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The fake Facebook profile industry

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71–80 of 274 posts

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#71

Post by manifestsilence »

scraft wrote: post #49

1. I got told many years ago, that when you get that crazily bad emails, where it claims to be from some official source, but there are spelling mistakes, the return email address is obviously wrong, grammer is terrible, etc. the sort where it is so completely obviously it is a scam - often this is done on purpose, they aren't intereseting >99% of people who can spot a scam, they are interested in the 2. Separately t…

The danger, or maybe just annoyance, with #2 (with only accepting friend requests without intent to do more) is that they then use the friend connection to further advertise to your friends. I accepted one once - wasn't paying attention to mutual friend count or something - and was immediately spammed on my wall with some site ad and then they deleted their account. So some, rather than the slow scam game, are just playing the spam game.

Another danger is that with the extended access to your profile, they could get enough content to clone you convincingly, and then you get the scam where all your friends receive a duplicate friend request from "you", and the new profile tries to sell them on some scam.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#72

Post by kroltan »

ensiferum wrote: post #27

Hah, how stupid do you need to be to fall into this obvious trap. Let's see... a random cute girl approaches you online and wants to initiate a sexy chat. The chances of this happening for real and not being a scam are about the same as you being a distant cousin to a Nigerian prince who just passed away and left you millions of dollars of inheritance.

It _has_ to be stupid. A non-scammy-looking scam might attract people who would notice any minor inconsistency, thus risking more reports and more time of the scammer wasted interacting with a potentially-failed prospect.

Now, only the most gullible, most desperate of people would fall into such "obvious" scams, which means a greater return rate for the effort spent.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#73

Post by segmondy »

throwawayfish wrote: post #32

Using a throwaway account to keep things private Last year I was "sex-torted" on Facebook but not by a ring of French criminals. Instead, it was by someone I had chatted with on the internet years ago (while we were both still teenagers) She had recently gotten divorced and contacted me after many years away. We spoke about intimate things (I never shared intimate images, though she did) and were getting closer and c…

File a civil suit. For those still reading, practice social media isolation.

No one on my LinkedIn is on my Facebook. Only 1 person on my LinkedIn is on my twitter and only 2 people on my facebook are on my twitter.

Facebook & Linkedin are not open to public.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#75

Post by code_duck »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #69
abtom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that could have happened to anyone. Not just because of misplaced trust in an online partner but because it's easy to create fake screenshots of conversations using Photoshop or simply Inspect Element. I'm interested in how you mitigated the damage once the post was published. A good strategy might have been to simply discredit it as being fake/photoshopped along with a small tutorial showing how ea…

It's shocking how easy it is to become a liar without missing a beat. If they slipped and someone caught them lying, it would become exponentially worse. Bad idea. But they should be proud of their sexuality. Whether it's BDSM or hotwifing or whatever strange kink, who cares? It's the same as shaming someone for being gay. I dislike that we have to be so Victorian about sex. It's the social climate we live in, but...…

The climate of judging people for private sexual morality is slowly changing in the United States… Same with marijuana smoking. In the 90s, affairs or past pot smoking were considered a big deal. Since then, we have elected Obama and Trump, who would not have passed moral snuff in the 80s.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#76

Post by segmondy »

maxxxxx wrote: post #70
brandon272 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Since she knew your real identity, did you know hers? Did the possibility exist that you could sue her in civil court? I don't feel like I'm the litigious type but that case seems to be begging for a legal response.

Going to court after such an episode is another traumatic experience where you have to relive the whole situation. That's why it's difficult for rape victims to go to the police or court because they have relive the trauma again in all detail.

Court or not, you are going to relive it. Next time an old friend contacts you, you will relive it, could even be via email or phone. Someone trying to get into a relationship could be talking and getting personal and you would panic and wonder if it's a setup. You could be watching a TV show or see someone that looks like the lady. Lots of things can trigger it. Going to court won't eliminate it, but the more often people are punished for things like these, the less people will engage in such evil acts.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#77

Post by maxxxxx »

segmondy wrote: post #76
maxxxxx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to court after such an episode is another traumatic experience where you have to relive the whole situation. That's why it's difficult for rape victims to go to the police or court because they have relive the trauma again in all detail.

Court or not, you are going to relive it. Next time an old friend contacts you, you will relive it, could even be via email or phone. Someone trying to get into a relationship could be talking and getting personal and you would panic and wonder if it's a setup. You could be watching a TV show or see someone that looks like the lady. Lots of things can trigger it. Going to court won't eliminate it, but the more often…

I agree that going to court is a good thing but you can't compare talking about one of the most vulnerable moments of one's life with friends to having to tell all details of the story to strangers in public while possibly being challenged by an adversarial lawyer or cops who may not believe you.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#78

Post by CaptSpify »

denisehilton wrote: post #74

It's about time Facebook should start taking action against fake profile. They should make use of AI to separate them out.

They have every incentive to do the opposite though. Fake profiles still count towards ad-revenue because advertisers aren't calling Facebook out on their bullshit.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#79

Post by wmeredith »

pohl wrote: post #44
dannyw wrote: post #3

I find it unbelievable that Facebook doesn't have the fake profile situation under control. Facebook builds an incredibly detailed social graph of every user (and non-user) with a big trail of activity, on and off Facebook. Surely there are signs; surely there are common characteristics, and if this journalist can write such a detailed exposé with only public data, Facebook can do much better.

Why would they scuttle their own engagement metrics by pruning out highly-engaged segments of the social network, though?

Twitter has a similar problem with bots. They're bad for the platform, but the short term incentives are all wrong for them to actually do something about it.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#80

Post by kolbe »

djsumdog wrote: post #29

I think the saddest part of this is that they prey on people. Many of the peeps here on HN can look at a profile and say "spam," so it's hard to imagine the people who can't. The 1% return from SPAM that click on those links, or put in their credit card details. There was a ReplyAll podcast episode where one of the reporters actually tracks down a shop in India; even goes there and talks to people who've worked at a…

Why do you need to impart any ethical justification? For millennia, humans have been stealing from other humans for their own benefit. It's not psychopathic in any exceptional sense. It's so prevalent that it's hard to call it anything but human nature.
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