While there are plenty of stories to draw on about serious cyber crime and hacking, such as the Julian Assange saga, documents leaked by Edward Snowden and morally wrong ransomeware, I’m going to focus on a more simpler narrative. This is my experience having my identity replicated by someone else online. And no, I didn’t have my personal or bank details stolen, have my important documents exposed or experience wild viruses. Some tragic 13 year old made a Skype account posing to be me. Tragic, I know. Let me explain.
I was in year ten at school and my sister, Zoe, who was in year nine, had just got together with her first boyfriend Harry (name has been changed for the purpose of this story). Zoe had this one crazy (and a little bit psycho) friend named Ally (her name has been changed for the purpose of this story).
Ally was clearly jealous of Zoe. I could imagine what would have been going through her head – worrying that her once best friend, will pick the boyfriend over herself. Totally understandable. But her way of dealing with all of that was totally messed up.
Ally thought that it would be a great idea to make a fake Skype account, add Harry and talk to him. Yeah, that sounds crazy. But wait, it get even stranger. She made the fake Skype account under MY name! AND included photos from my personal Facebook page! PLUS, she didn’t even have Facebook at the time, so she must have done some real serious talking.
Myself and Harry were made vulnerable by this impersonation and imposter. Ally would ask Harry very intrusive, personal and awkward questions so she could find things out about Harry. Questions like “how many girls have you kissed”, which was a huge deal back in year nine and ten. Harry felt a need to answer her, as, well, he thought that he was talking to me, and didn’t want to come across as rude, weak or backing out.
Many awkward situations arose from this. At school I would happily approach Harry and have general chit chat. He became a little distant but I never thought anything of it. He must have been wondering why I would so happy and chirpy at school, but so serious and straightforward online….
It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later I logged onto my actual Skype account. One of my sisters friends sent me a message. It read something along the lines of “Hey Ally, I know it’s you bla bla bla”. I thought to my self, what the hell? Hey Ally? But this is me, Mia.
So I of course replied “ummm sorry, but this is MIA”. This went back and forth for a little while until my sisters friend realised that she screwed up. She blew the cover. And that is how everything revealed itself. After Harry had found out it all made sense! We had a good laugh at the fact that he thought I would so easily say hello at school, but act like a weirdo online. Very strange times and an even stranger girl.
Anddddd there’s my story. Do you guys have any similar? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
A Collection of Digital Media & Social Communications 
What a terrible experience that you and your family went through. Unfortunately the internet has lead to users, in many ways, being made vulnerable to people we both know and don’t know. Whilst I think the line as to supporting democratic principles and cyber crimes is very fine, the likes of identity fraud is a very serious and too common crime. It provides an interesting discussion about identity and privacy on the internet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really enjoyed how you approached this post. Sharing personal experiences really helped to highlight how this can actually affects us. For me the idea that the hacking community is looked at as sanctuary for some is really wrong. Hacktivism is considered as disrupting, if not a downright dangerous and harmful means of communication and access to personally information. Regardless of motivation, hacktivists remain as one of the biggest threats to security, shown through the Sony hack last December 2014 in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/sony-hacked/
I definitely have learnt something from your past incidents, and I believe by sharing your story you have created a great way to prepare other for possible hacktivist attacks, as it could happen to any one of us.
LikeLike
It can! even when you least expect it. Thanks for your feedback!
LikeLike
A unique approach to this week’s topic with a personal experience was really enjoyable to read. We hear about traditional hacking of other people’s accounts, but what about catfishing situations like this being classified as a form of hacking as well. This article- http://nextshark.com/catfishing-statistics/ describes causes for this form of hacking may be loneliness, curiosity or boredom- revealing this issue is actually quite common, exposing young people to possibly more serious cybercrime surrounding identity theft, with catfishing as the stepping stone into this type of crime.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the story. I like that you give example from you own experience that a 13 year old acting to be you on the social network. The experiencing reading about hacking was really different. Other post often talking about the digital hacking but you took this into the next step by using physical action to show the image. https://goo.gl/LscQhe you might be interesting to read this article… thanks for sharing…
LikeLike
I don’t think I have had anyone hack into my account like yourself but it was interesting to see a personal experience as this week blog post. I think you have done a great job finding a way to personally connect with this week’s topics which are clearly evident in your post. It would be interesting to see you find a similar experience or an experience close to yours and talk about the differences and such with both of them.
LikeLike
What girls will do for teen love. I love that meme. It ties so well into your post. I liked how you brought a personal story to this topic. Thankfully it wasn’t serious but it really shows how your personal details can easily be used for other reasons that you have no idea about. Follow up question but is she now a prime identity thief? She seemed to have the stalking element down pat.
LikeLike