Social Media Sites and Blackhat Affiliates [Teksquisite]

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They are big, bad, ugly and pervasive. Rogue Blackhat affiliates (RBAs) use CPA (cost per action) tactics and they are hot to trot! Not only do they capture a click-happy generation of social media enthusiasts by the click, they also harbor dark intentions. You may not have heard about them directly but they have been indulging in social media (behind the scenes) campaigns for about two years now.

I began screaming about Blackhat Affiliate campaigns on Twitter during the summer of 2009 when nobody was really listening to me aside from Sophos Security and Rik Ferguson from Trend Micro. I stated back then that they were a social media infiltration that needed to be watched and monitored.

Here is a question I recently viewed at BlackhatWorld:

This is my situation: I have the clickjacking website working. The website show YouTube videos with clickjacking and it’s working all the codes, but now what I have to do to start moving the site?.

Another post that I viewed at Cheating Network:

Once you join you can see a youtube guide they created that basically screws viewers into completing a cpa offer. Pretty cool that a network is cool with that. I got approved almost instantly and so will you. As long as you aren’t retarded, you should get in easily.

They are always seeking new ways to get click-happy people involved. Do you have a friend or family member that clicks on everything and anything on Facebook? If you do, it is best to monitor your wall for the possibility that click-happy Blackhat affiliate links could end up there too. These are not scare tactics; simply common sense dictates that not everybody is going to have an awareness of RBAs in action.

They are constantly perfecting affiliate techniques. Basically, behind the scenes they communicate with each other and try to formulate the best plan-of-action to get the social media sheep enthusiasts (all of us) to bleat their tweets, likes and links so that we can further their financial causes (profits.)

How do you stay away from RBAs? Never buy into their campaigns!

RBAs generally use “sensationalized” headlines to grab your attention. They really want you to further their links to promote current campaigns. This makes them wealthier-per-click and the rest of us dumbed down to their profitable tactics. Never allow yourself to become a part of these darkhat campaigns!

Report them here at the BDE and become part of the campaigners-for-a solution! If you see something that appears on your wall as “too good to be true” – it perhaps is just that! Don’t allow these scammers the ability to to further their campaigns on your wall (or your friend and family walls) – speak out now and take a stand against Blackhat affiliates and this type of Darkhat campaigning.

Is there a rapid fat loss link that promises you that you can lose 30 pounds in five days? Or maybe there is a link for Henry advocating a revamped libido? Perhaps it is a link to something that you have searched for or mentioned on Facebook – you can rest assured that your search or mention did not go unnoticed. Your online activities are consistently monitored and searches are consistently tailored to appeal to “your likes”. Be aware, remain proactive and stay tuned for more information on this topic soon!

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>Does Facebook really care for our privacy? By B-Joe

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     The big question that everyone has is “Does Facebook really care for our privacy?” I took in an investigation to figure out if they really do care for our privacy to keep us safe.

     One of the biggest loopholes i found about this was in section 3 of the Facebook Terms of Service. They remarkably put that they cannot guarantee that your privacy is protected. This does not really affect them caring about your privacy really. For the little scams that are not too big you are responsible to watch out for them for yourselves. They only protect your privacy in major concerning ways.

     A huge loophole into your privacy not being protected is in Section 2. There it states that ALL applications must follow the TOS and if they withdraw to do so they will be terminated. Today there are many applications out there scamming and giving users viruses, yet they don’t get the Facebook application team out there to remove them from the Facebook System. This makes it look like 75% of the time Facebook doesn’t care for your privacy matters. 

     Then in section 5 is says that you must respect others rights, yet about an estimated 5,000+ get their Facebook hacked because Facebook doesn’t have that many resources to protect privacy that well. Resources for protecting your privacy and such are not high enough. They allow you to hide your email but then again there’s applications that they don’t get rid of that can most likely get your email out there to the hackers.

     Facebook is now developing a new security feature to help you protect yourself. When you click on a scamming link or virus link Facebook will ask you if you are sure you want to go there. Do you think this is a good enough feature to protect more users and prevent more hacks and scams?

“Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.“

-Benjamin Franklin

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>The "Do Not Add…" and "Amber Alert" Fakes

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I was asked on Facebook this by the wonderful Heidi McSexiness (name changed to protect identity) :


A friend just posted this:
“ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK USERS DO NOT ADD LINDA SMITH ALSO IF SOMEONE CALLED JASON LEE ADDS U DONT ACCEPT IT IS A VIRUS TELL EVERYBODY ON UR LIST IF THEY ADD THEM U ALSO GET THE VIRUS TOO COPY AN PASTE PLEASE REPOST******THIS AS BEEN CONFIRMED BY FACEBOOK”


Is this true or just a hoax?




Hoax : It’s the first one on this list. These and similar are always fake that I’m aware of. To begin with, adding someone on a social networking site will not give you a virus. In order to get a virus you’d have downloaded and opened something. Generally speaking these are usually some jilted ex trying to get back at his now Ex-GF and her new BF or some other similar “I want to see them suffer” type of thing.


While on the subject, Amber alerts seen in e-mail, twits and on social networking sites are sadly hoaxes 99% of the time. Normally its some jerk trying to get that person arrested or harassed over nothing. This type of cyber-bullying has been around since the early days of the net and on party lines and such.(1)


If it’s an amber alert check http://www.amberalert.gov/ . They have a search engine and if its remotely similar it will pop it up. Be sure to actually read the alert if it does pop one up, people quite often use real ones and just change it a bit to suit their needs.


Common false amber alerts will contain some nice sounding details including maybe the tag # or name of the person they want harassed. Also they will generally end with something like : ” Please Copy & Paste this as your status. Imagine if this was YOUR child. You’d want help”




~Colton~


(1) There was an incredible article I read many years ago in Rolling Stone I think it was (and again later in my Computer Security classes) about a blind little kid who could hear the tones in a phone and tell the number. He would “swat” (sending swat teams to people homes) people who would not do as he wanted IE – phone sex etc. He’s a perfect example of advanced cyberbullying. This is not the very long article I was thinking of, but it will due. Go to (currently) the 2nd article down on the site. Be sure to check out the 911 recordings to hear how this boy would “punish” those who disobeyed him. (Language in those recordings)
 

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>Fake Tech Support Phone Calls etc

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A Facebook friend asked me this question :


Hello, I have a quick question for you, I just had a phone call, they informed me that they were from the Windows Security sector and they reckon that I had sent them a report stating that I had infections on my computer, but I didn’t send them anything. Does this sound like a scam to you? I told them nothing and told them I thought it was a scam and he hung up on me… What do u think???



You did the right thing. I would never give out my information out over the phone to someone who had called ME.


I found little at first searching but I was able to link more and more together from social network posts and forums and eventually found a few blogs. After I figured out the various names these company’s go by I was able to find much more info. These people try to get you to access a site after which you will have given them access to your computer. Not a good thing. In most cases they will try to get your Credit Card # as well for their “services”. They say they’ll charge you some small fee like $3.99 or $7.99, and they very well may only charge you that at first…but then they either use it more or sell your number.


So far these are some of the names I’ve found them using around the world: comantra, unifyinfocom, supportonclick, thenerdsupport, securesecurityinfotech, thesupportonline, go4isecure, thesparksupport, winpctech, compstep, ordinateurassist, advpccare, techisonline, techonsupport, fixonclick, Log4Rescue, PCTechnosupport, onlinepccare, teamviewer, mypctreat, (adding more as I find them)


They have been also using logmein123 which is itself a real legit site but is sadly being used by these hackers.


Do not – Give them any personal info or money or anything like that.


What to do – If you’re nervous just hang up. However, if you want to try and see that they get caught one day, do the following : Try and get as much info on them as possible, Who are they calling for ? ( Is this name unique to one of your credit cards or something ?) I use false names alot for security reasons and thus am able to tell where they got my name from by which one is used. What is their name, company, how much do they know about you ? And anything else you can think of.


Or you can do what these guys did and just string them along. This first one has a hard time holding the laughter in as he strings them along for over an hour. (some language)

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/nXjmmbDV1bk?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

I love the “Ello” bit in this one and how he reads the letters back too.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/Ab22fgjoC4E?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

How/who do I report this too with the information I’ve managed to glean from them ?
You can help worldwide by commenting on this blog and any others you may find. However I do have some links to some 


 This is a forum for the phone scams In the US 
 I found an actual government funded one  In the UK  to inform.


~Colton~

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>Facebook Games And Automation Tools (Cheats!) a MUST Read

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Today we would like to bring to light about some Automation tools out there that are being used to “Help” Facebook gamers with various tasks.

Hey, who doesn’t want a bit of help now and then aye?

Reports show that some of the more popular tools have been removed from Facebook, and for good reason!

I really don’t want to hear about how you’ve been banned, or your favorite bot has been removed.

We hear it quite a bit, and the excuses are ALWAYS the same. So spare the pitty party for your cheating friends.

These tools include, but are not limited to…

• Automated Friend Adding
• Automated Gift Recieving/Sending
• Automated Clicks Through Game Mechanics (Missions/Fights/Looting/Farming etc…)
• Glitching (acquiring desired results by methods not attainable through normal means of gameplay)

These are otherwise known as “Bots“, and bots ARE CHEATS!

These Apps may seem harmless enough, but they give a user an edge above others that do NOT use them. This places an imbalance of gameplay in the favor of the bot user.

The game companys, and even Facebook itself have noted in their TOS & FAQ that these are against the TOS (Terms Of Service).

Colton had this to say…

” You’re using these because you’re disabled? Boo frickin who. It’s called laziness, not disability. Think that’s wrong of me to say ? Read the full article and then see if you feel you can verbally spar with me in comments. “

Zynga’s TOS reads as follows…

I Chose to Highlight these sections, because they are the most common among users who don’t actually program these cheats… Just use them.

Section 1.9. License Limitations

CHEATING AND HACKING – You agree that you will not, under any circumstances:

d. Use cheats, exploits, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any unauthorized third-party software designed to modify or interfere with the Service, any Zynga Game or any Zynga game experience;
e. Use the Service in order to design or assist in the design of cheats, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized third-party software designed to modify or interfere with the Service, any Zynga game or any Zynga game experience;

And also…

I chose to highlight this one, because when using these “Automation Tools (Cheats)”, you are in fact causing additional stress on the servers by sending multiple requests at an abnormally high rate.

UNAUTHORIZED USE OR CONNECTION TO THE SERVICE – You agree that you will not, under any circumstances:

t. Make any automated use of the system, or take any action that imposes or may impose (in our sole discretion) an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;

I used Zynga’s TOS only as an example here, because it is the most widely use game system on Facebooks network.

You will note however that in almost ANY game you play online. Other companies usually follows these same guidelines, and this does NOT limit the rules to only Zynga based apps!

Facebook is also against any use of these “tools“.

Facebooks TOS reads as follows though the FAQ…

Application and Plugins › Bugs and Known Issues on Facebook Platform

I was warned for using automation while using an application not built by Facebook.
Using automation to collect content or other information from Facebook members is not permitted. If you are using special bookmarks or programs to perform actions in applications not built by Facebook, then you may unknowingly be using automation. Further use of these tools can result in your account being permanently disabled.

Warnings › I received a warning from Facebook.

I was warned for engaging in behavior that may be considered annoying or abusive.
Facebook has security systems to stop abusive actions.
The systems automatically identify the following types of behavior:
Feature overuse: There are limits to restrict the rate at which you can use features on the site. Overusing features is not allowed because it may make other people feel annoyed or unsafe.
Unwanted contact: Our systems detect when friend requests you send to others are being ignored at a high rate and volume. Using Facebook to contact many people you don’t know is not allowed because it may make them feel threatened, harassed, or unsafe.
Once you close your warning, you must significantly slow down this behavior. Further misuse of site features may result in a temporary block, or your account being permanently disabled from Facebook.

Warnings › About Facebook’s security and warning systems

What types of behavior does Facebook’s automated security system identify as abusive?
The systems automatically identify the following types of behavior:
Feature overuse: There are limits to restrict the rate at which you can use features on the site. Overusing features is not allowed because it may make other people feel annoyed or unsafe.
Unwanted contact: Our systems detect when friend requests you send to others are being ignored at a high rate and volume. Using Facebook to contact many people you don’t know is not allowed because it may make them feel threatened, harassed, or unsafe.

These rules are set in place for a reason… Fair Play!

Not only does this type of cheating effect the game play, but you are indeed placing yourself, and your friends at risk.

How?

Well you are essentially opening the flood gates for these “Cheat Developers” to be able to take whatever information they want…

Lists of Email Contacts, Phone #’s, and possibly Passwords as well if you need to “Log In” through their tools to make them work.

This exposes yourself and everyone around you to let them spam through you, or even steal information.

These are NOT legitimate companies that you really want to do business, or share personal information with.

If these people are willing to make Cheats; what else are they willing to do? Do they do it out of the kindness of their own heart?

9 times out of 10, this is an unlikely case. They want to make money too. Be it through Ad revenue or even worse!

There are Scams running rampant that hook people into thinking that a Glitch in the Game is going to give them Free Credits, hack someones profile, or other things.

The most predominate ones right now are the Copy and Paste Javascript Code to your Browser URL.

http://www.thebulldogestate.com/2011/04/javascript-pasting-scam-alert-checkme.html

This is something you NEVER want to do!

It executes script from outside of Facebook to preform functions within Facebook.

These scripts very to some degree, but the end result is usually the same.

Within about 30 seconds it’ll run wild through your account creating events, inviting all your friends, make posts to yours and your friends walls tagging them in the process, send messages to anyone who is online through chat. all linking back to to the scammers website. In the end you’re then directed to either a Survey Scam, Enter a Cell # Scam, or forced to download & install a virus.

In the end, you’re left with nothing or a fraudulent $10.00/month texting charge to your cellular bill… Or worse!

The whole point to this is this.

If you’re willing to cheat, you better accept the fact that you get what you deserve!

If you’ve been banned from a game… Goodbye! Nobody wants to play with you anyway.

If you know a cheater… Warn them, and remove them from your friends list if they do not head that warning.

Because you don’t want to receive penalties from their misconduct!

Colton also quotes…

“I’m quite disabled and somehow manage without cheats. Play properly, or not at all. And if you meant “mentally” then I will tell you the same thing I tell my daughter with special needs. “I don’t want to hear: ‘It’s Hard!’ or ‘I Can’t !’ or excuses. You do things the proper way or not at all. If you want it bad enough, you will find a way. Is it harder for her to play a game or do anything for herself ? Of course, but how will you ever accomplish anything in life and truly feel like a real person if everything is handed to you. “

In the greater scheme of things…

Yes, it’s just a game, but everyone should play by the same rules. You are NOT above reproach to anyone else, so don’t be so naive as to think otherwise!

Legitimate channels ARE out there for you to take advantage of for the simple tasks.

If you need more friends for a game… Join a Add Me Group for the games you play. There are plenty out there!

If you want to collect bonuses that are posted to your friends walls through the news feed. Use the filter system available to you provided through Facebook itself.

You can click on the Game Requests on the left hand side, scroll down and filter by specific game to show news feeds by selection of the game intended. Right click on the item, and open in a new tab, and work on down the list this way.

Cheers,

o0MeTaL0o, & Colton

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>Facebook Security and Safety Not Making Users Safe? By B-Joe

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     Is Facebook completely safe or just a complete fail? That question might be in the mind of the Facebook Web Team. I went around asking people what they think about Facebook and how they feel about all the scams and hacks that go around. Here’s what they said.

     Bailey Slands replied on one of our questions about her feeling safe on Facebook and here’s what she said. “It depends, i feel safe when i am alerted and know the steps to stay safe. I don’t feel safe when i don’t know the extent of the virus.” I think many of us can agree on what she said because you never know if your safe if you don’t know the extent of viruses. We also asked her what would she tell others on Facebook about how to avoid such scams on Facebook. “I would tell them not click on any suspicious links and stay away from sketchy material.”

Another Facebook user we asked named Eric answered if he felt safe on Facebook and he said “Not wanting to trust any links.” I can agree to this because sometimes i see strange links and i debate over whether to click them or not and well each time I am lucky whether i click on them or not. January P. said “I’m really feeling not safe at all.” Anthony Wiuff said the biggest scam he sees is the Website scams. Here’s what he said in his own words “The biggest one i see is fake website making i got scammed like a month ago off of a site i thought it was fake so i used my old account and went back and all my stuff was gone.” That was in reply to what happened to him in one of Zynga’s Hit Games YoVille.

     Many others that i questioned also said they do not feel safe. Jeannette Howard said “You should know who your friends are first.” I agree you never know if there trustworthy or not if you add many people from around the world like i do. Quite a few more answered the questions and told me interesting things.

    A Question asked by The BULLDOG Estate page “With all the scams and spam on Facebook , do you think Facebook is doing enough to stop it all? or is it something more sinister behind it all?” 11 People answered “Yes They Are, Members need to do their part also.” An outstanding 181 People said “No They are not, They need to do more.” This question shows that many do not feel safe on Facebook and wish that Facebook Security would start making Facebook safer. 

Only a small amount think they are as safe as they can be and that Facebook Security is trying their best. Which would you agree on?

    Every security update takes a while so we are hardly getting safer besides the fact that Facebook users have The BULLDOG Estate, Scam Sniper, Sophos and many more pages to rely on to get updates on whats going on with scams and such. Then again not many know about or like these pages because well they just don’t know about scams and viruses very well or just don’t care.

     Do you think Facebook Security & Safety is making you safer?

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>Help Ive been contacted by someone claiming to be Facebook Security

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I’ve been getting reports in that someone from Facebook Security has been contacting users to get them to send login information to them, or be blocked, removed, banned etc…

Facebook will NEVER contact you personally, and ask for Email & Password information.

They already have this information, nor do they actually need it to manage accounts.

The real Facebook Security has Administrative privileges that supersede anyones accounts.

This also goes for any site you log into. There is a structured order to these things.

As with any site, my own as well as your PC work in much the same way.

If anything goes wrong, or someone forgets a password. The Administrator can “Take Over” any other account to fix problems or what not.

So Unless you are at the Official Login Page (This is the ONLY place You should EVER be asked for login credentials), do NOT ever give this information out freely in ANY way shape or form claiming to be an administrator.

If anyone ever contacts you in this manner… Report, and Block the person immediately.

This is an age old tactic called phishing using Social Engineering as a way to get personal information.

Login credentials are for you, and you only!

Stay safe everybody,

o0MeTaL0o

metal@thebulldogestate.com

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>Who’s really viewing your profile ? It’s Spammers, Scammers and Hackers

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If you don’t want people calling you, sending you e-mails and IMs or even showing up at your door, then I would not put that information on Facebook. It’s not even that hard to retrieve. Just as an example I used a Yahoo mail account. A sad sad account with 0 friends 😦

I’m so very lonely….. I know ! I’ll use Yahoo mail’s import from Facebook feature that searches all my friends Facebook pages, ( I used a FB page with 1040 friends) and brings their e-mails to my yahoo.

Whew, now I have friends. 905 separate contacts, some with multiple e-mails associated with their name. Yay ! And it only took 3 minutes.

Hmm I wonder how many cell phone numbers and home addresses I can find ?

For this one I could have used a simple program to find and download them but that is actually against the terms of use by Facebook. Unlike getting all those e-mails which is perfectly ok. I personally don’t want to get banned, but the guy who hacked your friends Facebook doesn’t seem to mind, because he had lots of time to get all the info first and then spam any ads and scams he wanted to before getting shut down.

For my sanity’s sake at having to manually go to each page, I’m going to use an account with 139. These 139 are personal friends who have been listening to me preach for two years to make themselves more secure and how to do it. Lets see if they listened.

Well the results are in. I’m pleased to say that all 16 of my Facebook family members gave no info other than e-mail. So that leaves my 123 friends, lets see how they fared. I collected 31 cell phone numbers. Of those 31 only 2 were guys. Leaving 29 women who (let’s be honest) are for the most part, young and quite attractive. 5 of these 29 women also listed their home/street address. I don’t think I need to stress how bad an idea this is. ( By the way – I also collected 114 new e-mails and 43 instant messenger IDs)

Well, now that I’ve frightened you, how do we fix this ?

The fix is to go into your “edit my profile”, on the left side you’ll see privacy settings.

After which you once again look on the left for “Custom” and then the little blue “customize settings”

You’ll see many things that you can change “who views”. When you click one of the grey locks on the right and click custom, it’ll pop up a small window.

Click the drop down option beside ‘These People’ and change to “Only Me” on many things. I would recommend at the very least the address and phone #. Personally I have every thing from religious views down checked “only me” on mine. I understand that e-mail is not a big deal, but keep in mind that you will probably receive a lot of spam mail so it may be a good idea to designate one e-mail address as your possible spam receiver and share it.

I’m sorry if you want your friends to see, if they need to they can message you. It’s way too easy to be have an account compromised on Facebook. Can you really tell me you’ve never seen a friend that appeared to have been hacked ?

I also really dislike the “check in” and “allow my friends to check me in” features. I swear that I saw someone post that they were loving their new 64″ plasma TV, then the next post from them was of foursquare checking them in somewhere across town. I just remember thinking “Hmmm I could use a new TV. ” Granted I’d never do that, but you see my point.

I’ve shared this to Facebook several times and even directly messaged people about it and yet I can still see half of their numbers. Oh well, I guess they are in for some, ” I saw your number on Facebook, whatcha doin’ ? ” 2 am text messages from me.

Posted by ~Colton~

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>Tsunamis – Hurricanes – Tornadoes and your data

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Are you prepared to deal if you don’t have access to your computer ? I thought I was, but two weeks ago a tornado basically touched down in my front yard. We were lucky, the only trees I had down did not hit my house or cars. However many of my neighbor’s were not so lucky. You think you’ll have time to do something, to grab things. You don’t. No one thought that we would have a tornado, just a bad storm. My fiancee and I were getting ready for bed when we heard the wind pick up a bit, so we walked to the front door to look. Seconds later we saw branches bouncing off our cars and both turned  and said “Basement!”  I opened the basement door next to us, and we began to run down the stairs. We only made it 1/2 down before the lights blew out. We just dropped and held each other sitting on the stairs, covering each others heads as the wind whipped around us and we heard the trees breaking. 

    Let’s just be honest, I’m crying as I write this thinking how lucky we are and how I could have lost my family, friends or neighbors. For the next few days I just went around trying to help open up the 200+ miles of road that crisscross and wind their way though my community. I saw hundreds of power poles snapped like twigs and just as many damaged houses. We were very lucky to have no fatalities. I was without power for almost five days and part of my road is still inaccessible by car.

     Ok, enough of the sad stuff for a bit. I of course have external hard drives and flash drives and such, but all are in my home. The tornado very easily could have destroyed all of it which, while I would be happy to be alive, would have been difficult to replace. My parents live across town so I thought giving them a few important flash drives to put in their safe, would be a good idea.

   Later I began thinking about the stories I’d heard about involving data loss and Hurricane Katrina. Some New Orleans based companies did not have backups at a separate location. The ones that did were very lucky you would think. However, several of these had unfortunately chosen Biloxi, which while 100 miles away, was also destroyed. Quite a few companies were unable to recover afterwards and went bankrupt. I wonder how Japan’s data is doing after the tsunami and nuclear issues ?

   As an individual, it certainly isn’t practical for me to have backups hundreds of miles away, but what about online ?  Amazon’s offers a free online storage called Cloud that allows you to store up to 5 gig for free. Other companies do offer free storage online as well, like FlipDrive, but Cloud is the most widely used. This CNN money video is quite informative and interesting in describing what you can do with Cloud.

   Granted “The Cloud” is cool but there are some things to remember. Like the fact that they can access your data to make sure you have not violated their terms or conditions and they will give access to law enforcement agency’s if asked. So that picture of you and Bernard Madoff surrounded by cash should probably go elsewhere. While Cloud is known to be very secure and normally have no issues, I’d be remiss if I did not mention that hordes of people who were up in arms about it being down recently for several days.

    The most important thing to remember, is that you are responsible for the security of things you put on Cloud. If a hacker gets in and grabs your data, its security is up to you. How do you go about doing that? I personally use a free cryptography program called TrueCrypt to keep my data safe and secure. Unless something changes, I plan on doing a blog on what cryptography is and how to use TrueCrypt soon. So if you want to go ahead and download it, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Posted By ~Colton~

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>The Dangers of Geo Tags and Cylons

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Do you own a Smart Phone or a newer digital camera ? I’m sorry but Commander Adama won’t allow it aboard the ship. (42 Geek Points to you if you smiled at that) (1)

All joking aside – The smart phones and many of the new digital cameras have GPS in them that will geotag your photos with “meta data”. This meta data can not be seen in the photos but computers programs available to any, can read them with ease.

We’ve talked a bit about cyber stalkers. Can you think of someone you wouldn’t want to know where you are ? Due to geo tagging I could very easily go rob many nice things if I were that kind of person. It’s easy to find geo tagged photos on Craigslist and many other places along with things like “I won’t be home til after 5”

Don’t think it will happen to you ? It’s already happened to many, including celebrities. My favorite was the very tech savvy Adam Savage. If you don’t know he’s one of the stars of the incredibly popular (and awesome) MythBusters.

When he uploaded a picture of his jeep to twitter he did more than tell people he was going to work. He told them exactly where his house was. When asked about it, he said that he was fully aware of geo tagging but had forgotten to turn it off on his smart phone. He has since disabled the geo tagging feature on his phone and has moved to a new home.

I was going to type in all the fixes for you but instead found a great (and scary site) called I Can Stalk You which has step by step instructions with pictures on how to disable it on smart phones. If there is a specif model or type that you can’t seem to find a fix for, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best. On most models, you’ll find somewhere under your camera or camera app an option to turn off GPS.

(1) – Geek points are non-transferable and are only used to purchase my love. See FDA warning for possible side effects of my love.

Posted by ~Colton~

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