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UK Gov't Official Advises Using Fake Details On Social Networks
another random user writes "A senior government official has sparked anger by advising internet users to give fake details to websites to protect their security. Andy Smith, an internet security chief at the Cabinet Office, said people should only give accurate details to trusted sites such as government ones. He said names and addresses posted on social networking sites 'can be used against you' by criminals.
... 'When you put information on the internet do not use your real name, your real date of birth,' he told a Parliament and the Internet Conference in Portcullis House, Westminster. 'When you are putting information on social networking sites don't put real combinations of information, because it can be used against you.' But he stressed that internet users should always give accurate information when they were filling in government forms on the internet, such a tax returns."
What about in the U.S., where the corporations ARE the government?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The social networks are getting smarter, and even if you don't give them the information, they may already have it. Unless you're doing this and not associating with anyone who knows you in real life, they will be able to match you up to your real self.
And that is a considered a felony hacking crime in some countries.
You shouldn't (always) trust the government either.
Are more likely to be accidentally left in a pub by an MP on an unencrypted laptop than to be gained illegitimately from my Facebook account.
The other story here is that in response some whiny bitch of a Labour MP said she was shocked that a government worker would dare make a suggestion that we try and protect our privacy and anonymity because anyone doing so is obviously a cyber bully and has something to hide.
Which reminds me once again why I don't know if it's worth even voting next election because it's a choice between spoilt milionaires who were born with a silver spoon yet still want more and seem to spend more time legislating about what furry animals they can kill next rather than doing much of actual value, and fascists that want to control every aspect of our lives and pay us enough benefits to bankrupt the country if we can't be arsed to work.
Honestly, for once a government official speaks sense, and still it gets turned into party political bollocks trying to take a swipe at them over it.
This guy, whoever he is, for PM. He's made the most sense of any government worker I've ever seen.
Dear faux-outraged MPs...
Don't worry. Everyone already does this. Your precious little databases of everything, everywhere, already contain 100% pure unadulterated shit (actually only 95% shit, but since you can't easily tell which morons gave real info, you can't trust any of it). So really, you haven't lost anything.
Boo-hoo. Back to social control the old fashioned way - Poisoning kids' minds via the school system, and having the boys in blue damage the minds of those that escape with some shreds of individuality intact.
Am I the only one who does this already? I habitually lie, I mean I might add my real name if I *have* to, but far as Facebook is concerned I'm a Muslim communist who lives in Pyongyang north Korea.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
It's possible that Andy Smith isn't his real name.
Someone should tell the 27 million Steam users born on January 1st that they should not use their real birthdays.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony/all/
"The government, however, has interpreted the anti-hacking provisions to include activities such as violating a website’s terms of service or a company’s computer usage policy, a position a federal appeals court in April said means “millions of unsuspecting individuals would find that they are engaging in criminal conduct.”"
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
Finish the paragraph.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in limiting reach of the CFAA, said that violations of employee contract agreements and websites’ terms of service were better left to civil lawsuits.
The solution is not to fake the data, nor is it to try and restrict visibility.
The solution is to redefine social networks, and admit that your address, personal info beyond 'I like chocolate etc lulz' is not useful in a social site, and go on.
But that guts the social networks. They derive their revenue from being able to sell YOU. And they can only sell YOU if they can sell Y O U .
That means selling your home address, the car you drive, your income and financial details, your friends, your employer, what you *actually* do, vs what you say you like to do, and whether or not you are able to be influenced by the advertisers buying you.
The first solution to this is to pay you for your data.
The second soluuion is to hold the purveyors of your data genuinely responsible for misdeeds. Not slap on the wrist fines, but punitive, stockholder-impacting penalties, and then both punitive reporting and montioring. If you don't vhange the rules, you won't change the brhavior.
And punish their clients as well.
And none of this will happen for the forseeable future. Just as Do Not Track cannot work, this personal data drives revenue, and makes the 'free' as in beer Internet work. Without it, you subscribe to Facebook, and I am not at all sure that FB is worth $0.19/mo to anyone. Much less the true cost of operation.
So we either live with this, or get off the networks.
Now, the real crimes are when your state sells your drivers license info. That is sinful and wrong.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Its a federal offense to give incorrect information to a federal official. Or to any entity that has a statutory duty to make reports to the federal government.
Some businesses have tried to leverage this second point to make the claim that they might have to turn data over to the gov't. So what you have on file with them must be correct. But I don't think courts have backed them up on this one. Yet.
Have gnu, will travel.
Right, and this tells me I can't violate TOS with a private company .... where exactly? If you actually read the text you provided, you'll see that it doesn't, not even indirectly.
The remedy for violated ToS is termination of service, as is typically spelled out in the ToS themselves.
I built my own social network where you are supposed not to give personal info, have a look a it here:
www.cratis.eu
NOTE: for the time being it's only in Portuguese, I will release an English version within 2 months.
I tried accessing that site but it appears to have been written in some fucked-up version of Spanish.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it