Facebook Slowly Being Infiltrated To Monitor You?

Hi everyone,

I've recently noticed a very uncomfortable trend in these strange 'phantom' friends requesting to be added as friends on my facebook. I thought it was just me but then I saw that they were adding a lot of my friends as well.
I figured that it's just someone from my past, high school years, etc, that I didn't remember but the following peculiar things made me wonder:

1. the new "friend" had just joined facebook, had only one or two generic photos and almost no information up
2. I noticed several of my friends had posted on this person's wall "Who are you?" So that's what gave it away to me that I'm not the only one that has no idea who this person is yet they are for some reason trying to add me and my network of friends.

This has now happened 3-4 times and it's always someone I don't recognize and someone that has only recently joined, has almost no information on their profile, and only 1 or 2 generic photos..they are people my friends also do not recognize.

In the past, this sort of phenomenon has occurred on myspace and pornbots of all sorts infiltrate your friends network and start spamming porn ads or links to your wall/messages, etc, etc..however in this case what's making it even more sinister is that they are obviously not associated in any way with any pornbots or spam links because they are not contacting anyone nor responding in any way. They are not posting any links nor responding to my message of "Who are you?" prior to adding them.
I accidentally added one at first and now refuse such suspicious adds and I realized the one that I added never speaks or posts on anyone's wall nor updates their profile in any way.
The conclusion is that it seems they are fake infiltration accounts set up by the gov't, CIA, or whatever agency to basically harvest all your personal information, harvest all your posts between you and your friend's walls, your employment information, birthdate information, photos, etc, probably to erect a massive database of everyone. This is the only logical conclusion I can come up with.
But now the question is, has anyone else been experiencing these phantom adds lately?

Depends on your age.

If you're still underage, it can very likely just be a cop. I've "expunged" an officer of the law from facebook once, showed that his image was taken from google, no one with his name exists in my town, etc.

If you're over 21, a majority of your friends are over 21...then I would be more worried.

I see e-mail addresses on my MSN chat that appear out of nowhere, and will not identify themselves......just something i noticed.

Being quite young, I've noticed some pervs trying to add me...continuously. It does get rather annoying.

the start of the ANTI - Computer Revolution is starting. People are rejecting this new way of nameless faceless services. I see a anti computer movement coming. from Kids Video Games to Online Banking.
The NSA assists Microsoft in securing Vista... Ok., Spyware, Trojans and Weirdware like Vista (what I mean by weirdware, when a computer will not shut up that means its doing something, we see what its working on, and elimenate the bugz, but this ware does not zero out for longer than a second or two. now why? - well XP runs good on 512MB Ram SP3.
now these new computers have 2 GB. of Ram, hum, so you probably will notice a virus or spyware infection for what 3X longer...? only they know why...? performance is not as crisp as XP in my opinion, however, WIN7 has features that probably could not be duplicated in a XP. so, until proven otherwise, I can not recommend using VISATA or WIN7 until we know exactly what going on... its just very suspicious.. in this techs opinion.
In the last 4 years hackers have compromised my visa account 4 or 5 times... ah, ok... lets play bankrupt me overnight... if its that easy why do we call them a bank...? if they are not safe... if they lose they raise your rates.
and if anything that this economic crisis has taught us is... F*ck Computers, they dont eat, they dont drink and they dont require interaction if you dont understand. they have no feeling or human needs or wants -- so why would we put our fate in their hands as the power hungry salivate for.

[edit on 23-1-2010 by Anti-Evil]

facebook infiltration has been the topic of discussion on ATS many times over.. A quick ATS search will bring up a few interesting threads to look over.
Do you play Mafia Wars or any other game applications facebook has to offer? I get friend requests every day from all kinds of people I don't know. Some new users as well as experienced alike. I would say 95% send a friend request just to invite you to join there mafia latter on or one of the other time wasting games.

Face Book, MySpace, and twitter were designed to monitor people. They are not slowly being infiltrated they were put in place that way.

I would never have a site that gives so much personal information and I try to not give large amounts away even on ATS. Though I believe it would be slightly more difficult to track me down through ATS than one of those sites I still do not see them having a difficult time discovering even here.


Facts are anytime you place something on the internet anyone can see it. Even if you have it set up were only certain people can view it anyone with some computer skill will be just as able to view that stuff. If you want to break away from a monitoring society of the web I suggest you leave those sites behind. If you chose not to do so then I suggest you get rather used to having everyone and their brother as a part of your life.

Raist

Just to clarify...

a government that is so tech advanced they have earthquake machines and have engineered UFOs, taken control over all the corporate and financial systems in place, and plan something as complex and advanced as Bluebeam...

resort to facebook to gain private info?


wow. You don't find that at all strange (paranoid)?

Yeah, as a member of a certain specific group of denizens on the internet who enjoy using the internet to their needs I can attest that social networking sites hurt you more than help if you go on sites like ATS.

I can easily get through any locks on facebook, and easily hack accounts. I can do so through brute force or I can use psyops and trick people but I've done it countless times in the past.

More so, I can figure ANYTHING out about ANYONE on the internet. If you use the same email for everything, if you've mentioned your last name, your phone number (cell or otherwise), address, school, if I can get your IP address....

I've used GOOGLE EARTH to locate people before whose only info I had was a town and state along with a video of the outdoors. I've hacked countless of accounts across the internet, people really are #ing ignorant. Hell, for 10 bucks if I cared THAT much, I can go to information networks telemarketers and advertisers use, and get ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION. FOR 10 BUCKS.

If you have a criminal record, I can find out. If you use the same handle on a variety of sites, I can find out who you are eventually. The internet is a dangerous tool, a great tool, but a dangerous one. One people don't seem to respect and understand enough when people like me can easily figure anyone who takes no precaution on the internet. Social Networking is like #ing EL DORADO for information seekers and hackers.

I jokingly tell people it's a CIA front all the time, though I'm quite serious about it in reality.
I don't have any proof, it seems obvious to me, though to other people it just sounds crazy and farfetched I'm afraid.

Facebook suddenly came out of nowhere and became the biggest internet community of all in a short time, it feels like it must have been sponsored by some powerful force(of evil).

reply to post by rufusdrak


Those are "bots." Computer running automatically and set with programs to poorly imitate human-like behavior. Just like the ones that sexually proposition folk on an IM program in broken English. The IM bots are trying to get you to click on a website, and eventually maybe even purchase a service from them.

It would be misdirected to think that that Facebook were being infiltrated since it is itself an american military project. It's stored on their servers. NO ONE else has that kind of computing power and bandwidth. There simply is no honest way to acquire resources like those that would be used to run Facebook.
Facebook was invented by a shell company of DARPA, pretty sure.

p.s. Actually I think Wal-mart has the most computing power overall, at least of dedicated machines.

Heres the real answer...and its even more sinister than you may have expected...

Those friends are actually working for a company, that new person: Hottie18-4U is actually a online ho whom wants to market sex to you...but not just you...she friend requests hundreds at a time to get the message out...its a big scam...she doesnt want to be your friend, she didnt see you and think she totally has to get to know you...

my god, its brilliant yet so simple...advertising by pretending to be a friend...how did they ever think of that.

however, there is a way to stop this madness...erm...deny their request and go on with life...

reply to post by cjcord


Never said they had earth quake machines, though there are those that believe that.

But I know for fact the police and government use those sites.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.nj.com...
www.thepittsburghchannel.com...

"We are using this (Facebook) as a crime-fighting tool. It's becoming pretty common," said Indiana Police Chief William Sutton, warning that people should be careful about what they post on social networking Web sites.

mashable.com...
www.kswt.com...
www.courierpress.com...
www.cbsnews.com...
www.msnbc.msn.com...

I could go on but it gets rather redundant and I would assume people can get the picture.

Raist

reply to post by rufusdrak


Well, I see Facebook as I see any online place to go speak your mind, as an information database.

Quote from : Wikipedia : Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.

Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, and school or college.

The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University.

The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University.

It later expanded further to include (potentially) any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.

The website currently has more than 350 million active users worldwide.

Facebook has met with some controversy.

It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria, China Vietnam, and Iran.

It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.

Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times.

Facebook settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.

The site has also been involved in controversy over the sale of fans and friends.

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.

There has recently been reports of Facebook proposing an initial public offering (IPO), i.e. issue equity shares in the form of stock to investors.

However, Zuckerberg stresses that it will not be for a few more years, and the company is in no need of additional capital.

Also, some analysts fear the Facebook IPO might be a particularly weak one.

For those who believe Facebook is anything other than an information database, you are sadly mistaken, as it is in the creator's business model to do just that.

While Mark Zuckerberg can use business speak and privacy concerns all he wants, the creator is nothing more than a Government toadie.

Don't believe me?

Well, you need to do some independent research, like I did.

No Place to Hide

Amazon Review :

George Orwell envisioned Big Brother as an outgrowth of a looming totalitarian state, but in this timely survey Robert O'Harrow Jr. portrays a surveillance society that's less centralized and more a joint public/private venture.

Indeed, the most frightening aspect of the Washington Post reporter's thoroughly researched and naggingly disquieting chronicle lies in the matter-of-fact nature of information hunters and gatherers and the insatiable systems they've concocted.

Here is a world where data is gathered by relatively unheralded organizations that smooth the way for commercial entities to find the good customers and avoid dicey ones.

Government of course too has an interest in the data that's been mined.

Information is power, especially when trying to find the bad guys.

The mutually compatible skills and needs shared by private and public snoopers were fusing prior to the attacks of 9/11, but the process has since gone into hyperdrive.

O'Harrow weaves together vignettes to record the development of the "security-industrial complex," taking pains to personalize his chronicle of a movement that's remained (perhaps purposefully) faceless.

Recognizing the appeal of state-of-the-art systems that can track down a murderer/rapist with heretofore unimaginable speed, the author recognizes, too, that the same devices can mistakenly destroy reputations and cast a pall over a free society.

In a post-9/11 world where homeland security often trumps personal liberty, this work is an eye-opener for those who take their privacy for granted.

--Steven Stolder

The above book is a good place to start.

Facebook : C.I.A. Profile Database


People who add me to their friends list on Facebook without messaging me first, go on the long list of people I hold at arms length because I have not vetted them.

Yes, you read that right, and no it is not paranoia, it is simple logic.

Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer.

reply to post by BlackPoison94


they just want your pictures. People love downloading pictures of youngsters from places like Facebook and things. They even sell CDs full of pictures copied (not stolen) from Facebook profiles of young kids.
Less young kids sometimes intentionally place risque pictures of themselves of social networking sites to attract attention. And attract they do.
It's good advice, I think, that if you aren't comfortable with the homeless and people serving time in a jail looking at a picture with their hand down their pants, do not post that picture.

The government doesn't need an obvious way, like some vague account, to infiltrate your facebook account. Several things are possible and I think these strange accounts are certainly not government accounts, this is why:

- If government agencies want to they can access any facebook account (with or wihout a warrant - that's the question) because there are special admin accounts available for them on social sites. This seems very logical, they don't want to do it in some obvious totally unneccesary way. They probably have direct access to the databases of these social sites in order to do some datamining, which gets me to the following:

- I have studied AI at the university a while back, back then we did datamining on usenet. I think the most logical explanation would be these strange accounts are bots that are used for datamining. The info gathered could be used to watch trends / follow trends, target products, follow diseases and more stuff like that and some sinister things.

reply to post by rufusdrak


I think the facebook culture has grown so dramatically that people add anyone as a friend, and ask to be anyone's friend - this isn't govt. spying, it's just bored youngsters with nothing better to do!

Simple solution to these problems (and against govt. spying!) are to ensure all information remains private by changing the privacy settings, and don't add anyone that you don't know as a friend, to the friends list. And don't add an app until you know it's safe! Are people so lost now, that they need to add every game application to their account, so they can play fake poker or fake whatever! Even better, just don't use facebook at all.

Would anyone place their holiday snaps or daily blogs in the town centre on the shop walls for everyone to see? No, so why do people do this publicly on facebook or elsewhere on the Internet?

People think making it public in a network is secure enough, but that's like leaving your photos available around university campus instead.

People just need to use their brains a bit more often.

[edit on 23-1-2010 by john124]