THEME RESEARCH: Facebook Stalking

How easy is it to stalk?

Facebook is a site accessible to everyone and anyone that has the internet, and even if you don’t have an account some pages can still be accessed (mainly fan pages). There are currently 800 million active users and some of these people aren’t even what they pose as: anyone could have a Facebook profile but there is no rule saying you have to put down the real information about yourself.

Our coursework has the main on-going theme of identity fraud and stalker behaviour: this blog post defines.

As a daily Facebook addict, even I don’t have all of my information put onto Facebook. My surnames is only half of my surname, but if I wanted to change it I could, so imagine how easy it is for people out there to make a completely different or fake name. I do this because I want to keep my identity known only amongst my friends and not strangers as most people I know do. As you can see I have no information on my information box (circled in pink) showing unless you click onto it then it will take you to the actual info: the only thing you can really see is that I was at some point somewhere near Townley School. The tabs circled in yellow can make you restrict your profile in any way depending on what you want to show and enables you to make any of your account settings real or fake.

There have been so many incidents where people are misinterpreted and people fall for other peoples’ false accounts whilst the one with the bad intentions gets the real information of the other person. Here is a typical Facebook of my friend: say if I was a dangerous person on the net and was her friend here are some of the things I would find out just by looking at her profile info. Facebook can be so telling!

The first red circle shows where she works, what school she goes to and where she lives. It also shows who she is in a relationship with and all if this information gives away so much information some could consider it dangerous. From this, the predator (me) could find out her whereabouts and knows where she is on a regular basis. I could also wait for her outside of school because that is really specific then follow her home and know exactly where she lives. Clicking onto this box reveals the following:

As one can see I can already acquire her phone number hence having more than one mean of communication with her, know her birthday meaning that I’ll know her age. Usually young girls are targeted into believing a fake persona online so I’d have that in mind. I can see a whole list of her entire family and by this I could know of her whereabouts just by asking if she trusts me as her friend on Facebook at what time and what she’s doing.

The friends in the 2^nd orange circle could also be victims. I could have the opportunity of stalking other people connected to my victim which could be so dangerous because I could ask find out who goes to her school for example and then ask someone about her and they wouldn’t even know the real me. I could even add them and make them my prey (harsh reality, I know!)

Pictures would give me a lot of information on where she hangs around and everything so this could be useful to me as a predator. Her profile picture and her cover photo both have some of the same people in them so I could guess that these are close friends of hers.

POSTED BY SHAHNAZ