'In The News' is our segment on recent events related to reputation / relevance management.  October news reminds us again of the woes of social media.  We have always discouraged our clientele from using social media...

CleanSearch is probably like any average office.. We sit around the cooler sometimes and discuss.  Some of us despise Facebook, some cannot live without it.  On the negative side, it sucks.  Why?  Not because things like this can happen (see article below) but because we feel most people are pacified by Facebook as their life fades out of existence.  If you cannot make your mark on the real world you live in, Facebook isn't going to help.  People who are celebrities do not operate Facebook accounts, they hire help.  It's STUPID to some us, but not to others:

(CNN) -- Porn, violent images and other graphic pieces of content are spreading across Facebook in what appears to be a widespread and ugly spam attack.

Graham Cluley, a consultant with Web security firm Sophos, said Tuesday that "explicit and violent" images had been flooding the News Feeds of Facebook users for the past 24 hours or so.

Cluley wrote on the Sophos blog that the images have included hardcore porn; photoshopped images of celebrities, including teen pop star Justin Bieber, in sexual positions; "extreme violence;" and at least one image of an abused dog.

The researcher said it wasn't clear Tuesday how the images were spreading.

One possibility: "Clickjacking," when clicking on a friend's image shares it in your own feed.

Hackers also may have compromised the accounts of users with weak passwords or tricked people into installing malicious code.

"What's clear," Cluley wrote, "is that mischief-makers are upsetting many Facebook users and making the social networking site far from a family-friendly place."

Several CNN.com staffers reported seeing some of the images by Tuesday morning.

Facebook says it is aware of the images.

"Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us and we are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms," spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an email. "We have recently experienced an increase in reports and we are investigating and addressing the issue."

The blog AllFacebook reported that the social-media giant has been quietly taking down the images.

Writer Jackie Cohen said a request for comment on the images merely got a reply thanking her for "flagging" the images.

"The fact that these photos spread for as long as 48 hours unchecked [shows] how much Facebook relies on individual users to flag inappropriate content: people were commenting on the images more than flagging them," she wrote.

Users were, understandably, distraught.

"Seeing a dead dog on my Facebook news feed ........ Officially deactivating it," said one Twitter user in a post collected by Sophos.

"I saw a dead dog, Justin Bieber [performing a sex act] and a naked grandma," said another. "Time to delete facebook."

With questions still abounding, speculation on the Web turned -- as it often does in online hacking cases -- the controversial "hacktivist" collective Anonymous.

A group claiming allegiance to Anonymous announced it was going to make November 5 "Kill Facebook Day." That day came and went with little noticeable activity.

But last week, an Anonymous-affiliated group announced in a YouTube video that it had created the "Fawkes virus," a sophisticated tool that would attack Facebook.

A handful of Twitter feeds widely acknowledged as being run by Anonymous members had made no mention of the Facebook posts Tuesday morning.

At least two members had previously distanced themselves from Operation Facebook, saying it was doomed to fail and that Anonymous is not a cohesive group with unanimously approved goals.

"Using a simple Facebook account, the worm can be carried into other accounts with little or no interaction," an automated voice says in the video posted on the account "AnonSecurity157." "We did not expect the intensity with which this would spread."

The video claims the worm can be controlled remotely and that once it's fully understood it "will use this to its advantage against corruption."

From: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/15/tech/social-media/facebook-porn-spam/index.html

Bengals Cheerleader Confronts Website Owner for Defamation of Character
Wednesday, November 09, 2011

 Imagine discovering one day, out of nowhere, someone is posting photos and spreading lies about you on the Internet -- lies that trash your character and impact your career. That’s exactly what happened to Sarah Jones.

Sarah Jones was living what she says was a normal life -- a high school English teacher in a relationship with a man she is now married to, and as a hobby, member of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleading squad. In October 2009 she received a call that changed her life. The phone call came from one the Bengals players who told her they saw a posting on TheDirty.com which claimed she had been spotted around town with a Cincinnati Bengals player and had sex with the entire Bengals football team.

“That's what it said,” says Jones. “That I had been seen out around Cincinnati with several football players… the picture is taken out of context because it's taken at a charity event we did for Toys for Tots.” After seeing the October postings on the website, where people are encouraged to “submit dirt,” she contacted the site and begged them to take it down.

Jones says that she kind of let it go after the October posting, but when she saw another posting in December, claiming she had STDs and had sex in her classroom, she says she broke down, threw up and had a panic attack.

Because local news got wind of the story, Jones contacted school officials. “One day I was this credible teacher that they looked up to and listened to,” says Jones. “The next day I was a slut to them. I had a student come in and say I cannot come into my classroom and learn because you had sex in here and you're a slut.”

Jones says she had to have a conversation with the 15-year-old students in her class to clear her name -- telling them she did not have an STD and does not sleep around.

“I don't teach elementary school. I teach high school,” says Jones. “These kids Google me. They see things. If it's on the Internet, it's real to them. They believe it.” Regardless of trying to clear her name, parents told Jones that they did not want their children in her class.

For the first time, Jones and the man responsible for TheDirty.com, Nik Richie, come face to face on “Anderson.”

“Nik, why did you create a site that allows people to spread lies and hurts people?” asks Anderson.

“Here's the thing, Anderson. It's more than just lies. TheDirty.com is the first ever reality Internet site. Reality TV is so big, I thought of an idea like no one's doing reality Internet. Let me start the site.”

Richie continues, “It's not lies. What we do is we get posts from all over the world. In Sarah's case, she was a cheerleader. People were submitting pictures of her half naked as a cheerleader, and she was a teacher. And since then, I apologized to this girl. She just is constantly going on.”

Jones says this is the first time she had had any contact with him. “This is not a battle between me and him,” says Jones. “He didn't post me on there. But it's his website. The fact that someone can sleep at night and have a website that ruins people’s lives, I didn't ask for this. I'm not a celebrity… I'm 26 years old… and the fact that he can do this to people, it's completely delusional to me.”

From: http://www.andersoncooper.com/2011/11/09/sarah-jones-nik-richie-bengals-cheerleader-confronts-website-owner-for-defamation-of-character/#ixzz1dFW85hOb

A Florida man was arrested for allegedly hacking into devices belonging to celebs like Scarlett Johansson and Christina Aguilera

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Federal authorities accuse a 35-year-old Florida man of hacking into computer accounts and other devices belonging to more than 50 people, including entertainers Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, Mila Kunis, Simone Harouche and Renee Olstead, officials announced Wednesday.

Christopher Chaney of Jacksonville, Florida, was indicted on charges of accessing protected computers without authorization, damaging protected computers, wiretapping and aggravated identity theft, officials said.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Chaney was able to access nude photos of some of the celebrities and some of them were uploaded on the Internet," U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said.

A recently circulated nude photo of Johannsson is part of the investigation, he said.

Chaney allegedly "also took identity information, movie scripts and conversations that the celebrities believed to be private," Birotte told reporters.

Chaney allegedly was able to access passwords by monitoring social media and other online sites that the celebrities used, said Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office.

Scarlett Johansson on privacy and stardom "It's simply that you may have selected a password that's meaningful to you that you may disclose online with friends," Martinez said. "Your pet's name or whatever. That's a clue to a hacker, to start there."

The suspect used several aliases such as "trainreqsuckswhat," "anonygrrl," and "jaxjaguars911," authorities said in a news release.

Chaney also allegedly used public sources to mine data about his victims, which included both males and females, all associated with the entertainment industry, authorities said.

He was scheduled to appear in a Jacksonville court Wednesday.

The FBI's Los Angeles office said he was arrested as part of "Operation Hackerazzi," which looked into computer intrusions targeting individuals associated with the entertainment industry.

The first real case of a celebrity hacking attack was in 2005, when hackers logged into Paris Hilton's phone and stole photos of her, according to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the F-Secure computer security company. Those hackers reportedly were able to break into Hilton's phone by correctly guessing the not-so-secret answer to her security question, which was "tinkerbell," the name of her pet Chihuahua.

In August, rapper Kreayshawn wrote on her blog that her Twitter account was hacked when naked photos of her showed up there.

In March, Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" underwent a similar ordeal after photos were reportedly stolen from her Gmail account.

And in December, police in Germany alleged two young men had used computer-hacking skills to gain access to the e-mail accounts and photos of more than 50 celebrities, according to Britain's The Telegraph, including the likes of Lady Gaga and Ke$ha.

In the wake of the latest celebrity hacking allegations, some have started to assume celebrity photo leaks are the newest front in the so-called "hacktivist" wars, waged by big-name hacking rings such as Anonymous and LulzSec. Those groups have claimed responsibility for taking down bank and government websites.

But security experts said connections between celebrity hackers and groups such as Anonymous are thin or nonexistent.

"It's obviously to gain media exposure, right?" said Kevin Mitnick, a hacker turned security consultant and author of "Ghost in the Wires." "It's like everyone is trying to one-up Anonymous and one-up LulzSec. So somehow celebrities are becoming a target."


From: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/12/showbiz/hacking-arrest/ 

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