A startup called FakeOFF is offering an online tool & Facebook app to help you find out whether your friends on Facebook are real. Well, not exactly to those lengths, but it does promise to help you weed out the fake Facebook accounts created for nefarious purposes.
Specifically speaking, FakeOFF scans your Facebook timeline activity to identify fake profiles. Once you have a list of suspects, the user, that is you, may do a basic investigation that pegs each suspect with a credibility score.
This is a free investigation that looks into the suspect’s timeline history for the last 10 days. You can upgrade the free service into a paid service that includes an advanced investigation.
This upgraded service takes a look at the timeline going back 365 days, & additionally includes checks into behavior history & profile image integrity, & optionally also gives you real-time alerts by checking new profiles as you add them.
Normally speaking, you wouldn’t be so concerned about a few fake Facebook Accounts mingling in with your real friends & followers on social networks. That’s part of the Internet times we live in now, just as ubiquitous as email spam. You just learn to ignore it.
But there are special circumstances in which it might call for taking action to get rid of the fakes. For example, parents monitoring the Online social life of their children might find it useful to make sure all their online friends are legit. Similarly, singles looking to find dates online may use this service to verify the authenticity of people they plan on going out with.
According to statistics cited by FakeOFF founder Eliran Shachar, about 10 % of Facebook users are fakes created for various reasons. They troll around looking for victims in various methods. Some are outright criminals that seek information & go for scams, identity theft or even physical break-ins & robberies. Others use these profiles to get people to click on links that install malware, spyware & viruses. Many are nutballs & twisted degenerate elements looking to victimize naïve kids & adults alike.
Whatever their intention, the method by which these people stalk their victims always involves fake profiles. It also allows the user to run the suspect’s profile image through a scanner to see if it has been used someplace Online, or is stolen by the suspect. Based on these & other behavioral patterns, FakeOFF will rank a suspect on a credibility score of 1-10.
FakeOFF is an Israeli startup founded in 2013 by Eliran Shachar. Click here to check out the Facebook app.
Image Credit: FakeOFF/Facebook/Twitter
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