I think facebook and myspace are part of a phishing experiment.

I think anyone who has control of the facebook and myspace site wasn't intending the site to be a social networking site. I do think that while these two sties are advertised as social networking sites I think they were created so that companies could carry out phishing on the general population on whom they might consider for employment. I believe that corporations are using sites like facebook and myspace for recruitment, and, I believe this is unethical. I also believe that there are government operators on facebook and myspace. The owner of these two social networking sites probably knows about this too and is probably in kahootz with the government.

Why else anyone create a site intended for a mass audience of a lot of people? Would the owner of these sites really admit that attracting to people to a social networking was the reason they created the site? I think that facebook and myspace is part of a sinister plot from the US government and big corporations to steal our private data. People would just post their data on the information and the US government would be able to profile everyone and see what everyone likes and then tell corporations what they like. So it is my conclusion that these corporations are using it for profiteering and the US government is using it to watch for potential terrorists.

It's as I say, anyone with a power to do so much good generally tends to be evil.

Thats an interesting take on it. I never thought of it that way. Do you think that companies could be paying those social networks to phish on them? Do you think the government is behind it? I dont think so, but it is probable that the social network sites are being used for phishing.

I'll keep posting this info:

Some of the research of the Homeland Security Center for Dynamic Data Analysis, a Department of Homeland Security "Center of Excellence":

Projects Involving Analysis of Large, Dynamic Multigraphs:

1. Analysis of Large, Dynamic Multigraphs Arising from Blogs
2. Universal Information Graphs
3. Statistical and Graph-Theoretical Approaches to Time-Varying Multigraphs
4. Adding Semantics to and Interconnecting Semantic Graphs
5. Algorithms for Identifying Hidden Social Structures in Virtual Communities

I wonder where the get their datasets?

Im not sure about facebook, i believe you on the myspace thing, i used to get my password stolen all the time, and then after you would get your password stolen b.s. bulletins would be sent out to all your friends about websites and other things, so its very believable
P.S. i dont use myspace anymore

I know myspace is the number 1 for people to get hacked and spammed.

If there is a scam involved with Myspace and Facebook i don't necessarily think it would have to with phishing as much as it would advertising. Like you said...it was intended for a large group of people. If that doesn't scream advertising conspiracy, then I dunno what does. And plus, how do you think they keep the site free for millions of users? Advertising and Spam.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


If you really think that then you need to read Robert O'Harrow's book
No Place to Hide where it explains everything the Government and Law Enforcement are up to in regards to monitoring your every action. And I do mean your every action.

Credit card companies, credit agencies, information brokers, server organizations, you name it, it's in that book.

Peter Thiel - $500,000 - 2004

Accel Partners - $12.4 million - 2005

Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital
Partners, Accel, and Mr. Thiel - $27.5 million - 2006 - present?

Wikipedia - Facebook - Funding
Facebook and Microsoft
Common Ground Common Sense
A different take on Facebook
Tom Hodgkinson - With friends like these...
School suing Facebook for info
BBC reports on facebook security issue
Disputes start on Facebook, end in schoolyard
BBC on Facebook privacy
Harvard Business - Facebook evil
Director of IT at Cornell on Facebook usage
Wired News - Facebook privacy

Business Week - Clarium Capital
Accel Partners on AllThingsD
Companies funded by Accel
Companies funded by Greylock
Greylock Partners on AllThingsD
Web 2.0 Money - Greylock Partners
FindArticle - Greylock Partners Dedicated Israel Fund
Greylock Partners Enters Indian VC Market
Meritech Capital Partners

Li Ka Shing and Facebook
Samwer Bros., Nokia and Facebook

That should get you started . Facebook has become extremely well-connected in the business world. It is financed by some very big-name players in venture capital. It is involved in some very legally ambiguous business, especially regarding privacy. It has a huge audience of people detailing their personal lives online, I know personally of a handful of incidents in which Facebook was used to "steal" identities, exact revenge, humiliate people, etc. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is that its userbase has, of its own volition, surrendered their privacy and personal information. Facebook can do with the data on its servers "whatever it damn well pleases". The term phishing applies to users of Facebook, but what does it matter when Facebook itself has a blank check on the info you put there? As I see it, no one ever had it this easy, the government always had to use a wealth of resources for spying on its own citizens (the SS in Nazi Germany, the Stasi in Eastern Germany, the KGB in the USSR, the CIA in America, etc.), but now people are putting all their information out there, effectively telling them "come and get it".

Later: Myspace.

I admit I was going to post anonymously, then I thought for a moment about how the credibility of that may be questioned, so I decided to use my regular account.

I don't know why nobody else from the law enforcement community has stepped up to discuss this, certainly I am not the only one who is aware of it, so here we go....

I worked for a small suburban town police department in Massachusetts for years, leaving about two years ago for greener pastures. During at least the last year I was there, if not then perhaps the last two years, department members took a very active role in scouring MySpace for signs that town residents were up to, or were planning, illicit activities. You would be surprised how many people, both young and old, are dumb enough to post references to drug use, even actual photos or artwork involving same. There were teens openly discussing underage drinking parties, some even with photos, and one particular case that started with a resident who posed with photos of himself with firearms appearing to threated others in the background.

We were paid overtime to surf MySpace and look for these things. Now remember the phrase "follow the money," well according to one of the brass whom I was good friends with, the money for our OT came from (purposefully paraphrasing here) the regional computer crime task force. Which begs the question...where did the task force get the funds? I attended two or three task force meetings to share significant finds I had made (not related to MySpace), and there were plenty of Feds of all kinds present, at least one from each major agency. Makes me wonder if the money for the task force, and thus our overtime to search MySpace, came from the Feds. Typically a detective from my agency would collect the reports we generated about MySpace, complete with a CD containing screenshots from the suspects' accounts, and forward the info to the task force. With very few exceptions that I could certainly count on my hands, we never heard back from anyone after that, regarding what was done with that information.

MySpace gave law enforcement agencies a kind of "carte blanche" account and password which allowed us to view everything, even locked/private profiles, deleted profiles, deleted images and text, and more. I guess that what we did with what we found was up to us; at the very least, we added notations to our in-house computer system regarding suspected activities of town residents. Heck, if the news media could get ahold of a department's local database, they would have a field day with the kinds of subjective and inappropriate comments in there! Sometimes people who were not already in the database were entered and vicious commentary attached, all based on a single isolated observation on MySpace. Of course, later on some of us would get to know some of these residents, and realize that the comments did not accurately reflect those residents, and were probably the result of a single off-the-cuff remark posted on MySpace. I am sure anyone who has worked in town law enforcement must realize that this goes on.

Obviously the utility of the information gathered is limited in terms of legal action, unless an "immediate threat" type situation was discovered (as happened in one town). I would say that in 90% of cases, no furthur action was taken beyond entering information into the in-house records. Like I said, I believe it was up to us to decide what we did with what we found, but the detectives would dutifully share it with the task force nonetheless.

There is no way we were the only town in the USA doing this, in fact I know at least two other towns in Massachusetts that used paid police department employees to go onto MySpace and gather information on residents. I am frankly surprised that this is the first I have heard about it on ATS, it seems we have people from all walks of life here and someone would have said something by now.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


Here's my two questions to you, and good OP by the way.

One, what major profiting business is not connected to the government?

Two, what major websites do not have government operators patrolling?

I think if you answers those, your answer becomes much more global.

I found a def of phishing: is the act of tricking someone into giving them confidential information or tricking them into doing something that they normally wouldn’t do.

I think that's what's Apple's new cellphone is going to do, to -- especially with it's built-in gps.

I don't think that's a company that can be trusted, except to advance the secret agenda of the system. Their marketing is too good in targeting a specific youth marketplace ... if it's not now complicit, it will be, I think.

Also, if you cross-reference the gps to the new police license-plate scanners that print out info about the car owner.

reply to post by therainmaker


Wow! Thanks for your reply. I hope you maybe do a separate post focused on federal financial sponsorship of police agencies and citizens to spy on each other -- or something like that.

It would even be better if you wrote a short article and submitted it to ATS (see the banner about ATS premium on top of the screen www.abovetopsecret.com... it's up there pretty much, or use the search engine in the upper right) -- that way, 60,000 people will read it.

And, even though I'm relatively new, I've not seen any other law enforcement folks posting anything at ATS.

We were paid overtime to surf MySpace and look for these things.

MySpace gave law enforcement agencies a kind of "carte blanche" account and password which allowed us to view everything, even locked/private profiles, deleted profiles, deleted images and text, and more.

[edit on 10-6-2008 by counterterrorist]

True. Ties to the CIA and IAO. This is a link to a flash movie which essentially condenses all the information in that awesome list above.

www.youtube.com...

I haven't completely forgotten about this thread. I just did some searching and found this link www.infowars.com... basically, tying facebook to people who are involved in datamining. Would that prove that facebook is really meant for intelligence gathering?