be found in the search engines.

This topic from the phpbb support section should reassure folks that there is no problem: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2472536