Slashdot Mirror
How to Fight Name Scraping Scammers?
CurtMonash writes "I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of an on-line dating service. It turns out these scamsters generate web pages for lots of (FirstName, LastName) combos, each claiming that the named individual is a member of their service. I posted about this, and discovered other people were upset, at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member, and so on. I've since followed up with lessons learned, a big one being that everybody should have a visible web presence. But frankly, the ideas I've come up with for fighting this kind of reputation scam seem fairly weak. Do Slashdotters have any better ideas?"
You seem to have caught a wave, unless of course your name happens to be Mortimer Onlyoneontheplanet!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of the an on-line dating service.
So, did you get any hits?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It would be nice if the author explained why he thinks that everybody should have a web presence. I don't buy it. I don't have a web presence at all (none of that Myspace/Facebook crap-ola), and I've been pretty successful in staying off the radar that way.
I don't respond to AC's.
I've been caught by my girlfriend... she received a message on an online dating service (WTF!!!) from a guy searching for a Fu** friend. This guy was *ME*. Someone stole my picture off Facebook, and sent it to my girlfriend pretending *HE* was *ME*. Maybe I should just deactivate my Facebook account if I want to keep my girlfriend. Or maybe I should prevent her from having an account on an online dating service!
> Do Slashdotters have any better ideas?
File libel lawsuits.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
the ideas I've come up with for fighting this kind of reputation scam seem fairly weak.
How about people not believing everything they hear from a source they know nothing about? There's no general solution to the problem of people spreading unfounded rumors other than people being more skeptical of new untested information sources. This will take time as people come to realize that "the internet" isn't a single source of information.
AccountKiller
What makes you think this is some type of scam, and not merely somebody with the same name as you?
No, just because you have an unusual name, it doesn't mean you are the only one with it. I have a very unusual name too. I've never even met anybody with the same surname that wasn't a member of my immediate family. I've googled my own name; I'm the only person with my name that has a web presence. But when a website was launched to check how unique your name is, I discovered that there are at least two other people with my name in my country alone. If I registered on a dating site, those two people would probably feel the same about me.
Unless there's something actually linking you personally to this site, like a photo or bio, I don't see any basis for calling this a scam. Your name is not unique enough to be your property.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I strongly disagree with that conclusion. There are already too many people with cringe-worthy web presences. Besides, most reasonable people know better than to believe everything they read.
Caveat Utilitor
My name is fairly common (last name is Miller) - there's roughly 4 of us in the company I work for (out of 95k employees), and there's about forty of me w/ the same first/last name combo (with various differences in middle names and etc.) in the metro area phone book.
It's not just online, either - I remember awhile when some idiot collection agency kept bugging me over some other guy's debt, because we happened to share the same first/last name combo. I tried to tell them this repeatedly, then finally out of frustration told 'em: "see you in court, idiot!" It never came to fruition, and my credit record never reflected it *shrug*
I guess that's why I never really worried if I see my name online - chances are it's not me anyway.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Hmmm. Hot Jewish single guy on one hand or accepting the Jesus as my Lord and Savior? Sigh.
I have to say, I don't understand how this situation is a dilemma, never mind the whole idea that actually talking to people about who they are -- rather than attempting to search them out on the internet* -- is fundamental to building relationships
So, while JLove probably is being pretty underhanded in making up members, I don't think it can really be blamed for this potential couple's failure to actualize.
--sabre86
*The Internet, TM. Where everything is true!
I think the problem may be that you use your name as your internet handle? If Curt Monash is your real name, it's pretty easy to see your web presence and scrapers will have no problem putting your first and last name together, it doesn't even have to be randomly generated in your case.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/curtmonash
http://twitter.com/CurtMonash
http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/APY7OA7WIXSJI
I'm sure this actually may be an issue in the future, but how can you stop them from putting X together with Y and generating web pages? We have to leave it up to the likes of Google to purge these sites from their results.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I got an friend invite on Myspace from my wife... who has an pretty unique first name. She has never had an myspace, but I have encouraged her to create one only for the purpose of reuniting with old real life friends. So I click on it thinking she finally created one... Only to find some really nice looking nekkid blond (not my wife).
I showed it too her, she was not amused, but I found it hysterical.
I know this might be a long shot, but if people really believe all they see when they google your name on google, how about taking advantage of that? After I had googled my own name, I realised how lucky I am because what you find is basically tech reviews done by me and some old karate scoreboards with me even winning some medals. Putting some effort in it, I could probably make it look like I am also doing third wold humanitarian work, help the poor, fight cancer etc. That would probably fly well with all nosy employers and possible future employers that like to google people. And if someoene asks, you could either stick with the story or dismiss it as a coincidence because someone shares your name. For the record, I do have a name that is most likely unique.
Dvorak on Doomtech
* Bots are scraping names off the web
* Scammers use those names to do bad things
* Therefore, you should put your name on the web
That seems like a bad syllogism. I'm not saying the conclusion (that you need a strong web presence) is wrong. I'm just saying that if you're going to make a counter-intuitive conclusion, you need to connect the dots. You know, for us dumb guys.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
I was quickly disappointed though as the site which boasted 1,000+ members in my area and certainly had profiles to back it up appeared to be padding profiles onto their site. Now I realize it is possible that a lot of the correspondence I sent out weren't going to be met by a positive response but I would have at least expected the courtesy of a rejection every now and then. Long story short they got my money and I left the site with nothing to show for it. I guess there is a lesson here but I'll be pwnd if I know what it is.
I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of the an on-line dating service.
I don't see anything on the jLove Curt Monash page that demonstrates that it's the guy who submitted this article. Surely there's more than one "Curt Monash" in the world?
If the site had scraped your Web site URL, e-mail address, or some other personal identifier that made the page look more "authentic", then there's a scam and a real privacy issue for us to be concerned about. If some computer is just putting together combinations of first and last names and building pages with no further personally identifiable information, that's spam for Google to worry about, not a scam or a privacy infringement for us to worry about.
at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member
The world is full of idiots. Just because someone's NAME (which is far from unique) is on a dating site, they lost interest? I'd say the guy had a lucky escape!
If there's any problem here, it's the Western naming convention that allows thousands of people to end up with the same name. Perhaps we should all become known by our e-mail addresses or IM screennames in the future to avoid this.
I got a notice that I had signed up for "WeeWorld" which appears to be a MySpace type site with avatars or something. Honestly, I wasn't really interested in the site beyond the fact that, somehow, "I" was now a member. Not only that, but "I" apparently had already communicated with some of "my" friends on there. I quickly assessed the situation and determined that nothing in my e-mail account indicated any hacking there. In fact, the site didn't have any sort of e-mail confirmation. It just took an e-mail address, assumed that the person was giving their real address, and then sent e-mails to that user notifying them whenever someone sent them a message.
So it looked like someone just decided to use my e-mail address in the "e-mail address" line when they signed up. Since the service nicely sent me "my" password when "I" signed up, I used it to log in. Then, I decided to lock "other me" out, so I changed the password. Then I changed the name on the account to "DON'T USE E-MAIL ADDYS THAT AREN'T YOURS" (so all of "other me's" friends would see what he did). Next, I contacted WeeWorld to report the abuse. They offered to close the account. I waited for a few days in the hopes that "other me" would realize that he was now locked out of his profile and had his name changed. Then I had them close the account.
Part of me was satisfied that, perhaps, he learned his lesson. Of course, another part of me realizes that he probably just signed up again with someone else's e-mail address. A very simple e-mail confirmation would stop abuses like this from happening. Sure, an abuser could use a hacked into e-mail account, but it is a simple action that raises the bar above most of the would-be abusers' heads.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
and discovered other people were upset, at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member,
Well, specifically, he found a blog entry from someone else, saying:
I went back, caught his name and cyberstalked him. I found out he was an investor. I found out that he was a runner. And soon enough, I found him on a singles page called "Jlove.com," a website for Jewish singles.
So she believes everything she reads online, she assumes that just because the name matches it's the right person and she makes no effort to speak to him face to face. Yeah. Just the kind of woman I'm interested in getting to know.
I think the guy she was cyberstalking had a lucky escape.
Change your name to something more unique (try to throw in a few numbers).
Leave the country. Try for one of those places without computers. Solitary islands work best.
Have some reconstructive surgery. It is important that your face is altered, but if other parts of your body need work, well, that's your call.
Buy a big fluffy white cat. Not optional.
Design a plan... to take over the world...
You could cross reference it with sex offenders in your area and let the local press know that the site is a notorious sex offender dating service with ties to your area. If they're claiming you're a member, they're probably claiming that any number of sex offenders, murderers, etc. are also members.
Jesus would do nothing because Jesus is make-believe.
Originally I was the only person who showed up in search results with my name. Unfortunately, that has changed. I'm very curious how many would-be dates have not happened because of this Google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=jeffrey+ferland
SIG: HUP
Really, that's the solution here.
Follow up:
No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.
for instance - "site x is used by the cia to torture rabbits"
people search for site x and see that they torture rabbits then the brand name has a problem.Reputation works both ways after all. It would be hard for them to sue you since they invented your profile and you cannot get in touch with them.
You insensitive clod!
Create a "strong" web presence so everyone would know he was Jewish instead of Hispanic...?
SPD - Suck Peter's Dick
(Not sorry, meant to be offensive.)
You could use this http://xkcd.com/327/ as an idea for how to change your name. :-)
(XKCD is great!)
Informative!? no! Fuuuunnny. Watch this.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I run a dating site and profile generation is a necessity. You see, in order to get people to join a dating site, you have to have people who already joined the dating site to attract them; it's a catch-22 that we cannot avoid. Usually the fake profiles have an expiration date of 1 year so after that the accounts just die off but regardless, your name isn't protected by any laws and can be used in works of fiction without your approval. Just get over it cause I've got some guy using my real name in a gospel band and as sickening as I find that, I don't care as I have better things to worry about.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
WWJD -- ask What would Jesus Do ?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_would_Jesus_do ( hehe.. sorry, not meant to be offensive ) . . a .>
oh come on. . if you RTFA, it's a jewish dating site. at the very least, mod me score:0, bad humour ..!
There are groups of organized computer savvy persons who take it upon themselves to ,infiltrate,hack,threaten and take down kiddie porn sites with their skilz.Vigilance is not a dirty word and if authorities are unable,unskilled or uninterested ,vigilance is the only choice.
I propose a group of the talented to do the same to scammers and the hosts who allow them to continue.Ddos,hack and generally F**K up the plans of those who disrupt our lives in the name of their own profit.Any dirty trick you can think of multiplied times number of people willing to fight for their privacy and identity to hold back the enemy because the authorities are too slow,ill equiped and clueless anyway.
Vigilance,it's time to claim your own well being instead of relying on the uninterested and unable to help you.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Hopefully your name isn't listed on http://dontdatehimgirl.com/
Like the beaver, it's just Dam one thing after another
The US in general seems to have a big problem with mistaking names for identities, hence "no-fly lists" and other such idiocies. The solution here is to spread the meme that a name is not an identity, and you should make no assumptions if you see someone's name in an unfamiliar context.
Yes, we are all shocked that dating web sites put up fake information. I'm not talking of the person who posts a fake profile, but dating sites that generate their own fake profiles. I mean the ones like amatuermatch.com and sexsearch.com that put up fake profiles.
In fact, an ex-employee of sexsearch said that he was surprised that anyone on the site could find a woman. Amateurmatch, will send you send you e-mails from fake women to get you to sign up.
Fight Spammers!
Retroactive abortion for the offender.
Avoid as much as possible putting your firstname, lastname combination on the web. Too much information is online already. In fact, the more personal information you keep off the web, the better. Setting up a Facebook page is one of the worst things you can do from a privacy standpoint. I'm shocked at some of the things people do, even on Slashdot. Those weekly-changing email obfuscations? Give me a few hours and I'll write an app to decipher most of them. Give me a week and I'll write an app to decipher any concept that's been used so far (name@gSHREWmail.com minus animal is very vulnerable to an app that uses a neural net database, or a "tagged" database of words. This part of the app could even work as a scraper itself. A dictionary of email services (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com etc.) would also make the app much more powerful). I have to think it's not worth the spammers' time to steal our emails, because if it was I'm sure they would have done it by now...but imagine using an app like that to crawl many websites and get obfuscated emails. It's really surprising that there isn't a major arms race over this.
It's also shocking that there are no scraper apps used to build identity information from various sources. With something like that, it could be insanely easy to build up enough information to perform identity theft on a massive scale.
The golden rule is to keep these three things separate as much as possible: Your avatar, your real name, and your identity information. However sometimes there's a link between two. If you can gather these linked bits of information from many different sources, you can build up a profile. For example, Joe Sixpack posts his phone number on CL, using his avatar, then Joe's phone number and real name are available on an online phone book (I know those things are practically useless but follow along), then Joe's phone number is linked to his obfuscated (pfft) email address on a forum post where a friend was trying to help someone else get in contact with Joe, then Joe's profile on that forum (accessed using the avatar name) contains his date of birth. Oh, "Joe Sixpack" also shows up on a public company phone number directory. You started with an avatar and a phone number and now you have:
First Name, Last Name
Email address
Date of Birth, Age
Home Phone
Office Phone
Place of Employment, knowledge of likely whereabouts at certain times.
And that's in the case of a person who's relatively responsible with their information online. If Joe had a Facebook account or something, a huge treasure trove of information would be unlocked on Step 3. All of this could be automated in an application that then shows ranked results for prime ID theft targets. Heck you could probably even automate much of the identity theft process!
Spammers and identity thieves seem to be stupid people...luckily.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Sure, a lot of people aren't very good with writing or page layout, and wind up with gaudy, ugly web "presences". But I *also* put a lot of that blame on some of the "social networking" sites that most people turn to these days to create their pages.
I consider MySpace the biggest contributor to the problem. They may be VERY well known, but it seems like it's difficult NOT to create a cluttered mess out of your profile there! Even small businesses and rock bands trying to use them for some free publicity manage to create a collage of slop, 99% of the time.
By contrast, the older (and less "hip") competitor, Friendster, tends to build clean, neat pages, even when you fill out their forms with a considerable amount of info about yourself.
But the concept itself seems sound to me. If you don't want people running across others (real or fake) with your same name, and mistaking them for you - you need to put your OWN info out there for them to find. At least that way, it's clear when they do a search, that there's more than one possibility for which one is you.
I've had a web presence with my real name since the mid-90s. Back when Altavista was the dominant search engine I discovered that there were at least two other people showing up in searches that weren't me. So I started a page on my site listing not-me attributes that were showing up in a search for me. I haven't kept up with it though.
So are other historical people, like George Washington, Atilla The Hun, or Charlemaigne?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
A while back I started getting emails from a French dating web site, gushingly inviting me to all sorts of events. Needless to say, I had never signed up, and since the email was a spam honeypot address, there was nobody there to sign up anyway.
I sent them nice email asking to be removed. No dice. I sent them nasty email asking to be removed. Ditto. I looked around their web site for unsubscribe information. You kidding?
So I got nasty and updated "my" profile, after making an educated guess on what the password I had never set was. I went on at some length about my fondness for bestiality and pedophilia, with a bit of necrophilia on the side.
They nuked my account within the hour. :-)
...laura
provide first and LAST names to casual browsers? That right there should raise some flags.
There is probably 100's of people with the same name as you anyway, so websites filled with accounts in "your name" don't make any difference.
News at 11.
Perhaps you are just angry because your name isn't associated to a porn stage name as mine is? I'm also apparently an IT professional, activist, and various other things. My name is also fairly uncommon.
I don't own my name, I own the association. If more identifying info is used with my name that points specifically to me without my permission, then there is a problem. Otherwise, the use of my name alone is meaningless and pointless to argue.
LOL!!! Jesus is historical? Only in the Bible. That's like using Green Eggs and Ham as the sole proof for the existence of a guy named Sam I Am.
I didn't really think that my actual, real name was too common until I started trying to Google myself. Wikipedia has a page with my name on it, but none of the people referenced there are me.
Trying to 'reclaim' my identity from these millions and millions of pages with my name on it doesn't seem to be a particularly good use of my time. I'm more concerned with my username being used by some engineering company in Nigeria, since that's my 'real' online identity.
http://crummysocks.com
That would be: http://www.centralkydating.com/
source: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=195723&cid=16037938
I don't worry about it anymore. You have to apply a little analysis to the results you get from any search these days. Searching for your name will result in many hits. People doing background searches with google are likely to stop doing so because the faulty information is getting too high.
I use to take email seriously. If someone sent me something that said "You account is overdue" I looked into it. Now I don't worry about it because they are all phishing. The same will be true of "web presences"
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
I mean, really, if there's a woman out there who wouldn't date me because my name appears in a fake profile on a scam dating site (and they're all scams), then quite honestly, she's too stupid for me to be interested in anyway.
How do you know it's "your name?" If it is your Firs+Lastname as the search then you sure to come up with other people with your same name. I thought I have a random username once (random letters and numbers) and when I googled it I found hundreds of links with that combo.
Works for me. Google says that I'm an insect biologist, photographer, painter, author, Austrailian rugby player, and pretty good looking based on somebody else's facebook page.
The best way to fight this is to use an Online Reputation Management Service. It is best to sign up with a company that can manage SEO effectively, for obvious reasons. I know a company that offers a very good service for this. PHXX.COM, Virtual Internet Profile. They see most interest from high net worth individuals, but anyone could use the service.
In Vernor Vinge's near-future novel Rainbows End, an anarchist group gets fed up with trying to sort out what information about people is correct or not.
Their solution is to flood the net with false information about everyone, making the net a useless resource for gossip.
Available free and legal online:
http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html
Here are some tips:
1. For starters, unless you signed up, your photograph is intellectual property owned by the person who took the photo. They can contact the site owner(s) and demand it be taken down. Most of the scan sites register with godaddy.com as it makes the true owner blind so I doubt you'd actually be able to find the real owner and hold them legally accountable.
2. If you have suffered some kind of damages or embarrassment (example - argument with your spouse), you can actually start a legal action in your own jurisdiction and sue the legal owner. In lack of the legal entities real identification, you can sue domain name holder proxy and force them to respond in your legal jurisdiction. It makes it a big advantage for you as they will have to contract out responses to your claims to a legal firm in your area.
3. Immediately let the site owner know (and document) that you are not okay with your name and photo being used. Give them a reasonable amount of time to bring it down before commencing legal action.
Now on to the not just legal stuff:
1. Find out who they are and show up at their doorstep. For example, there was a guy who regularly spammed me in Vancouyer, claiming it was his right. I stalked him and showed up at a user group meeting and basically stood in front of him asking him to chose one of two sentences to say. His choices were "I will never spam you again" or "please stop beating my head in with a chair". He got the message. I am going to China later this year to confront someone else while there on normal business. Scaring the shit out of someone works well when they make the connection that they cannot just do shit online with no consequence.
2. Point you profile at his competition.(if you have access)
3. Find out who hosts his site and make it very uncomfortable for them to continue doing so. Make it clear that you have been in touch with authorities and will be demanding an audit of their sites they serve.
4. Disrupt their business model.
Your best bet is probably to ignore it completely though as all of these will take you much more time than it will be worth. At the end of the day they have probably been sneaky enough to get around the rules in a way that will require you to pay money, spend time chasing a ghost.
Good luck.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
OK, the site has an "about" page with a Toronto address, and an address for a US office:
269 S. Beverly Drive, #1070
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
This turns out to be Beverly Hills Postal Place, a mail drop. It's in California, so they're subject to California law.
California has a right of publicity law: (a) Any person who knowingly uses another's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person's prior consent, ... shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof. In addition, in any action brought under this section, the person who violated the section shall be liable to the injured party or parties in an amount equal to the greater of seven hundred fifty dollars ($750) or the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the unauthorized use, and any profits from the unauthorized use that are attributable to the use and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages.... Punitive damages may also be awarded to the injured party or parties. The prevailing party in any action under this section shall also be entitled to attorney's fees and costs.
That seems to apply here.
Small claims court would seem to be appropriate. Once you file a suit, you can send a subpoena to the mail drop company to get the actual name and address of the box owner.
"JLove" is supposedly a unit of "Only Media Group LLC" in Toronto, but neither JLove nor Only Media are listed with California corporation search or Dun and Bradstreet for the US or Canada. But a contact page for JLove affiliates leads to "Billing Provided By: Only Media UK LTD, 7 Petworth Road, Haslemere, Surrey, GU272JB". That doesn't match the address filed with Companies House (UK), but that address is an accountant and is also the contact for other companies. The address in Surrey leads to a secondhand furniture shop.
I don't know your personal situation, but in addition spammers it could also be someone, perhaps a stalker creating these logins/sites with your name? Just a thought.
So many of you say that "you wouldn't want to get to know a girl like that anyway". You forget about the fact that this girl could have been quite good looking.
Not every girl is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with...
Copycat.
But why don't you change that redirect to this discussion thread instead? That way your loyal members won't have to ask you by e-mail why the site seems to be going to this 'nerds website', and you won't have to come up with a BS reply.
You obviously believe you didn't do anything wrong when you set that site up with the fake member profiles, so I'm sure you don't mind being perfectly open and honest with your members *now*.
A friend of mine named "Mark Miller" found that there were a number of other computer scientists with the same name.
He joked that he should get together with them and submit, in a timely fashion for an April edition of a learned computer science journal, a jointly-authored article titled "Global Namespaces Considered Harmful" - with no text, just a long list of authors and disambiguating affiliation information.
(He also joked that, since one of the meanings of "mark" is a synonym for "bit", "Mark Miller" obviously meant "computer scientist" - or at least "data processor".)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sometime, I didn't notice it, but seriously, the problem is a legitimate one: whether you'd like to have an "online presence" or not, the fact is that scammers will probably be able to somehow get your real name off of somewhere (for one example, an Outlook account from a compromised machine), and now your name is out there.
And I came to the discussion to read about some intelligent and not-so-intelligent ideas on how to fight this issue. Instead, all I find is an infantile discussion on how dumb it is to have a so-called online presence anyway.
Not the point, guys. As the guy who claims to be a scammer said, names are not protected by copyright, but surely an identity is somehow protected by law? This is complicated, and I do not claim to have any ideas, but the thing is that everyone's discussing something very off-topic and to be blunt, childish.
If people want to have their presence, surely we can live and let live? Let's focus on the problem here. But maybe this isn't the right forum for it anyway.
I think I'll head off to Schneier's site instead..
Lucky SOB! I'm a county music writer, christian filmmaker and minor league baseball player. Any one of those would be enough for me to want to put a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger, just to improve the gene pool, if not to wipe out the shame.
I would kill to be an insect biologist, photographer, painter, author, Australian rugby player, and pretty good looking. :)
Actually you're wrong. There are quite a few documents from that time. To argue that he didn't perform miracles is rational, to argue that he didn't exist is not. His existance is documented.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Wouldn't setting up a web-presence to "tell the truth" be counter-effective since it would only enable "name-scammers" to actually fill those accounts with (more) accurate information?
In any case, the really disturbing thing here isn't that some scammers created an account using "your" name. Even if it's a rare one, it's unlikely that there's just one of "you". Even if there actually is just one, with ~7 billion people on this planet you should by default assume that there are more (mankind needs NAMEv6 ^.^). But this brings me to my point:
The disturbing thing is that
- [intellectually] in the year 2008 people in general still seem to have trouble understanding the nature of the internet and are still taking everything there at face value and
- [socially] that according to the OP even (potential) friends believe something solely because of some name they read somewhere.
... I am quite upset when people misappropriate my name from online content.
Signed,
Likmi Balsac
Have gnu, will travel.
I wonder how they feel about that once they glance at those terms & conditions and the like, dispute resolving, etc.
At least it shows your character - what's that you said to the other AC poster? "Shows real backbone."? Seems like you have none.
To top that off: Really, how many more times are you going to mention that FISA thing? You don't know what I, or any of the others you've used that line on, have done with regards to that matter. Nor does it matter what we have or have not done. You don't tell a blind person to suck it up 'cos at least they're not paraplegic, and tell the paraplegic to quit whining because at least they're not dying of necrotizing fasciitis. So, honestly, stop trying to distract people from your practices and your clear refusal to be open and honest about it - despite vehemently stating that you do not believe you did anything wrong whatsoever - by chanting 'FISA' every time.
While we -do- know, from your own admission, that:
- you have lied and deceived
- that you think there's nothing wrong with that
- that you refuse to be open and honest about it (and no, a disclaimer stating that profile data may not actually be truthful doesn't convey "hundreds of the profiles on this site are fake and created by us to lure in new members")
- that you refuse to be open and honest about it to your members now, as per your parent reply
- that you will grasp at straws to try and either take attention away from you or instill some form of misguided guilt upon others for allegedly not paying attention to bigger issues; completely baseless accusations at best
With your only defense being:
- everybody does it (I'm sure your mother's asked you the "If everybody jumps into [some body of liquid], you will too?")
- it's too hard to get a dating site off the ground without doing so (worst sob story on slashdot I've read in a while)
Although I'll agree with you that you are, at least by legal definition, quite likely not defrauding anybody*, I'll agree with the other AC and say that yes, you are indeed, a .. well, you get the idea.
* although collecting their profile data based on the premise that there will be hundreds of profiles for them to scour through, knowing that a portion of those are (or were) completely made-up, may actually be fraud. IANAL. Neither are you.
I do commend you on making your site completely free, however; and I'm sure we seem rather thankless (not that most of us would have anything to thank for, not living in Kentucky and all). However, I do think most of us applaud your free site - we're just not a great fan of the business practice you used to start it up.. but moreover, we're not a great fan of not being honest about it to your members *now*. You were honest about it to us, the Slashdot crowd, so why not to them? As you said, you're not making any money off of the service - you're probably just spending money on it (hosting, etc.). So what do you have to lose?
If people can't tell the difference between you and the other people online, or aren't at least willing to find the truth out, do you really want anything to do with them?
Was it just your first and last name, or was there a specific bit of information that indicated you and no one else. Sounds like paranoia to me.
and yet he still fell victim. Who knows, it may be the opposite strategy is better.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
From your link:
The historical Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth as reconstructed by historians using historical methods. These historical methods use critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for the biography of Jesus, along with non-biblical sources to reconstruct the historical context of first-century Judea.
That reads pretty much like they're getting information about Jesus solely from the Bible. I believe Jesus existed, but seriously, non-Biblical documentation of his existence is ... scarce.
Well, I don't see this sort of random name generation as a real problem...it's unlikely that you're the only person in the world with your name. So if you're really that unique, consider changing your name.
That said, it's not hard to bury these sorts of things. SEO typically works by creating lots of links to your official page. My flickr page is first result google kicks back for my name, with a professional photographer in Belfast with the same name coming in second. He's actually quite good if anyone cares.
Why do I win? Creative commons. My photography is not anything resembling professional quality, but I make most of it available for free. Everyone who uses my pictures has to attribute the picture, and most of them end up linking back. Lots of links means high googlerank. Result is that anything incriminating, legitimate or no, is buried at least past the first page.
Only Media Group, 406-250 Ferrand Drive, Toronto, ON, Canada, M3C 3G8 Got it from their license and terms at: http://www.jlove.co.il/popterms.aspx Under Canadian Corporate law, this has to be a physical place, not a virtual place. Any corporate entity has to have their records located at such a place and open for inspection upon legal request. This is the registered and records office of the company in Toronto. YOu can actually go into this address and find someone. Here is a map. http://maps.google.com/maps?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=Only%20Media%20Group%2C%20406-250%20Ferrand%20Drive%2C%20Toronto%2C%20ON%2C%20Canada%2C%20M3C%203G8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl It is right off Don Mills road. The license does say you can send in a written request. If it bothers you that much, you should just send them a legal letter by registered mail. We have laws in Canada BTW so you can take legal action. This isn't really hard to fix so I am not sure why it made Slashdot front page.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
For anyone interested in some more information on this guy, see below for his LinkedIn and MySpace page.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/335/230
http://www.myspace.com/ehrichweiss
Fascinating stuff.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm pretty confident that I am the only, or very close to the only, Curt Monash out there. (People do family trees because of the connection to the Sir John Monash that Monash University was named after.) On the other hand, there are hundreds of search engine hits that really refer to me, one way or the other. So I'm one of the relatively few people who, when he searches on his name, gets 200 straight hits all about him.
But my point on web presence was this -- who cares if you're the 53rd Joe Blow to come up in a search that's simply on your name? Somebody who really wants the Joe Blow who went to Alfred E. Neumann High School in East Overshoe, Montana, where you were President of the Cow-Tipping Club, will likely succeed in finding your page. And that's a GOOD thing for managing your online reputation.
Curt Monash
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
> with regards to your site.
"And yet you nor anyone else knows what I am doing in regards to my site either, dumbass."
We do, because you told us; unless, of course, -that- was a lie, and your site really didn't use fake profiles to lure new members in at all. But if that were the case, I doubt you would be so vehemently defending yourself.
I do so enjoy your insult-vocabulary, though - picking a random word from it completely negates all of the points made in the posts you're replying to :)
But back to the matter at hand - are you going to be up front, open and honest with your members (all 240 or so of them)? You can just say 'yes' / 'no', or perhaps 'yes, douchebag' / 'no, you right cunt' if you prefer; it's not a difficult question and really, either answer will be much better PR than what your comments have brought forth so far.
I found myself signed up to a bunch of sites I couldn't make heads nor tail of, until eventually I also got signed onto a yahoo forum. Since this had a structure I understood, it became clear to me that spammers were injecting email addresses in there, to (possibly) scan the group for people who complained about being signed up and thus confirming the validity of their addresses!
I simply notified abuse and they acted promptly; perhaps most recipients were less inclined to bother to peruse the content and realize it was bogus.
there certainly are dating sites with fake ads
but anyone actually doing that is smart enough not to brag about it online
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, how does that help?
Let's say I'm named Joe Random and even register www.joerandom.com, blog under that name on a site or two, I'm on Twitter under that name, on Slashdot, etc. Basically that I make myself very visible on the net. Ok.
Now suppose someone puts my name on a few dating sites, posts other crap in my name, maybe even make a few posts on usenet groups (which by now are fully searchable) in my name. Maybe send some spam in my name too. So someone googling for me, finds those too.
How's my already having a web presence prevent the damage there? How's my blogging, which would probably be along the same lines of "I'm a disillusioned programmer who's seen far too many incompetents" and "look how smart I can sound about <random topic>" as on Slashdot, going to prevent my SO getting horrified by finding my name (faked) on Adult Friend Finder or the like? Do you think she'll go, basically, "nah, he can't possibly be interested in blogging about PHBs _and_ in fucking other women, at the same time. No one has room in his head for both," or what? :P
Or maybe she'll think, "nah, if he were looking for other women, he'd put it on the front of his web page that he told me about, instead of going through those sites." :P
It seems to me that even if my existing web presence spells out exactly what I believe and do, on any given topic (which is already way too much effort, _and_ forfeiting any privacy I might enjoy), how many people do you think it would prevent from jumping to conclusions anyway, when such an account generated by someone else seems "proof" to the contrary? E.g., let's say I put in big bold letters on my web site that I'm strictly monogamous and love my SO. Then someone finds my name (faked) on Adult Friend Finder or whatnot. Want to bet that more than half will bet that the text on my official web site is just a bullshit smokescreen, and the faked one is the real me unveiled?
So it seems to me like having my own web presence, by itself, really wouldn't do that much.
Maybe if I spent time googling for myself, and posting a lengthy disclaimer for every such occurence... well, it might do a little, but at the expense of (A) more effort than I'm arsed to do, and (B) sounding like an insecure sack of complexes, who's probably having the ego-google on auto-refresh just to see what anyone might ever say about him. Plus, once a couple of people get the B impression, then they can DDOS me by just posting enough crap everywhere in my name to fill all my free time and then some.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As others have pointed out, one question is whether that actually was his name harvested by a bot as opposed to a real person with the same name.
The next question is whether his state has a law like this:
"Any person whose name, portrait, or picture is used without having first obtained the written consent of such person... for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade, such persons may maintain a suit in equity against the person, firm or corporation so using such person's name, portrait, or picture to prevent and restrain the use thereof; and may also sue and recover damage for any injuries sustained by reason of such use. And if the defendant shall have knowingly used such person's name, portrait or picture in such manner as is forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this chapter, the jury, in its discretion, may award exemplary damages." Code of Virginia, Section 8.01-40
on, possibly slashdotted
All your database are belong to U.S.
I don't think I'd want to meet the girl in their signup page without some heavy weapons ..
http://jlove.com/register.aspx
Or do Jewish guys normally go for the "extraterrestrial look"? I don't know, I liked Natalie Portman ..
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
You're partly right.
I've done a passable job with my Web Branding, or so the /. Mod comments seem to tell me.
The Seething Masses will latch onto the scurrilous results, howeve! "Did you know that _____, of AmazingBlog fame really owned a purple venezuelan trucking company that ran over baby animals because it was cheaper than professional meat packing!!?"
I eventually landed on an approach that at least seems to stall the absolute laziest scammers, but is mostly solid enough for people to take me seriously.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Every good name under 5 characters is taken - and many longer ones. I almost created a specific use account with a very fancy name, only to discover someone else has a myspace by that handle.
I have to think we have a model for this already - big cities, with 25 "John Smiths", etc. We might have to create a culture such that "the site I give you is the site you're supposed to look at, and I am not responsible for web searches". Yea, I know, then people will complain about scammers round 2, etc.
There's a concept called Attestation, which says that someone (with the web, including "digital entities") who establishes themselves as a quality source of info, and therefore other direct recommendations by that source get weighted. (/. is one, but far from the only example.)
Misc. scam accounts should be weighted less.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Hmm. At least one part of that is almost a self-forcing result. Most everyone develops at least a partial understanding of connotation semantics, and picks up on the difference between Josephus and Joey.
Because schools are notorios for "Roll Call First and ask preferences later", a kid tagged as "Josephus" will garner early social experiences that then begin to influence him.
It's not really socially acceptible right now to randomly change names like clothes, so that option is not yet here.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Today I mistyped a domain name and wound up on a parking page, and the obvious keyword used in the link farm was "lease". And then I see a dialog balloon pop up in the left corner, where the heading is "Crush Report (2 emails)", and the text says someone named Ryan in Bellevue WA has a crush on me. Uh... I'm straight. Mythical Ryan Person, if you want to make a gay proposition, why not do it on a service I am a member of, not a park page?
(my first reaction: whispering to the screen, "I told you not to email me here!")
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Problem is, "unique keys" are too close to "net noise" accounts, such as js101523 to your example above.
We remark that for all the work we have done to progress the state of "average users" from "Revenge of the Nerds" to where we are now, deliberately malicious noise accounts still confuse even moderately smart users.
I tried a long time ago to pick a really smart handle, which was distinguishable which as the Original *did not require keys*.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It's getting worse with "We have included the results for Bauer, unless you turn them off".
I joke about being the professional Rabid Spelling Enforcer at work, but it's amazing the mindspace damage spelling confusion creates.
"Today Class, we will learn about Harriet Tubman". :: Professor bangs head on demoboard::
"Tubgirl?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Brilliant recommendation, Bebop. I tagged it for study.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Wow, this issue is really proving tough!
Employers and sometimes family like "YourName@Somewhere.com" emails because it makes them feel all nice & cozy that it's "you".
While I hadn't planned out this far, I don't have a landline at all. Maybe that helps.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Step one: produce for yourself a handle.
Step two: use it everywhere online and only in a few areas associate it with your real name.
Result: name scrapers pick up your alias/handle and little harm is done. Your actual name is discoverable if someone knows your handle, but in most cases is not important and is not sought.
People running around with their real name up-front are just plain *stupid* and asking for trouble. Basic security, people.
I want my Cowboyneal
If forced to use a email address with your name at work, don't use that email account for signing up for stuff, etc. Create a new free one without any part of your real name in it (and forward mail if you only want to look at one email). I have a total "throwaway" email that I use when I need to give out an email address to register for something. The only thing I use it for is registering for stuff, other than that I just empty the thing out every time I need to use it..
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yep.
I created an entire spread of emails because I desired to protect my primary rec mail from the worst ravages of newsletters, etc.
There are very few instances of my Name-Email out there.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine