Matthew Pucino’s photos used in social media profiles
A few years ago we wrote about Matthew Pucino’s sisters who helped authorities arrest Brandon Ashraf who was using their brother’s pictures in his dating profile. Matthew, a special forces soldier, had been killed years before in an IED explosion in Afghanistan.
According to Fox25, the sisters found more social media profiles using their brother’s pictures, eight years after his death;
[Lisa] Haglof said she reached out to Facebook, requesting they remove the accounts of “Damon Puccino,” “Dusstin Alex Puccino.” and “Emmanuel Pucino,” all containing her brother’s photos, stolen from the memorial page and other sites.
When the profiles weren’t immediately taken down, Boston 25 News reached out to Facebook by email. Although Facebook did not reply by late Monday night, the three accounts soon disappeared.
A dating profile on Match.com under the name, “Captain Smiley,” with a picture of Pucino, was finally taken down after Pucino’s family’s repeated attempts to have it removed, Haglof said.
Match.com did not reply to Boston 25 News’ email requesting information.
“It’s really sickening for our family to have to go through this constantly, and it’s a battle,” Haglof said. “Despicable. It’s disgusting, and these people can’t have any soul. I mean, who does that to a fallen soldier?”
I’ve been involved in countless instances of phony profiles on social media, and Facebook is probably the worst. One time, it was my name and photos used as a phony profile, but it was only Wittgenfeld trying to get you folks to give him your real names and contact information so he and Bernath could add you to the lawsuit. It took a few weeks to get Facebook to respond to the theft of my identity, and luckily, no one fell for it in the interim.
The Pucino sisters hope to change the stolen valor laws to include this type of theft. They really don’t have to, they only need a lawyer who can effectively argue in court that using military honors to meet dates is a “tangible benefit” covered by 18 USC 704 – the stolen valor law.
Category: Stolen Valor Act
I may be in the minority here, but Social media sites like Facebook make this kind of SV theft and assuming false identities easy and all but inevitable. My only advice is to stay away from Social Media things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. altogther…
Sadly, I think you are correct.
Until there is a MAJOR change in the character of this nation, for the better, this will continue.
A restoration of the old timey virtues …
I have not done any of the so-called social media thingies.
While they may be beneficial to a business that wants to draw customers, putting your personal stuff online in FB or the other sites, or doing stupid things like telling people you’re going on vacation to Whereverland, is an open invitation to be hit with this kind of fraud, never mind the rest of it.
I have a lot of sympathy for these two sisters. I hope they look at this as a battle that is worth fighting. No, they should not have to go through it again and again, but until someone sues the pants off Zuckerberg, it won’t stop.
Unfortunately, just burying your head in the sand is an ineffective method for dealing with Social Media. Whether we like it or not (and it has definite pros and cons), Social Media in all its various forms isn’t going to go away. Therefore a trained awareness is the only real option available. We also have to ensure that the training includes a full course in what I like to call ‘motivated skepticism’. Educate friends, family, and kids as to what Social Media is and how it can be abused. It will eventually become a common awareness. Similar to how we would think twice before going down a dark alley in New York when someone offers you free candy. Of course there are still some people who’ll go down that alley (he had an Oh Henry!), but the majority will learn how to stay safe.
I think that initially, Facebook allowed people to put their best foot forward. It also created a culture of allowing people to be who they wanted to be, not necessarily who they were. With people willing to call others on Stolen Valor, it may have created a sobering effect on some that they should not color outside the lines or they will be found out.
Facebook claims several billion accounts, but I think many of them are cobweb profiles or false accounts (as above). There should be more of a crackdown but perhaps Facebook has not worked through the logistics yet. I’ve seen where they ask for a valid ID when they question the name on the account.
That and never forget, Facebook was started as a way to invite people to college parties, and more specifically, rate the women guys might find at those parties.. the fact that Zuckerberg found a way to make money off it doesn’t change why he started it.
There was an interview last wek with one of the Facebook founders in which he admited that the entire design of Facebook was intentionally done to make people waste the absolute maximum amount of time on it. It is no more unintentionaly addictive or time-absorbing than heroin… (although there is a great story about when the fella first refined heroin as a non-addictive substitute for opium: he tried it on himself and several lab assistants with no ill effects. The odds against six people all being resistant to heroin addiction is on the order of billions to one… but all of them were. No idea if it is urban legend or not.)
I use Facebook to keep in contact with my siblings, children (yes, even though they also tabernacle on the GB Compound), and multitudinous nieces, nephews, and greats-.
I also advocate strongly the concept of operational security even in their civilian lives, and limit (as much as FB’s ever-changing pseudo-privacy standards allow) who can see what.
Some things to remember:
Facebook doesn’t give a rats adz about your privacy, just about making a buck selling access to you to different companies wanting to make a buck.
The is Absolutely. Nothing. that is secure on any website. The only way to keep something private is to never put it anywhere on the internet.
View everything – an email, a FB message, click-bait, everything – as a possible scam.
Use the mechanisms that are provided to block things you do not want to see. I spent several years working on the spam filter of my email account, and now very little junk gets through. I have started blocking things on FB that my FB-friends share so I no longer see the garbage I don’t want to see. Over time I hope that this will screen things down to just the things about them personally that we want to share (how cute their kids/grandkids are, for instance) and screen out the Professionally Generated Outrage Page garbage.
I think it is working to an extent. FB doesn’t quite know how to target me for ads.
It helps to have add-ons on the browser of choice to destroy trackers and cookies, to reduce the chance of FB or others knowing what other webpages you have visited. Making it a practice to only go to a social media or store site after opening the browser fresh helps, too.
Never trust The Man Behind the Screen.
If you are not paying for a product, then -you- are the product.
Yep. Very succinctly said, 11B.
Unless you are Amish, your have a digital footprint.
I do like FaceBook to stay in touch with my Army buddies, class mates, co-workers/colleagues and family that are spread to the four corners of the Earth.
Plus, sometimes I just want to be anti-social but still communicate.
Everything in moderation.
Recently, Facebook was advocating people sending in their nude photos so they could scan them in and cut down on revenge porn. The idea was that Facebook would recognize the photo if posted and block it.
Why can’t they do the same thing with this family? Just a thought.
Send nude pics to Facebook? Yeah, like they’ll keep them REALLY well secured.
They do such a great job policing fake accounts now.
Ha!
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/facebook-revenge-porn-nude-photos
Before people start sending in their resume to work in this new Facebook department, consider that a good portion of these photos are probably really nasty and not in a porn-nasty way. Just like the people that go to nude beaches are not pre-approved.
I would question – seriously question – and social site that told me to send nekkid photos, period. In fact, I think I’d file a complaint with the Feebees about it just to find out how long it took Zuckerberg to stop collecting porn.
Shitbags….there are plenty of women out there who find just about any jerkoff worth some time.
There’s no reason to do this, unless you are one slimy piece of shit which appears to be the case for lots of these assclowns.
I thought this was pertinent to the discussion:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/an-alarming-number-of-sites-employ-privacy-invading-session-replay-scripts/
Summary: They are watching every move you make, and recording it.
Face Book has hundreds of thousands of “fake” profiles.
I help admin a page called “Stop Military Romance Scammers”. Iv’e been doing it for going on four years and I get numerous messages from people ( mostly women) who ask if the guy they are talking to is a fake.
I’ve never had a single one who was real. Sometimes I can make them aware before it’s too late, but often they have already sent money to an “agent” in Nigeria.
I went back and counted up the total amount that was reported to me over the past few years. I’m sure I missed some, plus not all victims I talk to admit they have sent money, but the total sum I counted was over $325,000.00 Dollars.
The vast majority of these fake profiles are set up from Nigeria or Ghana. Any change in stolen Valor Laws isn’t going to affect them any more than changing the speed limit in Butte Montana. They are out of reach of US authorities and their Governments welcome the cash
An addendum: I just ran across this.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a13819012/google-android-phone-cell-tower-tracking/
Google is tracking you by your phone even when you try to take steps to prevent that.
Between Google and Facebook, we have the foundation for the Big Brother of 1984. With the advances made in data mining, all sorts of personal information can be deduced from both what we say or post online, and where we go.
Does that make you warm and fuzzy about the gun control group?