Interesting stuff...

The internet has opened up a whole new can of worms for criminals in the last few decades. Social networking sites are easy gateways for hackers and criminals (such as sexual predators) to do their dirty deed. There have already been several malware attacks on the popular social networking site Facebook. A while ago, there was a malicious worm that was spreading through Facebook and its primary goal was installing Trojan Software on your computer. As of mid December, the worm remained active. Whether it still is or not, I'm not sure. Read this Tech Crunch article here. This is essentially how the virus/worm worked:

The worm spreads when a compromised user’s account is used to send message to others with a title such as “LOL. You’ve been catched on hidden cam, yo:” and a link to a random URL. The linked website is a YouTube-like page that shows a video player along with what looks like a standard browser message to update your Flash installation. Clicking on the button begins a malware installation of a file called “codecsetup.exe.” We didn’t go so far as to install the software, but our guess is that it zombies your computer, installs a keylogger, and other fun stuff.

Fun stuff indeed...

But wait! There's more...

Speaking of criminals, even more recently, (Thursday to be exact) a British man, 41 year old Edward Richardson, was jailed for at least 18 years. He and his wife, Sarah, had been living apart for a month or so, when Sarah changed her relationship status on Facebook to "Single." Richardson was furious, and became even more so when Sarah didn't respond to his texts. He broke into her parents house, where she was staying, and stabbed her, then attempted to take his own life. More from the American Free Press.

Anti-mafia activists in Italy are concerned about a pro-mafia Facebook page that suddenly sprang up.

"Fan clubs" of such jailed mafia bosses as Bernardo Provenzano, arrested in 2006 after nearly four decades on the run, and Toto Riina, nabbed in 1993 after 24 years at large, have appeared on Italian pages of the social networking site.

Apparently, the most alarming thing about these pages are that they attract far too many young people. One Anti-mafia activist says there should be laws against this against this kind of activity. In theory, any who join these Facebook groups could be punished. Many of the anti-activists can't agree on what to do about these Facebook pages and groups. Read the rest of this MSNBC Article.

Also: A safe burglar was nailed after images and a video of him was posted on Facebook. The man had tried to rob a safe at a local tavern, and was wearing a balaclava, but became too hot, and took it off. Whoops. Security cameras caught a glimpse of his face, and the video was posted on Facebook for all to see... Read this Reuter's Article.

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