The Dangers of MySpace

MySpace said they couldn’t do it so someone else did and ran it against MySpace user’s sites and found 744 sex offenders on the site. Of course that’s just a small percentage of the millions using MySpace. However, it’s still not 100% effective. Recognition definitely goes where it deserves to the author of the script but it’s simply not enough since it’s extremely easy to hide your real identity on MySpace.

Easy enough, here’s proof from the article that agrees with the fact that MySpace’s security is outdated and ineffective: “Their comment board is innocent; their image gallery contains a wedding photo or two; the underage friends on their list, if they have any, turn out to be relatives, or adults lying about their age to game MySpace’s old security model — in which only 14- and 15-year-olds enjoyed private profiles.” So what really is an effective way to stop sex offenders for exploiting the future of America?

I proposed a solution in this post. The idea is to have MySpace user enter a valid credit card and do a temporary authorization on the card. In other words, it is still a free service but the temporary authorization validates your identity and that should be enough to keep sex offenders off of the site. You might ask well what about credit card fraud? It’s not often that credit card fraud is associated with sex offenders. The two types of criminals are often no correlated and don’t fall in the same categories. You also might ask well, what if I give someone my credit card to a user for verification on MySpace? Let’s say it’s your son or daughter in the first example. Well, then you’d feel a little morally obligated to know why they wanted the card in the first place. It’s too often that parents get caught off-guard because their son or daughter chooses not to tell them of their activities online. Whether the child or teen feels invincible online or like s/he is guarded and anonymous, that is clearly NOT the case. Or it could be that the child or teen doesn’t feel his/her parents’ need to know in which case they feel that they are “adult” enough to know what is right and wrong and to sense danger.

The problem is that online, danger can be right around you and you may never know. A site could be compromised and log every one of your transactions. A predator could be stalking your every move online with the same screen name and password you use for every site, which is just a false sense of security in itself.

What it comes down to is that I could say I am John Doe online, who is just a normal guy from Some Town, USA when for all you know, I am sex offender from Some Town, USA and my name really isn’t John Doe. MySpace has no verification and places the trust in the end users’ to verify their identity. If you want your display name to be George Washington, you can do it. The only validation in the sign up process is “Are you over 13?” (check yes if you are and we’ll believe you which isn’t really uncommon of most sites anyway) and do you have a valid e-mail address to sign up? If so, you’re good to go and have an account after validation via e-mail (keeping in mind you can sign up for a free e-mail account pretty much anywhere on the web without any sort of strings attached or personal information divulged).

So while the created script did find sex offenders on MySpace, think of how many users on MySpace are using fake handles and screen names to hide their real identity. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking this script or the work of the developer who created it at all. It’s effective and a step in the right direction since MySpace doesn’t seem to want to make a push forward for the security of its users. But in the long run, it’s simply not enough to secure MySpace.