Skip to main content

How I Used MySpace to Catch a Thief...

by Paula Neal Mooney

There was a certain photographer (who shall still remain nameless as long as he no longer bugs me 'cause I'm not trying to completely ruin his life) that contacted me with an over-inflated invoice because I'd attached a pic he took to one of my articles.

He'd displayed it on the web without those cool logos that legit places like Big Stock Photo splash across their copyrighted pics, so I considered it fair game...

Anyway, after I got Mr. Shady Photog's email, I removed the photo and went on with life till I heard that said photographer was trying to extract all kinds of crazy payments from another related site for copyright infringement.

Help me, Holy Spirit, I prayed.

As God always comes thru so creatively for me, He told me to do a little digging into this shady photog's life.

I did so and found his MySpace page.

Setting myself up with a profile of a pretty blonde white woman, I contacted the photog and pretended to be a poor, gorgeous, model-in-waiting ready to do anything for free sexy pics.

The horny (and possibly married with kids) photog took the bait and engaged in a conversation that described exactly what illegal and bad-for-business situations he'd provide free pics.

Snap! I had him.

I saved record of our email conversation and told him I was filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau -- the logo that the Lord showed me in visions.

Thankfully, I never heard from shady sleazy guy again.

Which just go to show you, people could be talking to anyone on MySpace.

I'm not beyond using a myspace chat conversation tracker program, who's sponsoring this post thru PayPerPost.

Looks like this Spector Pro does everything, including recording every chat, IM, email, web site URL, search terms, keystrokes and the like.

PC Magazine selected it as an Editors’ Choice, and I trust and respect PC Magazine.

My mom snooped on me and I hated it back then but I don't really blame her now.

Yes, it's nice to foster the close relationship with tweens and tweens and probably 5-year-olds that now know how to chat on MySpace, but I'm all for parents (and cheated-upon wives and cuckolds) staying ahead of the technology game and finding out about their loved ones' travel plans before they hop aboard jets to the Middle East to meet some stranger in person that they met on MySpace.


There's my two techie cents.

Bookmark http://www.paulamooney.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for another two techie cents tomorrow.


Tags: , , ,

Comments

Anonymous said…
I couldn't agree more with Paula. Parental control software has been many, many uses beyond just keeping your children safe online. Last year we purchased a program called PC Tattletale which is a Internet monitoring software
with the intention of monitoring my teenage sons online behavior. But as it turned out we were able to find out that someone was trying to access our computer and that we were about to be a victim of identity theft. As it turns out, my son had given out personal information on my space, which he now knows not to do.
Anonymous said…
Congrats on the achievement. Working online as a travel agent home based, it is important to look for online and internet travel theft too. It is good to be aware, just in case.

Popular posts from this blog

Paula's List of Blogger Salaries...Are you on the list?

Update: For those who continue to enjoy this post, check out my website about 50 real online people making more than $50k per year , and my page where I update my online salary . UPDATE: Before you read any further or especially link to this old list, please check out "Paula's New List of Blogger Salaries (and Webmasters, Affiliate Marketers, Content Scrapers, Domainers and any other title you can think of) June 2007" by clicking here! ~ Thanks, PAULA NEAL MOONEY by Paula Neal Mooney One of my favorite features in Parade magazine is the issue where they grab a random sampling of people and report their incomes -- from the millionaires to the working poor. Since I'm fascinated with how much money bloggers and webmasters are making nowadays, I've created a similar list -- a random sampling of people making money on the net. Who's on Paula's List of Blogger and Webmaster Salaries? I spent hours and hours scouring the internet for the last-reporte

Paula's New List of Blogger Salaries (and Webmasters, Affiliate Marketers, Content Scrapers, Domainers and any other title you can think of) June 2007

FIND OUT HOW MUCH BLOGGERS REALLY MAKE ONLINE -- CHECK OUT THIS NEW WEBSITE ABOUT MONEY-MAKING ONLINE CALLED 50 OVER $50K... by Paula Neal Mooney The time has come. The time is now. Paula N. Mooney will you please publish that list now?! (Yes, I fancy Dr. Seuss' iambic pentameter.) My WebMaster blest me with a viral post called "Paula's List of Blogger Salaries," and the response was so wonderful, here lies an update. It's bigger and better than ever before with more pics, and double the amount of bloggers, webmasters, domainers, affiliate marketers (or a smidgen of some or all of those titles) and their reported incomes. How Much Do You Make? Money is funny. The abundance of it, the lack of it, the subject of cash in general gets attention. While some invoke their choice not to post their online income nor discuss it at all, I've always been of the Suze Orman mindset ever since I read her first book. Suze encourages people to talk ab

Digg.com's Autobury Secret Blacklist...Are you still being banned by automatic burying?

UPDATE: PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK TO DIGG THIS STORY AND TELL DIGG TO PLAY FAIR... by Paula Neal Mooney Many of us know the power of Digg.com, dreamed up by Kevin Rose, who touted it as a "user driven" site that says it allows the general public to determine the stories they want to see make it to the front page by voting for interesting articles they find across the web. The more votes the public gives an article, the better chance it should have to make it to the front page. Theoretically... The power of Digg's front page Digg.com -- according to Alexa -- is now more popular than The New York Times. Getting one of your articles or blog posts to the front page of Digg.com will get your website seen by plenty of eyes. John Chow experienced a one-day traffic record of 55,856 page views when one of his posts hit the front page of Digg. Digg Bans Domains...then Supposedly Unbans Them One day, Digg banned me -- I'm still not clear why. I found out they banned a whole bun