Yesterday, two friends from high school sent me private messages asking why I had contacted them to request friendship when we were already friends on Facebook. I was not hacked but “compromised” — that’s the word. Regardless, it was quite a shock to see someone impersonating me. Even more so, I was surprised that people who shared mutual FB friends with me were on the list of friends of the fake account.
Has this happened to you before?
Who is this impersonator? Why would he or she create a Facebook account using precious photos taken from my high school reunion and contact those FB account holders who also went to the same high school to friend me? Worse, did those FB account holders who went to my high school find this fake account and request to be friends?
Who cares? So what?
There are already many females with my name. My name is not exclusive to me.
One of them contacted me years ago, and we are still friends on Facebook even though we have yet to meet face to face. Another contacted me in Boston with striking similarities as she’s a pianist currently studying engineering. Our Chinese names, however, are completely different.
How do people in China cope with individuals with the exact same surname and one-character first names? Two-character first-names? Do they take on English names to differentiate themselves?
It’s not about the name. It’s about the identity, the relationships, and the life that one has take on that is being impersonalised.
Or is it?
Recent news about Facebook’s security being breached is really about how convenient it has been to sign into various applications with Facebook log-in. There are so many applications on our various devices that signing into an app with Facebook is a no brainer.
Would the next breach be Google? After all, we use gmail, Google docs, and Youtube (yes, that’s part of Google). Which search engine do we use most of all? We leave an audit trail that identifies how and what we search for. Do the videos we upload on Youtube belong to us or Google? Does the data Google collects belong to us or Google?
How is Facebook any different? It’s making life easier for us busy people. The last thing on our minds is to remember passwords. Facebook can remember it for us. Google, too.
Will the impersonator collect enough unsuspecting high school classmates and one day attend a reunion pretending to be me? I doubt it. Does the impersonator know me personally? Or am I just a random target?
Let’s see. Who lives in Sacramento? Who is a widow? Who knows about the friend hugging me in the photo? Who went to Sacramento State?
Should I take action? I read an article suggested by a concerned Facebook friend, another person I’ve yet to meet face-to-face and shake hands (or hug). Facebook has become a community where your friends look out for one another. If you haven’t heard from someone in a long time, be sure to say hello or “poke” or “tag” that person in your posts. You can private message (PM) that person and check up.
Hopefully this blog post will find its way to all those who think that fake account is me. Where can you find my real Facebook account? HERE.