Hi Yash & SM,
> Did you create a fake profile on Facebook?
I am sure that many of us did create a fake Facebook profile when many
websites started implementing the "Facebook login / signup" feature.
Surely we did not want any of our private information leaking out to
these websites by any mean and as such took what we think was the
safest route.
> Could you be identified from information from the fake account and a
> database?
When designing the database for a website, often a table is created to
hold all the "SESSION" information of the users. This is a transaction
table (meaning its content is bound to change a lot in a small space of
time) but if a snapshot (table was exported containing data over a
specific amount of time) was taken, information about any individual
using the website could be extracted. These includes, but is not limited
by, the browser user agent (which contains information about the browser
and operating system of the user), a session id which can uniquely
identify a user session on the website and the IP address of the user.
This "session" table is often related to a master table like the users
table where information of the fake account might be stored. Doing a
simple analysis then, can relate the session information extracted to
the fake account you created. However, identifying who is behind the IP
address is of another story but the IP address in itself is an important
piece of information for anyone willing to trace back someone on the
internet. (Do note that if you used an anonymous proxy, tracing back to
you will be more challenging).
> What if a criminal gains access to your personal information?
It all depends on what the criminal intends to do. Most of the time your
personal information will be used create a fake persona behind which the
criminal will perform his mischievous acts. This effectively add another
layer of security for him as any attempt of tracing that criminal back
will redirect to you. It joins a bit with the topic of using Wi-Fi on a
public network where anyone with enough knowledge can pretend to be you
by spoofing (temporarily changing) their MAC address to yours.
Regards, Mike
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Received on Sun Jan 31 2016 - 16:06:24 PST