MySpace Scams

MySpace is a very popular Web site with teenagers and college-age people. Members can create a homepage featuring photos of themselves and their friends, journal entries, graphics, music clips and more. They can link to other MySpace pages and send messages back and forth.

MySpace has developed into a huge Web-based community.

Recent visitors to Valley Mall in Halfway talked about their experiences on MySpace.

Nicole Walker, 20, who attends West Virginia University, has a MySpace page and checks out other pages. She likes seeing people’s photos of themselves. One of the funniest photos, she said, is a shot of “Milk Boy - a guy that has milk all over him.”

J.D. Rid, 21, of Hagerstown, said he keeps in touch with friends through his MySpace page. He said he has heard about potential dangers of MySpace - people sending threatening messages or stalking other MySpace members - but he’s not worried.

“There are threats all over the Internet,” he said.

Erick Armer, 20, lives in Falling Waters, W.Va. He said he uses his MySpace page to communicate with friends. He likes being able to check out other people’s profiles. As for protecting himself from MySpace related danger?

“I use common sense,” he said.

Carrie Miller, 21, of Smithsburg, said she likes meeting new people on MySpace. She feels safe but worries that it might not be safe for younger kids.

More and more elementary and middle school students have been setting up pages. MySpace does offer many things such as chatting, dating, music and so on. Members sometimes set up face-to-face meetings. It can be fun to meet virtual friends face to face, but it can be dangerous.

But most of the time, MySpace is a fun site, according to Allyson Moore, 12, of Hagerstown. She has been using MySpace since she was 9. Her safety tips include:

Know who you’re talking to.

Don’t give out personal information such as your address, school, phone numbers or e-mail address.

Never agree to meet face to face with someone you don’t know.

Don’t say nasty or hurtful things in blogs or Internet diaries.

MySpace.com is described as an Internet site devoted to social networking. Any rational adult who’s spent more than a few minutes on MySpace might well conclude that it, like much of cyberspace, appeals to the lowest common denominator. I won’t bore - or repulse - you with specifics. Let’s just say that you probably wouldn’t feel comfortable with your mother, unless mumsie is Madonna, visiting many MySpace pages.

Tasteless photos and cartoons and deviant thoughts litter the website. Catchphrases rule. Banal ideas are expressed in crude English.

There are folks, often women, seen in shopping malls carrying on lengthy cell phone conversations. You might ask, as I have, is there really another person on the other end of that long, mind-numbing conversation? Hearing snippets of chatter along the lines of “I just had a taco, I like tacos, do you like tacos?, what are you eating?,” I’ve sometimes wondered where in the world the callers find anyone willing to put up with such extended blather.

Now I think I know. My guess is that they get their phone buddies on MySpace. There are some very lonely people there.
Obviously, MySpace isn’t my place. But some adults might find what they’re looking for there, and that’s their business. Unless, of course, if what they’re looking for is a child to molest.

The biggest problem is that MySpace, which claims to be “a place for friends,” has become a playground for sexual predators. To register, a user only has to be at least 14 years of age. That restriction is easily ignored. There have been numerous reports of crimes and attempted crimes against children in which the site has played a role.

MySpace may be a victim of its own success. With a reported user base in the tens of millions and a quarter of a million people signing up daily, the three-year old site may not have been prepared for the abuses it’s experienced.

In April, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Advertising Council, and News Corporation, which owns MySpace, started running public service advertisements intended to raise awareness of Internet safety. In May, a law targeting “social networks” and Internet chat rooms was proposed in Congress. The legislation would block access to those sites in federally funded schools and libraries.

Many schools have already decided on their own to limit access on their computers. In a move that was guaranteed to fan the flames of teen outrage, a school district in Illinois recently took action to hold students accountable for what they post on websites such as MySpace. Actions like that are usually condemned as censorship. To which the appropriate response may well be, so what? Children don’t have the same rights as adults. And acting goofy online at taxpayer expense isn’t constitutionally protected, no matter what the ACLU may claim.

On the other hand, regulating access to social networking sites is much easier said than done. One need not have the technological prowess of Internet inventor Al Gore to circumvent many blocking measures. Add to that the government’s general clumsiness in securing whatever results it intends and there realistically isn’t much reason to think that legislation will have a great impact.

If there’s going to be anything close to a resolution of the problems inherent to MySpace and similar sites, it’ll have to be initiated by parents. Knowing where children go on the Internet, what they do there, and with whom they communicate are essential. There is monitoring software that can help.

Kids might scream about their privacy being violated, but families aren’t democracies. They’re dictatorships and part of a parent’s responsibility is to protect their children as best they can for as long as they can.

Last month a reporter wrote in the Los Angeles Times that she’d covered many disquieting events in her career, “But in nearly two decades of journalism, nothing has made my insides churn like seeing what my 13-year-old daughter and her friends are up to on MySpace.com.”

MySpace isn’t for everyone. We can only hope enough parents realize that in time.

Security watchers have discovered a phishing attack targeting users of MySpace, the social networking website. The attack comes in the form of a hyperlink sent to potential marks in an AOL instant messaging message.

Users who follow the link are taken to a bogus website that spoofs the MySpace.com login page. The ruse is designed to fool users into handing over account information to crooks. Surfers duped into handing over this information are subsequently forwarded to the real MySpace.com website.

According to net security firm WebSense, the fraudulent site also sets a “cookie on the victim’s computer, which prevents the phishing attack from being displayed on any subsequent visits”.

The MySpace phishing email is another example of how email fraudsters are widening their sights beyond traditional targets, such as eBay and high street banks, alongside moves to develop more sophisticated scams.

Question: My children have set up MySpace profiles, even though they were not supposed to. They insist that only their friends have access to their profiles, but how can a parent be sure? How do I know?

I just entered my daughter’s e-mail address and went straight to her page, although I could not go any further because I had to be a member to log in. Even at that, I was surprised at the info that was available.

They think they are so smart about how they manage their profiles. What can we do?- Nancy Heslin, via e-mail
A: Overnight, MySpace replaced the convenience store parking lot or mall fountain as a gathering place for children starting in junior high school or earlier.

As you indicate, each young user gets a home page containing a personal photo and a self-composed profile, as well as a message board to exchange info with friends and a blog spot to post thoughts with friends and others.

Put your foot down and demand that your children give you the same access that they give to their friends and other MySpace members. Then add that MySpace page to the Favorites in your own browser and make a daily practice of checking things out.

Better yet, take a couple of minutes and set up your own MySpace account so you can watch your children’s MySpace space as a logged-in user. Signup is quick and simple.

If you just go to http://www.myspace.com/ and browse the postings, you will find a range of age groups where children registered as being ages 14 and 15 are communicating with 30- and 35-year-old men and women and where few holds seem to be barred. MySpace operators post warnings that children must be 14 and must not lie about their age, but there is nothing to stop a much younger child from joining.

When a person signs up for a MySpace account, many privacy and security options can be set to minimize the downside on this Internet phenomenon that brings huge upside socializing for its audience.

For example, you can discourage unknown people from getting through to your child by requiring that a valid e-mail address be provided before that person can be added to the Friends list that is the heart and soul of this Web service designed to foster socializing.

Likewise, you can set the account to hide your children from being listed to all comers when they go online; you can stop others from passing along e-mail links to download your child’s photo and restrict blog posts to only people you know. You can even block the feature where music from a favorite band gets played when your child visits somebody else’s area on MySpace, which will guard against sexually and racially offensive lyrics.

As a parent, you even can order your children’s accounts closed by going to http://www.myspace.com/ and clicking on the Safety item at the bottom of the page.

You also can find links in a special parents’ area that point to software that can be installed on a computer to let you monitor every keystroke the children make and to otherwise watch and censor their access.

A “phishing” site that harvested the log-in and credentials of MySpace.com users was removed as of Friday from a California server, a security vendor reported.

A phishing attack involves tricking users into visiting a look-a-like webpage that asks for personal information, which is then sent to a hacker.

The rich trove of personal information stored on MySpace user pages is making the social networking site an increasingly attractive target for identity theft, said Ross Paul, a senior product manager at Websense, which makes security software.

The attack would not have been noticed by most users, Paul said. The attack starts when a user is sent a link through AOL’s instant-messaging program or a similar one.

The link is from someone in the user’s contact lists, asking the user to click the link to MySpace to view photos, Paul said. The link leads to a fraudulent MySpace log-in page. Once the victim enters the information, he or she is then transparently logged into the real MySpace pages, Paul said.

But a hacker then has access to personal information stored by MySpace, such as someone’s address and birthday, which could be used to open a bank account, Paul said.

A hacker can also tap other instant-messaging contacts or e-mail addresses to send out the link to the phishing site, which often is done using automated programs.

“The rising popularity of this kind of meeting place is obviously increasing the potential for financial gain,” Paul said. “The more information you give MySpace, the more at risk you would be if someone managed to get a hold of your log-in information.”

MySpace, started in 2004 and bought by News Corp. last year, counts at least 73 million users and is growing. MySpace’s “viral” networking model allows friends of friends to easily connect, but sexual predators have also used its features to meet underage victims.

As a result, MySpace appointed a chief security officer in April and implemented careful page monitoring.

MySpace might own your cyberspace at the moment, but a number of new social-networking sites are popping up, each going after the phenomenon’s sore spot: security.

In just two years, MySpace has become the most popular social-networking site on the Internet, with nearly 70 million members worldwide. But the site has recently been slapped with criticism following reports of pages created under false identities and illegal activity linked with personal pages (see “Twenty Students Busted In Latest Round Of MySpace-Related Busts” and “Cops Investigating Fake MySpace Page That Defamed Minnesota Teacher”).

Like many social-networking sites, MySpace doesn’t verify profiles and nearly all personal information posted on its pages can be read by anyone who has Internet access and becomes a member, a process that costs nothing and takes a matter of minutes (non-members can view some parts of pages and blogs, as well). Although the site has recently taken actions to tighten security — most recently hiring expert Hemanshu Nigam and launching a series of public service announcements on TV and the Web aimed at keeping kids away from Internet predators — some parents and Web users still have reservations about the site’s overall safety.

Now a pair of alternative sites, FAQQLY and Imbee.com, are launching partly in response to the call for a more secure social-networking experience. Most of their efforts are geared toward preventing users from meeting unwanted or dangerous new friends, encountering objectionable content and posting irresponsible or illegal photographs and information.

FAQQLY, which launched April 16, provides members with the option of keeping all personal pages viewable only by confirmed friends. The site’s core feature is a “Personal FAQ” page where friends can get to know each other better through Q&A. Other elements that aim to strengthen existing groups of friends include a “Share” page where friends can agree to borrow and lend items from each other, and a “Helps” page where a member can post a problem and friends can offer solutions.

The site’s creator, Dave Liu, says he created FAQQLY partially in response to highly publicized reports of the dangers of online social networking.

“I stopped using [MySpace] because I really don’t believe that it’s a safe place to be,” Liu said. “Our features are positioned to help existing friends grow closer together. We want to be a place where you can feel safe and interact with your friends without feeling like someone’s trying to stalk you.”

The founder of Imbee.com, Jeanette Symons, also believes the perils of online networking are real, but contends that such dangers are mainly due to users revealing too much information about themselves. Her site, which will debut in June and be geared toward 8- to 14-year-old kids, will allow parents to monitor their children’s blogs and remove any posts they deem potentially harmful. Daily or weekly snapshots of blog entries will be sent to parents, who also will be able to approve friends. The site will require credit card information to verify its users’ identities, even though its services will be free.

“A lot of the controversy is well-founded and a lot of the controversy is paranoia,” Symons said. “Should parents be concerned? Yes, but not just because they’re afraid of predators.”

Joshua Holmes, the founder of Christian social-networking site MyPraize, agrees, and argues that the extensive media coverage of incidents involving social-networking sites has brought undue attention to a relatively small problem.

“It’s still much safer to be in a community of 65 million members on a social-networking site than it will ever be to be in the middle of Manhattan,” he said.

MyPraize’s safety features begin with optional profile fields, so users can exercise their own judgment as far as how much personal information they reveal. First and last names are not even required, and an additional section is in the works that will advise parents on which safety precautions are available on the site.

While these newer sites are focusing on amping up security, older sites have significant safeguards as well. Google’s Orkut is invite-only, meaning individuals may only join if invited by existing members who can vouch for them. At LiveJournal, users can choose from several levels of privacy for each journal entry and photo they post: public, private, friends or even custom, which allows members to create their own privacy setting with any group of users. Profiles on Friendzy are only available to friends, and Yahoo! 360° allows users to choose who can view their personal blog and which members can send them personal messages.

Of course, the key to staying safe while exploring social-networking sites ultimately lies in the hands of the user. “What we always tell our users is you need to exercise individual judgment,” Kevin Krim, LiveJournal’s general manager, said. “If you wouldn’t do something to someone on the sidewalk, then you shouldn’t do the same thing online. It’s just common sense, but it’s easy to forget that.”

After 15 years or so of trying to transform the child you gave birth to into a thinking, functioning adult, it comes down to this: Either you raised the kind of kid who’s going to sell weed, talk about killing his classmates and offer sex to grownups on myspace.com, or you did not.

If you’re one of the many who didn’t, good for you. You can relax and let your kid enjoy the portal to hell that is the Internet without worrying that he’ll be corrupted by the depravity beckoning from the other side of the monitor.

But if you’re one of the many who decided to overprotect or under-encourage your kids, or tell yourself that parenting consists of prayer and Prozac, you may not then blame myspace for the mess you’ve created.

Myspace started as a site for unknown bands to promote their music and concerts while getting their name out to potential fans, but has now morphed into an online community dominated by and geared toward two groups of people: teenagers and creepy adults who like to talk to teenagers using teenage slang.

Most kids use it to do what every other kid has ever done, at least while I’ve been alive: Trade music and gossip, posture and make themselves out to be more than they are while trying to lure members of the opposite sex.

And just like every other generation of normal kids with normal upbringings, there are a few on the fringes whose behavior would make any parent proud — as long as that parent is Charlie Sheen.

Selling dope, seeking or offering sex, planning to blow up their school — you name it, and a handful of kids have done it on myspace.

And since myspace gives the degenerates the same access to their forum as they do the normal kids, the site’s operators have been vilified constantly over the last few weeks by the media, parent groups and grandstanding politicians.

Myspace must be regulated!

Myspace is hurting the kids!

Congress is going to take a close look at myspace!

Yeah, that’s the answer.

Congress. The guys who can’t figure out if immigrant laborers should stay, go, or just hang around long enough to pick celery for $1.50 a day.

It used to be the fault of Judas Priest every time a kid put a rope around his neck. When I was a kid it was Metallica and action movies. Now it’s “Grand Theft Auto” and myspace.com.

The one common denominator is the American tradition of blaming the thing the kid happened to be doing at the exact moment he messed up instead of tracing the path of the mess-up back to its root: The two irresponsible idiots who wanted a child but instead created the poorly raised result of a poorly planned pregnancy.

Instead of regulating Web sites, someone should tell them what they forgot to tell their kids: The world is not here to clean up your mess.

Andrew Lisa wrote this for The (Vineland, N.J.) Daily Journal.

Internet companies are looking to MySpace.com for inspiration.

MySpace.com owes its success to effectively filling the social-networking needs of teens and young adults.

CNN reports AOL joined the pack recently with its own take on the service.

The MySpace parent company was bought by News Corp. for $580 million.

“MySpace went from being this curiosity to a cultural phenomenon,” Greg Sterling, an industry analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence in Oakland, California told CNN. “People started to think this is a really, really big opportunity.”

Since its 2004 launch, MySpace grew exponentially and ranks as the second most viewed site in the United States behind Yahoo Inc.