Buying people's identities for $150 a time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7732569.stm

I have a scary belief that within a small number of … I’ll say months … we will have to accept the fact that we are living in a world where you will not be able to trust that anyone is who they say they are. This post just describes the tip of the iceberg.

I have met people who admit to having created fake people on Facebook and MySpace. In one case, J (woman – very intelligent – Masters trained) created a fake MySpace groupie to try to tempt her musician husband to start a relationship with her. She succeeded very quickly – her opening line on MySpace was just “Hi, how’s it going”, obviously supported with a cute picture. She only got ‘caught’ when she had a real life discussion with her partner and revealed information that she should not have known… but only after a 6-week online affair with the guy.

By the way, it ended badly. She successfully entrapped her husband. And if now a single mother with a young child.

And another fake person, M, was a real person, almost a celebrity where she lived. She only found out a fake M existed when one of her real friends asked her where she was. “What do you mean, I am in Indianapolis”, she explained. Her friend, though, was waiting for her in Orlando at her favorite gym, apparently 30 minutes late for a meet up. It turns out that Real M, who deliberately did not have a FaceBook account, had found herself a Fake M.

Fake M used Real M’s pictures. And Real M’s bios. And friended Real M’s friends. (btw it is very easy to create a fake M e-mail account – just go to GMail or whichever and set up an account in a real person’s nae – it is that easy). Fake M only got busted because she arranged a real meeting.

… and who knows who Fake M is.

Anyway more on this topic later. Real Mark has work to do.

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