Piracy, a Journey to the Deepest Ocean Of Crime…

Today, we’ll talking about Piracy, a word that so popular among us, especially to bloggers and hackers. Piracy is an activity consisted of steal and robs, acclaiming the properties of another person or organization illegally. Piracy seems to have its glorious century over 100 years ago, when pirates conquered The Great Ocean, and time where enslaving, cannonballs, sexual abuse and also fluffy white wig became popular at that time. Well, thanks to modernization and Navies. Those bloody Pirates glorious day has ended. But their trace and lifestyle still exist until now…

Piracy in Modern Day…

Well basically, piracy can be applied to anything. Starts from a delicious candy bar to some luxurious cruise ships. But unlike the old days, we don’t use Wrecky Ships and eye patch anymore, but using more modern stuff, range from simple rusty crowbar, to hi-tech computers. Looks like the modernization got it dark side huh? Haha.

Nowadays the most common and easiest to find is digital piracy, or usually called as “hacking”. And I believe that 75% of your software are cracked or keygen-ed, because mine’s too! Sadly embarrassing but that’s true. By using simple hacking software, a hacker can crack “paid” software to be “free” one instantly. Truly this helped lot of peoples, but how about the developers? They’ll break for sure. And even that software is protected by law, it will have no use as long as the hackers keep growing and develop more ways to crack it. Pitiful, but kinda cool: D

But now, we’ll talk about a unique piracy, I call it “Identity Piracy”. Basically it happens when an impostor took another person identity and uses it as his own. Purpose? Popularity and Fame my friend. As stupid as it heard, but it’s true. The most common and easy examples can be found inside the social network. Why Social Network? Well, in social network, we don’t have to talk, and chat face 2 face with other people right? Social network mostly only provide a profile picture and simple identity data as a representation of the user, which is can be easily copied and recreated as new user with identical data. Except for the e-mail :D.

Let’s forget about famous person such as actors, actress, celebrities, singer etc. They’ll definitely have lot of fake accounts. Example: go to facebook.com and type: “Hugh Jackman”, and as you can see the result, over than 1000 accounts listed with same name, similar profile picture, and same info page.  

Now, this is why I said “unique”. I’ve studied some identity piracy cases in facebook.com. Aside from Celebrities, there also a surprisingly lot of fake account from non celebrity victims! Wow, Piracy has influenced to a lower level now. They are normal people: University students, young businessman, teachers, bodybuilders (no kidding!), some sport players, even elementary school children! So what makes they became so popular among impostors? Sadly, fame and popularity, again. Looks like the more friends ya got in a social network, the higher your importance inside that network. Similar like real life huh? Foolishly try to be a celebrity inside network, shameful and stupid thing to do. But sadly, it worked! Almost every impostor accounts I’ve checked, they have more than 1000 friends/followers! So, what happen to the victims? Are they tortured?! Well mentally yes. You’ll also piss off when someone stole your damn photos and using is as their own right?

Okay, now let me show you some of the victims of Identity Piracy in Indonesia. I got lots of them in my list, so I will only put one of them, one of the most famous actually. Sorry for the inconvenience! 

Meet Zimmy, one of “The Most Famous Victim of Identity Piracy” in Indonesia. Sorry I dunno his full name, cuz’ there are lots account with different names. Well, probably most of you, Indonesian Facebookers have already seen his face at least once right? Haha. I can tell ya that almost 30% Indonesian Facebookers are impostors. Shame!! XD. so what makes Zimmy became popular among impostors inside Facebook.com?

 Help yourself with these photos ‘kay? 

Good Looks, check.

A young businessman I guess, check.

Good body build. Gays and Girls love it, check.

 Another one.

(Courtesy: Zimmy and Facebook.com :D, I really wanna ask for permission, but I dunno which one is the real account :P ah well.. May God Forgive Me :P)


UPDATE: Finally got the permission! XD Thanks a lot to The Real Zimmy for the permission!

Well then, have you got the answer yet? Hehe.

Further investigation indicated that most of Zimmy’s Impostor accounts are 98% Gay 0_0 .

 Wew very surprising isn’t? Ha-ha, no. Seems that Homosexuals these days, prefer stealing other people’s identity to attract crowds and gaining popularity. Some stupid thing to do, I guess the day when truth and royalty has ended huh? And the Mayan’s prophecy’s gonna be true for sure..

So, which kind of peoples who can be a potential victim of this piracy?

Well, glad ya asked, after some investigation on this case for months, I can give ya some hints;

Characteristic of people who have HIGH possibilities of being pirated:

1.     1.  The potential victim is a person with attractive looks aka handsome or beautiful face, typical young person. Usually around age 20 – 28 Years old.

2.      2. College students, Young Businessman, a model, or sport player or any occupation that involves hanging out and attractive other than public figures.

3.      3. The person is (pardon me) “mixed” or “Blasteran”. Usually between Indo-American and so. Indonesian gays and girls nowadays love with blasteran peoples. They say, “wanna fix their generations” hehe. Indonesian jokes.

4.     4.  The person often/always active in a social network. A common knowledge again.

5.     5.  A high piracy possibility to account with lots of uploaded photos. (The more photos you uploaded about you, the more peoples think that your account is real, and of course, made you more popular. Common knowledge)

6.       6. The person have uploaded lots of photos of themselves in some “sexy” pose (The males bare-chested and the females in bikini and so, you got the general idea). A photo or two is fine, but if you made 2-5 albums with your “Half-nude” photos inside, your potential of being pirated, even hacked is higher.

7.     7.  Etc.

Well, that just some of them, if I make a list, it will take a whole week. Sorry for the inconvenience again.

Oouukay! We already talked about the possibilities of the victim, now we’ll move to the important things! How to Differ and examine the impostor accounts! Let me tell ya, it’s damn difficult. But after studying the pattern of more than 30 impostor accounts. Well we got the pattern! it may be not much, but well, I tried. Hope it helps!

Characteristic of Impostor account:

1.    1.   The impostor usually  using account names that include unusual names, like: Cute, Chibi, Macho, Hunk, etc. The purpose is to attract other user to visit their profile page, example: “Agus Macho”, from this account name suggest that he is a masculine hunk, so other user will find this interesting and visit his profile & later add/follow him. But they don’t know what his face like.

2.      2. Their profile picture uses an attractive victim photos. In most impostor male accounts, they usually use a photo of the victim bare-chested or even almost naked (got the general idea?). The idea is to show that they are sexy and attractive :P. This is why victim with attractive body usually got pirated.

3.      3. They only provide a little information about themselves on the info page. They usually didn’t provide a biography (or just short ones), workplace, and even their city. To avoid being traced I guess. But this is what makes them easily to detect. Pay attention to this!

4.      4. If you are being friend with them, they usually won’t chat or reply your comment or post. Usually they only put a status or tweet or anything you called (like, “I’m alone, want a company”), and wait to see lots of comments growing on it. They RARELY reply your comment.  Again to avoid being detected. But not to say everyone who doesn’t wanna chat with you is impostor. No no no,(probably they just can’t stand with your breath haha, bad joke).

5.      5. Inside their account. They uploaded lots of albums that showed their attractiveness. (Bare-chested, swimsuit photos, bikinis you got the general idea). Again to say, victim who uploaded their “attractiveness” photos are in High potential of being pirated.

When you comment “What a nice body!” or “You are so sexy, babe I want you” then they’ll reply. But if you ask “Is this really you?” or even “Your photos are all fake! They were belonging to my friend!” they won’t comment, or even delete your comment. To avoid being detected I guess.

Note: This happens to me a LOT of times. I ended being blocked by them. Haha

6.    6.   Etc.

Well then, we already talked about The Identity Piracy, The possibilities of which account mostly being pirated, How to recognize impostors, and then now, How to prevent this. Well then, fire it away!

How to Prevent Identity Piracy:

1.     1,  Water is the source of life, and Watermark is your source of savior! By putting a semi-transparent or bold (For safety) Watermark can prevent this abomination. Those damn fool impostors can’t erase watermark easily right? Use your unique word that represent you, again NOT NAMES. Names can easily be copied, use your e-mail address instead. Put the watermark on a place that makes impossible to impostor to erase or crop. Do not put watermark on top, side, or bottom of your photos, as they can easily crop the watermark. Put it around faces, shirt or so. Thanks to Zimmy for the inspiration!

2.      Your E-mail is your fingerprint. It means cannot be faked, and of course cannot be copied. As you can see, you never be able to create same e-mail address twice. No no sir, except if you use different mail service. Example: your e-mail address is ilovepeanut@gmail.com, and then you can’t create another ilovepeanut account in gmail. But another person can use different mail service (Ymail for example) to impose yours.  ilovepeanut@ymail.com and ilovepeanut@gmail.com are similar, but impostor can use simple trick to impose it like: i.lovepeanut@gmail.com. Almost similar right? Then one way to stop it is “Use your E-Mail Address as Watermark for your photos” it’s simple, easy and safe.

3.   2.   Do not put too much unnecessary information to your info page. To avoid being pirated, and to avoid mass wave of impostors, and of course uninvited guests to your house.

4.      3. Do not upload your “attractive” Photos too much. An album or two of watermarked photos is fine, but if you wanna uploaded lots of them, better armed them with watermark of your e-mail address. Again place the watermark on a place where it’s impossible to crop or erase.

5.      4. Forge an alliance! Your friends will always here for ya. Be kind to other peoples, if they post something, comment it, have lots of chat, and like like like. Doing this will prove you are real person and gained allies. So if you sight an Impostor account using your photos, you can ask your friends to report it. Remember two is better than one, but 2000 is better than two.

6.    5.  Poison or Honey? Pick your friends carefully. When you accept a friend request, check if they are good friend, if their info page provide some unusual info, or if their photos is fake (Using another person photo), don’t accept them! Making them as your friends also mean welcoming them to scouted and steal your photos. If they have mutual friends with you, ask the mutual friend if he/she is trustable. Checking them one by one when you have 30+ Friend request is pain in the ass, but if you already armed ALL of your photos with watermark, you can lower your guard a little.

7.    6.   Etc etc etc. Use your creativity and intelligence, I already showed you the ropes, now you have to climb. Sorry for the inconvenience

Well then, that’s concluding our talk about piracy! Wew, it’s a hard thing to write this article ya know. Hope this little writing of mine will help all of you who in trouble J afterall, helping peoples is fun XD.

Ah yeah, if you have any problem, concern, question, suggestion, critic, or you don’t wanna your photos to be displayed in this article, contact me RIGHT AWAY, (I’ll delete it only if you can Prove you are the real person ) to my facebook (yoga.lionheart@gmail.com).

As closing I will show you a great masterpiece of Zimmy’s Sketch by Great Artist Julian Kiba! Thanks Julian, You are the best! XD. and also some other photos from “The Most Famous Victim of Identity Piracy” in Indonesia. I’m sure their faces are familiar to you!

Have a nice day! Wait for the next post!

“Zimmy in Sketches”

Thanks Julian XD

“The Most Famous Victim of Identity Piracy” 

Indonesia

(No Names included, as there are many accounts with same photos with different names)

Smile for The Future :)

Disclaimer: All of the photos belong to their respective owner, there is no intend to make profit from them or claim of the properties of the photos in any way.