Blog
Interviews Diamand Dave, Peggy Howell
June 17, 2011
Well over a month ago I published two new interviews, one with Fat Admirer Diamand Dave, and the other with Public Relations Director for NAAFA miss Peggy Howell. I didn’t update the blog to announce these interviews. I’m doing this now via this post, in case you missed them when I announced them on Facebook.
The interviews are part of the reopened Fat (In-)Activism volume that now also includes some additional content. You can start reading it – and the interviews from this page: http://www.bbwshrine.com/shrine/volume-iv-fat-in-activism/.
Rooting out Fake Profiles on Social Networks
June 16, 2011
To skip straight to the how-to click here.
Any person who uses a social network (Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Etc.) will sooner or later come across profiles that appear to be fake. Common characteristics are:
- Explicit photos of a person (often very attractive);
- Often badly worded profile fields (grammar, lots of typos, etc.);
- Photos of other attractive people in similar interest groups.
People like this often post in groups with specific interests. In the BBW community there are a lot of such fake profiles. Here’s an example of a profile that at the time of writing this still exists:
When I came across this profile I emailed the webmaster of a well-known photo site called topheavy.com. This website hosts the model whose photos are used in that Facebook profile. The Webmaster confirmed that the woman in the photos on that profile – whose stage name is Mystery Girl (her page is here) – did not create that profile. In other words, someone uses her photos and poses as her without her consent.
This is a form of identity theft and is punishable by law. Most websites however, are slow to act on these cases. Mostly because when you delete a profile a new one is made in no time. Plus verification is difficult, in other words proving a person is fake, and time-consuming.
Preventing Identity Theft
Below is a well-known method that some social networks use to prevent identity theft.
Disclaimer: I did not invent this method. I have only created a guide specifically for Facebook here.
Why Create a Photo of Yourself Showing Your ID?
You may wonder why you have to create a photo ID to prevent identity theft. It’s simple: Because this way you can PROVE beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are who you say you are AND you can prove that another profile who uses your photos is NOT the real you. This method is pretty much full-proof.
Note: These instruction are for Facebook profiles, but you should be able to apply them to any social network that uses profile IDs.
The Method
Requirements: A stack of printing or lines paper, a (magic) marker and a (digital) camera.
- Go to your Facebook profile page by visiting facebook.com.
- Click the small thumbnail of your profile photo:
- In the next page hover your mouse over the larger photo:
- While hovering notice the status message at the bottom of your browser:
This number represents your unique Facebook profile ID. - Take a stack of white paper, say 5 or 10 sheets:
Use enough sheets so that the marker won’t leak through on your table. - Crumble the top sheet of paper:
- Write down your Facebook profile ID on it using different heights, widths and vertical positioning of the numbers, then make a hole two fingers wide in it:
- Put two fingers through the paper, hold it up and take a photo:
Note: It is VERY important your upper body is shown so that face, neck, upper body and arms can be seen as a whole. This way nobody can image-edit an arm in. In the photo of me above the arm is visible, but better is to show the entire upper body by having another person take the photo or using automatic capture.
How Does it Prevent Identity Theft?
In a nutshell, this is how you prevent identity theft with this method:
- Everyone can copy a name and photo(s) from someone’s profile, but your Facebook ID is unique. Let’s say someone would want to steal my identity. They would go to my profile and take my photos and / or possibly name to0 and use it as their own. However I – the REAL me – also have those same photos on my profile, along with a photo of me holding my unique Facebook ID. The person using my photos will not be able to show a photo of me (him posing as me) with his unique profile ID on it (unless of course I have given this to him which is out of the question), unless he image-edited it and this is very easily detectable. This way you can always check if someone is real.
- If the fake person uses my photo ID on his (fake) profile, then anyone that checks that photo’s ID against their profile ID will instantly know the profile is fake.
- This method works before and after identity theft may happen. If you are in doubt of a profile’s validity (in other words whether or not the profile really represents the person in the photos that are used on it), then request for the person to take a photo of them with their unique Facebook ID shown on it. If they care about their connection with you and they want you to be assured, then they will do this. Unless of course they are using photos which are not their own, they will be unable to honor your request because that will it’s very difficult to also fake the above method. Here’s why…
- As a Graphic Designer, I know certain things are easier and other things more difficult to manipulate in image editing programs such as Photoshop. Using crumbled (lines) paper showing fold lines of the written numbers, in mixed widths and heights, is almost impossible to produce with image editing software. Also cutting a hole through it makes it more difficult to image edit. Finally showing the entire (upper) body prevents people from image editing in an entire arm.
I hope this method will help root out fake profiles on Facebook, but also on other social networks. If you like this post, please share it with other people and create friendly and ‘real’ social networks. In the end YOU are ultimately responsible for that, as well as for your own identity!