Two so called “cyber pranksters” got creative. The reason for their prank was to show how vulnerable Facebook profiles are.
It seems they succeeded. Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovic are the names of the two men who took it upon themselves to expose the Facebook shortcomings. They made a statement reported by the Sun that said:
“Facebook, an endlessly cool place for so many people, becomes at the same time a goldmine for identity theft and dating – unfortunately, without the user’s control.
That’s the very nature of Facebook and social media in general.
If we start to play with the concepts of identity theft and dating, we should be able to unveil how fragile a virtual identity given to a proprietary platform can be.”
Facebook has announced that they will take strong legal action against anyone who violates their terms of agreement. Somehow that doesn’t seem to stop cyber pranksters from doing their deeds.
Cyber attacks are becoming pretty common place. They happen to banks, social networking sites, and even government agencies. Many organizations find it difficult to stay ahead of cyber threats. So much business of all kinds is conducted on the internet that it’s becoming pretty scary to think what could happen.
A report in the Telegraph mentioned that world governments are wanting to revise the Hague and Geneva Conventions to include rules of engagement for cyber war. These types of threats could certainly be dangerous to many of the world’s economies.
Global criminals can disrupt our way of life like no other type of criminals in history. A local criminal might affect a few people, but a cyber criminal could disrupt a whole society. This type of behavior is what will cause governments to enact laws, and regulations that will erode the freedom of the internet. Already President Obama wants legislation that will give the President, in certain situations, power to shut down the internet. You may have heard this referred as an internet kill switch.
We also have seen how governments like Egypt have effectively shut down internet and cell phone communications in that country. It certainly makes you wonder what is in the future for the internet. Hopefully cyber criminals won’t ruin it for everyone; including themselves.
Sources:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3392020/Dating-site-steals-250000-Facebook-user-profiles.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/8302688/Cyber-attacks-from-Facebook-to-nuclear-weapons.html
