Woman's Life Is Hijacked Online

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Online Hooligans Hijack Woman's Life
Someone Creates MySpace Page With Woman's Picture, Info

Posted: 5:12 am CST November 21, 2008
Updated: 5:55 am CST November 21, 2008

Omaha, Neb. -- Social networking is a popular way to reconnect with old friends and make new ones online. But it's not always easy to know whether the people with whom you're connecting are the people they claim to be.

Reporters with TV station KETV searched Facebook and found five "Marg Helgenbergers," 18 "Joba Chamberlains" and 26 "Warren Buffetts."

While fake pages may be designed for fun, one Omaha woman learned that they can be humiliating, frustrating and even dangerous.

Shanae Starks said she's been under attack for weeks.

"I thought, 'Oh, this could cost me my life,'" she told KETV reporters.

She said someone created a phony MySpace page that appears to be hers.

"It's not my page, but that's my face," she said.

Friends called Starks, surprised that she was on MySpace. She said she was surprised to learn that someone had posted photos of her and such personal information as her workplace and the type of car she drives. The site even included explicit messages.

Starks said she has no idea who might have done it.

Her embarrassment turned to fear when those messages started including threats and comments about gangs.

"I have never felt so stressed and depressed," Starks said. "I was crying at work and everything, like, this is out of my control! I cannot do anything about this page!"

Starks contacted police, who filled out an information report but told her there wasn't much else they could do.

"It doesn't fall into any one statute," said La Vista, Neb., police cyber crimes specialist Brad Wood. He said phony pages may be unethical but they're not illegal.

"To find out the identity of the person doing it, generally we have to get a subpoena and send that to MySpace or Facebook," Wood said. "(We) send another subpoena to their Internet service provider."

He said if the person is outside of the state of Nebraska, it might take even more work than that.

"At most, you might be looking at a disturbing the peace (charge), which is a misdemeanor," Wood said. "Since it doesn't really fit the crime that well, it doesn't really justify an in-depth investigation into that."

Is the danger enough to make a social cyber-butterfly stop networking online? Kayla Carter, the director of graduate programs with Bellevue University's College of Information Technology, said no.

"I think the think to keep in mind about technology is that it's neutral," Carter said. "It's not good or bad in itself. It's what people choose to do with it."

Starks said that after making several requests, MySpace removed the fake page.

"By the time I finally got home from work at 6 o'clock, there was another page with my picture on there," Starks said. "All I could say was, it's not me! And I apologize if anyone got a message from a Shanae page, but it's not me at all."

Distributed by Internet Broadcasting.

[Lee]

Something like this is unethical, immoral and dangerous. If it is not illegal,
it should be. When will laws be made to stop something like this? Probably
not before someone is killed by someone who was sent a message that gets
them mad by someone who was not the actual person believed to have sent
the message.