Identity Theft: The Online Version

Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace are all new ways of communicating with friends, family, and random internet users. As convenient as it is, people need to use precautions before sending or receiving messages or 'tweets'. Online Identity theft has increased since these communities have been introduced. Many people have had accounts hacked into or had impersonaters pose as them. Is there a sure-fire way to know who we are talking to without talking to someone in person? Not really, but we can use discretion and common sense to reduce the risk of being deceived. For example, United States House Representitive Don Young had his twitter account hacked and one of the fraudulent posts that was posted claimed that Rep. Michelle Bachmann was preparing to introduce impeachment measures against President Obama. Some people took this seriously, when in fact it was some hacker just trying to create panic. Because no accurate method of screening posts and 'tweets' exists, we need to be very careful with what we read and more importantly, what we believe.

Here is a great news article on recent identity thefts caused from Twitter:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518480,00.html