Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 203/CPSC 203 2007Fall L04/CPSC 203 2007Fall L04 TermProjects/It's myspace, not yours!

It's myspace, not yours!

THE REALiTY OF FALSE iDENTiTiES

Who we are

Team Name: #1
Members: Taylor Archer, Jenna Free, Shannon Odland, Megan Schwartz, Amanda Diaz

Initial Project Statement

We are going to look into myspace and its security issues, leading to identity theft.
Most people don't realize how easy it is for someone else to immitate a false identity.

Me, Myspace & I

Typical MySpace profile, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson's profile

The History of Myspace

Tom Anderson is the main creator of MySpace.com. He modelled it after Friendster, a personal profile type website that was already in use before MySpace.com was created. He and his co-founder sold it to NewsCorp, which kept "hands-off" the website, so although Anderson may not own the rights to the webpage he is still the one in charge and is the person who controls what is put on the website and how it is run. This website is one of the most frequently visited websites to date; in fact as of September 7, 2007, there are over 200 million accounts.

What can you do on Myspace anyways?

1. Personal profile with picture. These profiles can include : Interests and personality, your name, your basic information, your background and lifestyle, your school/company, networking, photos & videos, etc.
2. Email and messaging
3. A bulletin space where you can send messages to all of your friends at once
4. Your school homepage
5. ...and SO MUCH MORE!

On Myspace you can chat with others about similar interests in Forums, and join groups based on your favorite hobbies and personal interests. You can even view classifieds to look for a new job, a new house, or a new bedside table. The features of Myspace are endless... this being said, Myspace in a nutshell is a community on its own.

In spite of these positive features of MySpace there are also negatives that could potentially put you in a vulnerable position when it comes to your identity. For example, the idea of Profile customization is great for those with knowledge of HTML that want to spice up their page, however, this can also allow the injection of certain HTML which can be crafted to form a phishing user profile, thus keeping the Myspace.com domain as the address. Another example is the fact that anyone can gain access to view your profile; although you can set your profile to private, that does not protect your name, address, birthday or picture, which are the most important and personal facts about you!

Dec 2006 - Associated Press repoted this:
"MySpace bills itself as a "place for friends". Increasingly, it
is also a place for unfriendly attacks from digital miscreants on
the prowl, luring users to sexually explicit websites, clogging mailboxes
with spam messages and playing on the trust users have when speaking

to "friends" to obtain passwords that could lead to identity theft."

Trading Spaces

How Identity Thieves do it

Identity theft is a serious and scary thing but most people don't think it can happen to them - but it can! Identity theft is actually very common and can happen to you without you even knowing about it. There are many ways in which these thieves go about stealing your personal information:

One of the major flaws of social networks is the lack of identity validation. Anyone can pretend to be anyone else and you have no way of telling for sure if they are truly who they say they are. An example of a way preditors can attack is: first you receive a link from one of you’re MySpace friends saying you have to check out a great video. Then you click on the link and then get asked to re-enter your password. This is the scam! The thieves now have your password and are free to roam your account as they please. This can have many terrible effects. First of all once they can access your account they can go on and change the password, thus blocking you out of your own account. Also they can post adverstising bulletins to all your MySpace friends. The worst of all is that they might even try to steal your real life identity. It is very common for people to use the same password for their email as their MySpace. This means that they can access your email account and all the personal information that lies there. With this information it is also possible for these thieves to send requests to reset your passwords for other accounts you hold for example PayPal, eBay and many others.

Examples of fake friend requests

Another similar way that predators can attack is to become a fake account of a beautiful girl or a good looking guy (something to lure you - whatever gender - into checking out their profile!). The MySpace user has no way to tell if this is a fake profile or not. If the user agrees to his or her “Friend Request” than they could receive an invite to download viewers which actually install spyware. Spyware is a computer software that collects personal information without their informed consent, Yet another way to the users personal information. Young people have grown up with the internet and trust it especially with a well known site like MySpace. This fact may contribute to the reason why youth are a prime target of identity thieves.

Most commonly, theft occurs from careless posting of sensitive information on the web. It is thought that youths lack knowledge and awareness about web safety. Although many think this about the youth population is has been recently been discovered, in a US study, that many adults are very careless on the web too. In this study 74% of the adults who participated in the study said that they had given out personal information, such as their email address, name, and birthday. A shocking 83% of adults who use these networking sites confessed that they have downloaded unknown files from other people’s profiles. This study also revealed that, although 57% of people who use social networking sites expressed concern about becoming victims of cyber-crime, they are still divulging information that may put them at risk. That is a large amount of people. Just over half of the people surveyed admitted to this carelessness. It seems to most people that this kind of identity theft could never happen to them and that it only happens to people who make dumb and careless mistakes but it is important for everyone to realize that these thieves don’t need much, a social insurance number paired with a birthday or name and your financial records and personal information are compromised.

Real Life Space Invasions!

What good does all this information do if we don't have any cold, hard evidence showing that it can actually happen to someone like you? In the next 3 cases, we will show you how real regular users of Myspace.com have encountered some form of identity theft - some more serious than others.

Case#203A: Fired for Fraud

This case begins with a man named Bill Poon, a blogger for an online site blogger.ca. To generate some humor amongst his coworkers, he decided to create a fake Myspace profile in which he posted a picture of the president of their company. He then decided to leave managerial-like comments for co-workers such as: "Go back to work!" and "Good job" - only to find out that the "counsel" for Blogger did not find it amusing at all. In fact, he was terminated due to criminal offense for Identity Theft, but luckily they did not press charges. The question though that arises from this particular case is: Did Bill actually commit identity theft? It was obvious that the creation of the fake page was strictly intended only as a joke, but in reality it cost him his job. This just goes to show that something as miniscule as putting up a picture of someone that is not you, is still identity theft.

Case#203B: Brad Pitt is my friend on Myspace! Or is he?

With Myspace being the most popular networking site on the web, it's no doubt that even celebrities want in on the action. Bands, local artists, and even actors and actresses - ranging from Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens to even The Pussycat Dolls - have their own official Myspace profiles. Not only because this helps with promotion, exposure, and expanding their fan-bases, but they are just like us: people who want to actually connect with their friends and family. However, not all celebrity Myspace profiles are genuine and real, considering how easy it is to register and setup a profile for impersonation.

Now, would the REAL Angelina Jolie talk like this?

A few fake Myspace pages:

Mary-Kate Olsen

Paris Hilton

Joanna Levesque (Jojo)

Some official celebrity MySpace pages:

Although these imposter profiles that impersonate famous celebrities may not be genuine as claimed on the website to be official, some actually offer a good laugh or actual videos, songs, photos and information about the celebrity. In the end, they are simply a show of love by their obsessed fans... however, this in fact is still identity theft!

Case#203C: Misused Myspace's

This case involves a 19-year-old man, Kevin Andrew Burd, who was accused of stealing a Uniontown Area High School student's identity and creating a Web site that threatened violence against African-Americans. He allegedly used a 16-year-old student's name and photograph, and then used it to generate threats against black students, including: "I hate all (expletive deleted). I swear I'm gonna bring a gun to school someday and kill them all."

The high school principal Thomas Colebank testified Tuesday before Uniontown District Judge Mark Blair that students were disturbed by the threats. Burd is charged with misdemeanor counts of terroristic threats, reckless endangerment and identity theft, and summary counts of harassment and disorderly conduct.

Trooper Thomas Broadwater traced the MySpace page to Burd's home after Colebank alerted police. Broadwater received an activity report from MySpace that recorded an Internet address registered to Burd through Verizon Internet Services. Police also seized Burd's laptop computer and found photographs of the 16-year-old identity theft victim posted on the bogus Web site.

In the end, Burd was released on $5,000 unsecured bond with an Aug. 16 arrangement date.

Protecting YOUR Identity

It's true that you are simply just 1 user out of the 200 million on Myspace.com. However, we don't want you to be just another victim of Identity Theft or profile phishing so we have put together a few tips on how you can secure your identity and your information.

• Never click on a link in a bulletin, message, or comment that looks suspicious. It's probably a trap to steal your profile.

• If it EVER looks like MySpace has logged you out, don't enter your email and password. Instead, type 'www.myspace.com' in the address bar and hit enter to make sure you are still on the real MySpace website and not a copycat site.

• Make sure your email password and your MySpace password aren't the same!

• Change the Information Control Options of your profile:

1. Online Now: By un-checking this box, other users won’t know when you’re actively on your account.
2. Profile Viewable By: By selecting “My Friends Only,” you limit the ability for strangers to find your personal information.
3. Photos: By un-checking this box, you prevent your photos from being emailed and shared by other users.
4. Require Last Name/Email Address To Add As Friend: Tired of getting random friend requests from strangers? Change this setting and users will have to enter either your email address or last name to be able to complete the add process.

• Understand the Privacy Policy: Is the privacy policy easy to read and understand? Will they share or sell your information? etc.

• Be very careful of what information you post and say on the internet. Almost everyone and anyone can gain access to it.

• Send private messages, instead of leaving comments on others pages when communicating something private, etc.

Conclusion

Myspace has been revolutionary for our generation. Despite the endless features that it offers and with it's extreme popularity for users all across the globe, problems such as Identity theft are bound to arise. However, there are ways to prevent this from happening to you, as listed above, and we hope that the information that we have investigated and posted has made you more knowledgeable about the risks and potential hazards of posting certain information online; and that simply just being aware can save you from being a victim of Identity Theft.

References

Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 203/CPSC 203 2007Fall L04/CPSC 203 2007Fall L04 TermProjects/It's myspace, not yours!

Contents

Who we are

Initial Project Statement

Me, Myspace & I

The History of Myspace

What can you do on Myspace anyways?

Trading Spaces

How Identity Thieves do it

Real Life Space Invasions!

Case#203A: Fired for Fraud

Case#203B: Brad Pitt is my friend on Myspace! Or is he?

Case#203C: Misused Myspace's

Protecting YOUR Identity

Conclusion

References

from AMANDA DIAZ

from MEGAN SCHWARTZ

from TAYLOR ARCHER

from JENNA FREE

from SHANNON ODLAND

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