Fade to Play

In the technology section of today’s globeandmail.com, there is an article about the landmark ruling against a Canadian spammer that awarded Facebook $873 (US) million in damages.

In a landmark ruling Monday, U.S. federal Judge Jeremy Fogel awarded Facebook $873-million (U.S.) in damages after finding Mr. Guerbuez was in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) which prohibits the distribution of mass e-mail messages that contain false or misleading information.

How was Mr. Guerbuez able to send four million messages before being shut down by Facebook? He sent messages to people’s email and got them to click on a link that looked like it was from Facebook and told them to enter their username and password.

“Spam has gone Web 2.0,” said David Poellhuber, president of Montreal-based Zero Spam.

“The social networks are really the new spammers playground. … Tech savvy young people are new, fresh targets for spammers.”

But Mr. Guerbuez gained the usernames and passwords of a number of Facebook accounts through more traditional means: He spammed countless e-mail accounts with a message purporting to be from Facebook that requested the recipient follow a link and then enter their login information. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the spammer’s book.

For many students I know Facebook = Internet.

People need to be careful online and less trusting of messages they receive. Just because a message looks like it from Facebook asking you for your username and password, it doesn’t mean that it actually does. Facebook uses the @facebookmail domain to send email messages to you (e.g. notifications).

I have been on Facebook since 2005 and absolutely love it as a place to socialise with my real world student friends, comments on their walls, share photos, and RVSP to various events taking place on campus that I ordinarily might not know about. Like most of my student friends, my Facebook friends are real-world students, not people I know only from the Internet or that are interested in networking.

So, when a message comes from my best friend Sam telling me to click a link because it’s a cool photo of us, then my trust level is higher and I’m more likely to do it than if it’s Steven, who added me as friend because they heard me on the radio or liked my photos on flickr. That trust factor is what spammers are using to exploit Facebook accounts. I have received a number of messages either on FB or on my wall that were spam because that friend had clicked on a spammer link, that had also been sent by a trusted friend.

Spammers will continue to exploit the high level of trust that students have for Facebook. Be careful, think before you click.

Relevance: I’m in ur Facebook, spamming ur friends.

According to research from the world’s largest privately-held speech techology, SpinVox, it seems that the pick-up lines work in Canada.

The report has revealed the top five ‘worst’ pick-up lines in Canada to be:

1. “Do you have a mirror in your pocket? Because I can see myself in your pants.”

2. “You must be leaving the country if you’re packing that much ass.”

3. “Excuse me if I’m wrong, but is your name Yolanda?

4. “Inheriting 50 million dollars doesn’t mean much when you have a weak heart.”

5. “Excuse me, but I’m new in town, can I have directions to your place?”

Whether you rely on these old favorites or a more original opener, it’s worth starting up a conversation: the research, based on feedback from focus groups conducted among 1,000 Canadians, showed that for 37 percent of women, a well-timed chat-up approach will lead to conversation. (Regardless of how well the night is going, only six percent of the women surveyed said it would lead to an overnighter.)

They come to interesting conclusions regarding Facebook users.

With 120 million active users, Facebook is another great way to connect with potential dates online. Even if things don’t fare well initially, men may get a second chance: nearly half of the women surveyed will look up the men they’ve met on Facebook. Meanwhile, only 38 percent of men said they look for the women they’ve just met on the Internet, which sharply contrasts the 95 percent look-up rate of men in America.

I personally wouldn’t randomly message a stranger on Facebook looking for a date. I’ve been on Facebook since 2005 and Facebook is still a place where I interact with close real-world friends and maintain personal relationships with them there.

Does anyone use social media for finding dates? Do people feel comfortable using Facebook, twitter, or Flickr for this purpose? Were you happy with the results?

Relevance: As social media becomes more known to the public, how are these tools being used to connect people seeking partners?

Thanks to a tweet and post by djvibe of Vancouver, I discovered the The Obama Mix by DJ Z-Trip, which is a mix of music, political thought, and famous text.

Download the Obama Mix here.

It was created to help encourage people to get involved in the election process.
DJ Z-Trip worked with artist Shepard Fairey of Obey (who created the Obey Hope poster among others) to organise Obama fundraisers. The Obama Mix by DJ Z-Trip is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

And for those of us in Vancouver, DJ Z-Trip is coming with Bassnectar to the Commodore on Nov 22nd ($35).