So I decided to try an experiment out on some friends that I live with to see how easy it would be to steal them... from me.
By creating a new email address and then a Facebook account, nicking my profile picture with a clever "Save image as" and remembering how to spell my own name. Voila! I had a new, apparently identical Facebook profile, except that it had no information about "me" except for a name, birthday and profile pic. So now it was time to test it out.
I invited 20 friends that I live with and see often, added a little not saying "Hey, I got hacked so created a new profile. *Myname*", and sent the request be my new friends online... 80% accepted immediately, another 6 added me and only 2 asked me about it before daring to accept (I feigned ignorance about the new profile, so they did not accept me). All of them live in the same building as me to make sure it would be easy for them to check if I actually started a new profile. Through these 22 new friends I gathered 66 useful pieces of information:
* 24 email addresses
* 5 Skype addresses
* 7 Home addresses
* 7 Cellphone numbers
* 1 Home number
* 15 Birthdays
and one blood type... A-
Interestingly there were 11 males and 11 females who accepted, of them I got 33 useful bits of personal information from each sex. So it does not matter online whether you are male or female, we both share about the same amount (Yes I realize that 22 is not large enough to make any real conclusions!).
This experiment has shown me how easy it is to steal your own online identity and I can only assume it is just as easy to steal any profile you like and become them online. So, next time you get a friend request don't just assume your talking to the right person... It could be me.
I find that actually quite scary =\
ReplyDeleteNext step is to steal the identity of a friend, and then invite your other friends to this new profile. Make the friend whose profile you stole think they've gone insane, sell story to Woman's Day.
ReplyDelete