MoMusings

According to the blurb posted on their site:

“MySpace.com is an online community that lets you meet your friends’ friends. Create a private community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!”

Some of the features of MySpace include:

• Upload Pictures
• Send Mail and IM’s
• Write Blogs & Comments
• Participate in forums and groups

It is all really about social networking.

However, all is not rosy in the MySpace virtual garden.

Firstly, MySpace was targeted by malware back in October 2005:-

Here’s a snippet from a news article that covered it:

“One clever MySpace user looking to expand his buddy list recently figured out how to force others to become his friend, and ended up creating the first self-propagating cross-site scripting (XSS) worm. In less than 24 hours, “Samy” had amassed over 1 million friends on the popular online community.”

Not bad for a bit of JavaScript and XSS [Cross-site-scripting]. At the time of writing the worm had been removed and the holes it used patched. However, there have been other MySpace worms created using Samy’s code as a starting point, some of these were able to spread.

Secondly, some kind soul has been circulating a warning about a virus that is allegedly spread via MySpace.com Instant Messaging, here’s the warning:

“If someone by the name of j_neutron07 wants to add you to their list dont accept it. Its a virus. Tell everyone on your hits because if somebody on your list adds them you will get it too. It is a hard drive killer and a very horrible virus.

PLEASE COPY/PASTE AND REPOST THIS”

However, this is not a real threat, as there is no such malware and as I write there is no way for this so-called virus to spread by just adding someone to your buddy list. Yes, this so-called virus is a HOAX.

And thirdly, it seems that MySpace has also been used to find ‘Rape Suspects‘, and has recently removed 200,000 ‘rude‘ profiles. According to the ‘Register’ the site has also been used by school bullies who post bogus profiles aimed at attacking or humiliating their victims.

As if the above issues are not worrying enough, then the recent sexual assaults on ‘young’ MySpace.com members appears to show that the service is being actively used by paedophiles to find victims to groom, meet and abuse.

The above issues once more make it abundantly clear [if you needed reminding] that you should not give out personal details via these types of services as a small minority will take advantage. Kids [and adults too] should remember that on the internet the person you think you are chatting or e-mailing may not be what they seem. You may think that they are a 12 year old girl from London, but it may well be that it is a 45 year old man from the other side of the world, or next door!

To steal the punch line from this cartoon “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”

Be careful out there on the ‘Wicked Wild Web’.