“A privacy watchdog has uncovered a government memo that encourages federal agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS).”
Read about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/13/government-spying-social-networks/
Also, here is part of a wonderful piece by Roger Scruton from The New Atlantis, dealing with friendships on the screen:
“When attention is fixed on the other as mediated by the screen, however, there is a marked shift in emphasis. For a start, I have my finger on the button; at any moment I can turn the image off, or click to arrive at some new encounter. The other is free in his own space, but he is not really free in my space, over which I am the ultimate arbiter. I am not risking myself in the friendship to nearly the same extent as I risk myself when I meet the other face to face. Of course, the other may so grip my attention with his messages, images, and requests that I stay glued to the screen. Nevertheless, it is ultimately a screen that I am glued to, and not the face that I see in it. All interaction with the other is at a distance, and whether I am affected by it becomes to some extent a matter of my own choosing.
In this screenful form of conducting relationships, I enjoy a power over the other person of which he himself is not really aware — since he is not aware of how much I wish to retain him in the space before me. And the power I have over him he has too over me, just as I am denied the same freedom in his space that he is denied in mine. He, too, therefore, will not risk himself; he appears on the screen only on condition of retaining that ultimate control himself. This is something I know about him that he knows that I know — and vice versa. There grows between us a reduced-risk encounter, in which each is aware that the other is fundamentally withheld, sovereign within his impregnable cyber-castle.”
Here is the link to the rest of it: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/hiding-behind-the-screen
2 comments
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November 16, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Allison
Police also use Facebook to find out the whereabouts of, and catch suspects they otherwise cannot find, i.e. cannot get info on the traditional way, from their family, friends or associates. But on facebook, it’s easy to find out what they are doing, where they are going etc. Some even admit their crimes! Police use fake Facebook identities that look genuine, i.e. with a few hundred friends and some photos (usually lifted from the internet). They update these fake pages constantly to keep them looking the real deal. Then they use one of them when they want to “follow” or “find” a suspect. Usually a friend request from a hot girl will do the trick, else, they go at it by first facebook-friending the target’s friends.
August 23, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Tom
I find it hard to blame the government/police this time. If criminals are stupid enough to inform the world where the are… go get em.