Everyone knows about credit reports, but many are unaware that different industries have their own specialized reputational systems.

For example:

• If you’re an insurance salesman and owe money to your employer, you could be reported on Vector.
• If you’re had malpractice or other adverse medical practice issues, you’ll end up in the National Practitioner Data Bank.
• Bad lawyer?  There’s the Martindale-Hubble Peer Review Ratings system.
• Are you a bad teachers?  The NASDTEC Clearinghouse will have a record of you.

Etcetera.  And if you’re a bad hosting subscriber?  You’ll end up on FraudRecord.

FraudRecord is a system wherein your personal details (email address, phone number, etc.) are captured as hashes, along with comments.

So let’s imagine you sign up for ExampleHost and immediately begin spamming.  You’re abusive to the support staff, and as soon as they suspend your account, you chargeback your payment (which costs the provider a fee, even if they’re in the right).

ExampleHost may (and should) submit your details to FraudRecord.  What FraudRecord will have a series of hashes (e.g., “9f908996a7a1077e3dc13a4c81a3a0694e1f7c35”) for your name, email, phone, etc. along with comments from the provider.

Now if you go over to SomeOtherHost and try to sign up, they can enter your details (e.g., your email) into FraudRecord and see what comments other providers have made about you, and use that information to decide if they want to do business with you.  Check out their sample reports.

Everything on the FraudRecord side is stored as a hash, which means that even if FraudRecord is hacked, there’s no leak of identifiable information.

FraudRecord has a nice page that shows the entire process end to end.

Your Record

You can create a free FraudRecord account and check your reputation there any time you like.  You can also sign up for more advanced premium plan that provides automated alerts but the free tier allows you to login and check your history.

And it’s well worth doing so.  If you discover a negative report about you, you can request removal.  It’s better to be proactive about these things, rather than get a surprise when you go to sign up somewhere.

Stay safe!

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.