cnn | The Cyberlit Blog

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Facebook Fraud

CNN.com | Fears of imposters increase on Facebook

(CNN) — Without his input, Bryan Rutberg’s Facebook status update — the way friends track each other — suddenly changed on January 21 to this frightening alert:

“Bryan NEEDS HELP URGENTLY!!!”

His online friends saw the message and came to his aid. Some posted concerned messages on his public profile — “What’s happening????? What do you need?” one wrote. Another friend, Beny Rubinstein, got a direct message saying Rutberg had been robbed at gunpoint in London and needed money to get back to the United States.

So, trying to be a good friend, Rubinstein wired $1,143 to London in two installments, according to police in Bellevue, Washington.

Meanwhile, Rutberg was safe at home in Seattle.

OK, I’m only going to say this once. If you see a status message from me asking you to wire me money somewhere you didn’t even know I was going– DON’T DO IT. Seriously.

While it’s somewhat alarming that this sort of thing is happening, it’s somewhat more alarming that people are falling for it. It’s kind of like the Nigerian email scam all over again.

2009: 02/05
CATEGORY: cyberliterature
TAGS: cnn
cultural
facebook
fail
fraud
Internet
news
posthuman
social
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Gov. Palin expresses intense dislike of…bloggers?

CNNPolitics.com | Palin slams ‘bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie’ Palin has given a steady stream of interviews since Election Day.

(CNN) — Sarah Palin fired a new salvo in her war on the media, unloading in a new interview on her home state paper and “bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie.”

“…Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me….I’ll tell you, yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask — double-, triple-, quadruple-check — who is Trig’s real mom,” she said, in an interview to be published in the magazine’s [Esquire] March issue.

Sarah Palin is like the kind of weird dreams you get after a serious bout of indigestion. Particularly after you’ve taken a couple of gravol and you can’t summon the energy to rouse yourself enough to escape the dream.

I might have more sympathy if she didn’t constantly thrust herself into the spotlight to make these quixotic, scattershot attacks at, well, basically everyone that has at some point or another taken a negative view of her (let’s face it) often reason-defying statements. (‘Cause is not the public record of Gov. Palin completely beyond reproach? You betcha. *wink*)

While the whole “anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie” thing is amusing, what gets me in this latest episode/dream sequence is her indictment of the Anchorage Daily News about claims of a supposed “coverup” of her son’s birth. For ADN’s full response I’ve included extra links below (worth reading if, like me, you just can’t look away from the walking disaster that is Sarah Palin).

The press release issued by Palin’s office on Jan 8, ‘Governor Palin says to media, “There you go Again”: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/136414

And the paper’s response to the accusation that they “continue to give credence to the sensational allegation that the governor’s child, Trig, is not hers”: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/136415

2009: 01/13
CATEGORY: cyberliterature
TAGS: blog
cnn
counter-blogging
Internet
news
politics
sarah palin
social
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Twitter hacked- Suprised?

Twitter accounts of Obama, Britney Spears hacked – CNN.com

The Twitter accounts of President-elect Barack Obama, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears, Fox News and 29 others were hacked Monday according to the microblog site, leading to false and inappropriate messages being posted on their accounts.

I don’t know where to start with this one, but this is a rather wonderful cautionary tale in the use of online networking tools (like Twitter) in the public sphere (well, the very-public sphere, as arguably all social networking is public, and how interesting is it that these innovations have reorganized the traditional definitions of “public” and “private”, but I digress).

For anyone who watches CNN, you’ll know that Rick Sanchez frequently Twitters in the middle of the broadcast, and will regularly refer to tweets as he’s reporting. “Mood at Twitter HQ the first work day of the year: Focused Anxiety.” Extraordinary.

Also, perhaps the most amusing part of all this: “First Fox News Twitter followers read a false message about Bill O’Reilly’s sexuality Monday morning after hackers launched several attacks.”

BTW, you can find my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/eforcier.

Update: Jan 6 – From W I R E D’s Twitter feed:

[Top Stories]: Twitter Hacker Says Admin Password Was ‘Happiness’. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/professed-twitt.html