It seems we never learn.  Despite endless warnings and news stories about identity theft, the vast majority of Internet users still freely pass out their personal information everyday.  In a recent experiment by security software firm Sophos, a random large selection of Facebook users were sent friend requests from fake users.  Not only were the usernames belonging to nonexistent people, their Facebook profile pictures were often random images, such as a photo of a toy frog, or a rubber ducky.  The tests were repeated over a two year period, between 2007 and 2009 and the results depict a rise in the number of fools who accepted the random friend requests.  By accepting these requests, the users would give up valuable information that was posted freely on their profiles, such as their full date of births, email addresses, and even their phone number.  4-6% of those in the test also gave out their full street addresses.  Pretty scary stuff.

“Ten years ago, it would have taken a con artist weeks, maybe with the help of a private investigator, to come up with this kind of information” says Graham Cluley, a UK Sophos researcher involved in the test.  Now, it would only take them a single click and the victims themselves basically hand over their identities.  Sopho’s experiment really hits home the fact that no matter how sophisticated the security systems, or how extensive a site’s privacy policies and settings may be, the first and strongest defense lies with the user.  If users continue to act stupidly, then well, stupid things will happen to them.  “Sometimes it seems that we’re in a classroom, and all the students are donkeys,” frets Cluley, about the situation of teaching basic Internet safety to users.  Sadly, he’s probably right, hee-haw.

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