A Catfish Stole My Identity | Hacker News Reader

A Catfish Stole My Identity

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61 pointsalxhill41 comments

I hope he asked the writer for permission before posting a private message. That message contains a lot of very personal information.

This worried me as well. I didn't read the whole letter, but there wasn't anything at the start or end about "feel free to tell the whole internet my full name and location, that I'm bisexual, and all of this other stuff about me."

For everybody who doesn't know where that catfish use comes from (I didn't):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)

Probably itself a "fake documentary": "why the filmmakers would begin obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship so early on."

I vaguely remember seeing the trailers for this in the theaters and thinking at the time "oh great, another fake 'documentary', just what we need". So yeah, it does not surprise me in the least that it was most likely faked (or at least partially faked). It had been a while since I saw the trailer and I didn't remember the name of the movie, so thanks for putting these two together, I never would have connected the two otherwise.

Fake or not, it's a really great movie. Recommended to anyone on HN looking for movie suggestions.

> Probably itself a "fake documentary": "why the filmmakers would begin obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship so early on."

That's actually a common theme in a lot of documentaries, including critically acclaimed ones.

I have to wonder whether there is an easy technical countermeasure to catfishing, or whether human psychology will always be the insurmountable hurdle here.

It seems like it would be easy to verify that a given message is from a particular internet pseudonym, or to construct a challenge that would be easy for a real person to respond to, but difficult for a catfish. We've had proof of life from kidnappers seeking ransoms before the Internet even existed, after all.

If you ever watched the Catfish movie or the MTV show, you'll notice that the common element is that the victims all have an overwhelming desire for their relationship to be non-fraudulent, to the point where they actively ignore any and all warning signs. Is there something that people with low technical ability can do to verify online counterparties that cannot be affected by their desire for the results to come out in a particular way?

Google image search the user images

PGP.

"low technical ability."

Exactly. A good portion of people appearing in episodes of the MTV show Catfish do not have non-phone computers, and carry on their fake relationships via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and sometimes voice calls. It often takes only seconds for the two guys running the docu-drama reality show to determine that the victim of the week is being conned, and image search and reverse phone number lookups are always the first two things they do.

It would have to be something that social media companies or telecoms would do, on the same order of difficulty as poking a button on your iPhone app, or dialing a phone service code like *57.

PGP is essentially useless for verifying the identities of people you've never met who are not well-known.

Without a chain of intermediaries, anyway.

proof pics

time stamp and shoe on head

Shoes don't belong on heads; don't you walk on the streets with those things?

But yeah, how about "write blahblah on a piece of paper, hold it up and take a pic, now" (no time for photoshopping...).

BillG did it for Reddit; surely an online romantic interest won't object if it'll settle your mind.

Or... they will mind, and that's not a good sign at all.

Video chat is probably the most effective.

Felt a lot like a Radiolab story, somehow. Maybe the weird melancholy of the "I still feel that I'm your friend, though you're not mine, and that's alright" note it left out on. Strikes a similar emotional chord to, say, knowing someone with dementia.

(That, and as a writer, it really kind of makes me want to see the "intuitive narrative conclusion": the blogger and the victim becoming real friends. But it's left without that resolution, because that's what life really is like.)

I've never heard of "catfishing" before. I'm inferring it means "impersonating"?

"Catfishing" describes con schemes that involve the mark developing a trusting (usually romantic) relationship with a fictional person.

In the most common form, the conman finds a guy on a dating site, and pretends to be a girl who is interested. The relationship escalates for a few months, including swapping risque photos, until they try to meet in person (the fictional identity is always several states away). The conman than uses the pretense of logistical barriers and bad luck to extort cash from the mark, while delaying the in-person meeting ('my connecting flight through Detroit canceled, and I don't have money for a hotel! please wire me two hundred dollars ;_;'). The mark gets increasingly distraught and desperate, and is too emotionally involved to realize he is being lied to.

Probably the most famous catfishing case in the last year was college football player Manti Te`o's fictional dead girlfriend (which does not completely follow the textbook outline above): http://deadspin.com/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-hear...

The Te’o case, as you mention, doesn’t follow the outline above, because to many, there is the definite possibility that Te’o was in a homosexual relationship with the person involved (that claimed to have hoaxed him), and that this spin was much more damage control for Te’o (given that the NFL does not have an ‘out’ gay player).

I believe it was coined by this movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_%28film%29

And the ensuing TV show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish:_The_TV_Show

I had to look this term up too. It apparently is related to a 2010 movie 'Catfish'... as described elsewhere here.

This may come off as jokative, but the people that are tricked could always ask for a picture of the person with a newspaper or a love note for proof that they are talking to the actual person, and not just some impersonator.

Personally, I can't get past the fact of falling for someone online. Just today I met one of my online professors and it was awkward, yet online we're both very chatty.

Tragic. I still don't get the objective of the person pulling these scams: it doesn't seem they want money or fame or any of the 'normal' drivers. Are the scammers typically lonely individuals or are they suffering from some social disorder such that they are rewarded by others' pain?

The objective isn't necessarily malicious, for people with very low self esteem and disdain for themselves it can be nice to talk to someone without any personal baggage, it can be nice to be someone interesting for once and once your in too deep there's no coming back, admitting your identity is fictional is a death sentence for the relationship.

I agree with this. Someone who doesn't want to be who they are -- which is sometimes a reason people to into acting -- or wants to have, as you said, no personal baggage. I kind of see it as fiction writing for lazy people: instead of creating a cast of characters, the "scammer" focuses on one in great detail. This person has the excitement of studying another person's identity through their photos and/or videos and making up an entire fictional identity around it.

I can only speak for the people portrayed on Catfish: The TV Show

They all have various somewhat complicated reasons for "catfishing." These are people who 1)agree to meet/give up their true selves 2)agree to appear on TV

Some people do it for revenge.

Some do it for escape.

Some do it because they have self esteem and body issues and don't mean any harm to the person they catfish.

One guy admitted doing it to "brush up on his game" or something of that nature.

One person was catfished by her best friend who set up the fake profile to help get her out of a serious depression after (if I remember) a death of someone close. The friend even went so far as to have her male cousin be the voice.

Some people do it because they know the person in real life, have secret feelings for them but won't admit it to them, so they create a fake profile to catfish the person and act out their fantasies that way.

It is an interesting look into human nature if nothing else. Some mean harm, but many do not. It is a common theme in the body image catfishers to say "Everything I told you is true, my feelings are real, I just look different."

Of course - some will also do it for money!

My roommate repeatedly gets catfished on dating sites. It's kinda sad but he's just an easy mark. At least I've talked him into not giving strangers over the internet money (though he'll still occasionally give $20 but never more at least now).

It's a shame too, because he's not a dumb guy at all.

Dumb is defined as "lacking intelligence or good judgment".

Sounds pretty dumb to me.

Well, yeah, I hear you, but everyone has their area. I know folks with Ph.D.s who fail at simple stuff.

This is the first I've heard the term catfishing. Can someone provide a more concrete definition? Is it simply pretending to be someone else online?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)

It originates from a movie, and is also now a TV show.

A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catfish

I was hoping this would turn out to be some bizarre tale of monkey-wrenching, involving high school student RFID tags, or a lost RFID debit card, or some such thing, and a scientific study that involved tagging catfish, to study their migration patterns.

C'est la vie...

Well worth reading, if only to be someone else for a moment and also to remember that internet is a harsh place. I really feel for this person.

Am i the only one who thinks it was kind of fucked up to publish the victim's name?

Urban Dictionary definition of "catfish": http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catfish

Doesn't sound real. Maybe it's fictional piece writen out of sheer creativity of that guy or for promotional purposes?

I just got an email this morning that someone tried to sign me up for Kik. I was able to disable the service through that email.

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