False friends: How fake Facebook profiles open the door to monitoring
Lauren Cohn, a pre-med Weinberg freshman, likes tennis, debate, John Mayer and Grey’s Anatomy. She has 143 Facebook friends at Northwestern, and, judging by her profile, is an average student here.
Except that officials at her high school and Northwestern say they have no record of her.
“You know, I’m not seeing a Lauren Cohn,” said Martha Conger of Northwestern’s Office of the Registrar. “There’s no Lauren Cohn at the university.”
Corky Kapp works at Watkinson School in Hartford, Conn., the high school Cohn lists in her profile. Cohn did not attend Watkinson last year, Kapp said.
“I can completely assure you she did not graduate from here in 2007,” said Kapp, a program assistant in Watkinson’s college counseling center. “We have a very small class and I work very closely with all the students. There was no student here by that name.”
The Facebook profile of Lauren Cohn suggests how easy it is for anyone to create an account and gain access to other people’s profiles and photos. Some Northwestern students are concerned someone may use the profile to bust them for drinking or other policy violations. Her number of Northwestern friends has dropped rapidly over the past week, from 189 to 143.
Freshman Kameron Rezzadeh fears officials might use false Facebook accounts to view student profiles. He said he tells others about profiles he finds questionable.
“I just do my part in terms of spreading the word because I don’t want my friends to get in trouble,” Rezzadeh said.
Messages to Cohn’s account were not answered.
Northwestern officials declined to comment on whether they use or would consider using a false Facebook account to gain access to students’ information. But in general, they said, they would not rule out using information found through Facebook, or other Web communication, in disciplinary matters.
“The police make every effort to maintain the overall safety of the community, and there may be times when that requires investigative methods the students do not agree with,” said Daniel McAleer, assistant chief of university police. He declined to specify what methods police use.
Facebook isn’t the only resource police would consider using, he said. Messages from other sites, such as Evite, are another.
“If somebody sends an [online] invitation with many recipients and some of those recipients happen to be administrators… how do you ignore that?” McAleer said.
NU’s new director of judicial affairs, James Neumeister, has not been here long enough to comment on the school’s policy about the use of online information for disciplinary actions, he said. But he said that such use can’t be ruled out.
“If someone told us there was information on Facebook that pertained to an ongoing investigation or case, we would consider it,” Neumeister said.
When asked for an interview, Mary Desler, associate vice president and dean of student affairs, declined to comment on disciplinary issues in general.
All someone needs to create a Northwestern Facebook account is a university e-mail address.
Northwestern students should be careful about the information in their Facebook accounts, said Wendy Woodward, director of technology support services at NUIT.
“Anyone can go and set up a Facebook account in the Northwestern network,” she said. “I think students need to be aware that the information they post online is accessible. I have not worked with the administration…but I can’t speak to what it may or may not do with that information.”
Information can be extracted not just from individual profiles, but from events on the Facebook newsfeed – or the Northwestern network page – that usually include the date, time and location of parties.
Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has logged college events and activities, legal and otherwise. As early as 2005, university administrators and authorities have used this window to access posted information.
“As long as the administrator is on the site legitimately, they are permitted to see those on their network,” said Malorie Lucich, a Facebook representative, in e-mail. “We encourage users to restrict their privacy settings if they do not want others seeing their profile.”
In 2005, four students at Northern Kentucky University were fined, cited for code of conduct violations and put on probation after a residential assistant showed administrators Facebook pictures of them drinking from a keg in a university residence hall.
“We had a keg on campus and we didn’t get caught,” said Shingi Zinyemba, 23, one of the students involved. “Two months later, Facebook comes out, and we posted the pictures from that night. It’s stupid because they didn’t catch me [drinking] but I still got in trouble.”
Groups can also be a dangerous place to share. Rezzadeh points to the “New Student Week: We’re Here to Party” group created by Mark Palmer, an individual whose profile is now inaccessible.
In that group, the “Who Blazes?” thread features 70 posts about marijuana use, referencing paraphernalia, plans of when and where to smoke, and how to get marijuana. There’s even a debate over the merits of a bong versus a piece.
Since residents of university housing at a private school like Northwestern don’t enjoy the same privacy rights as they would in a private residence, a posting of that nature may be a justification for room search.
“We just need probable cause to check out a room,” said Rawson Liang, a community assistant at 1835 Hinman. “[Facebook postings like that] are more than enough grounds to at least knock on the door and see what’s up.”
Zinyemba’s experience leads him to advise a degree of caution when making photos and other information accessible on Facebook.
“The best advice I have?” he said. “Just watch your step.”
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How MySpace is turning into Facebook. Or you can return home.
good story. where’d you get the idea?
dan
October 22, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Very creepy…
Aaron
October 22, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I wish this had been written as a feature. There’s so much colorful detail to this story…Lauren Cohn’s interests are apparently “having fun with friends” (?!) “listening to music” (?!?!!) and, my personal favorite, “Israel.” hehehe
Paul Schrodt
October 22, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Way to go Lizzie!!!! that story rocked my face!!!! I am proud of you, that is some real reporting. Way to show the Al Neuharth way!!!
Jeremy
October 22, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Oh Lauren, how could you? I thought we had a future together… thank God for Lizzie Schiffman; otherwise I would’ve fallen in love with a fake.
Justin Bustin'
October 22, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Wow Lizzie, great article and research. Your articles never fail to impress me :)
Elizabeth
October 22, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Amazing, and so spooky!! I can’t believe I accepted her as my friend…
Kathryn
October 22, 2007 at 8:47 pm
it was Desler, shes insane
desler
October 22, 2007 at 9:18 pm
definitely not desler, it appears that all or many of her friends are jewish, seems odd. She also started a jewish related group, http://northwestern.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5728468124
th
October 22, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Great article Lizzie! I’m off to go remove bucky badger from my friend list…who knows who that could be.
Lucy
October 22, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Great article. I’m going to be Lauren Cohn for Halloween.
Austin
October 22, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Nice job. Interesting read, and for once, something that the student body should care about.
Tammi
October 23, 2007 at 1:07 am
Let’s have a moment of silence for Lauren if she were real…
Ian Epstein
October 23, 2007 at 1:45 am
Mark Palmer, creater of the new student week party group and also got beer? i’ll rush is fake too! so is alyssa peavy.
mathlete
October 23, 2007 at 1:55 am
You can access the group page for “Got Beer?…I’ll Rush!” here.
Lizzie Schiffman
October 23, 2007 at 2:24 am
She started a group for Hillel’s Freshman Fest, which I staffed, expressing her excitement for it. She didn’t register and didn’t come.
On September 23, back when she had well over 300 friends (all but one at Northwestern), I sent her a message: “So who are you really?”
Two days later, I got a message back: “I am that I am.”
About a week later, I wrote on her wall something that has since been deleted. It was along the lines of,
“Why won’t you tell anyone where you live on campus, or what classes you are taking? Why have you friended exclusively Jews at Northwestern, but have attended no Jewish events? Do you really exist? I don’t think so.”
The idea that she is Mary Dessler initially makes sense, so she can extend her view. I wouldn’t be surprised if those other people are she, although I can’t believe how neurotic she must be if she were really doing that. But if that were her goal, why would she only friend Jews? It makes no sense. Even if she’s posing as a member of the Jewish community, even we go to classes and live in dorms and have hundreds of non-Jewish friends on campus.
But my dorm, CRC, has a respectable Jewish population, many of whom were probably friends with “Lauren” at some point. I know we talked about her in one of the suites. And sure enough, one morning, a few Jews for Jesus are waiting outside the door. I’m not saying there’s a connection, but maybe some so-called “Messianic Jew” on campus is going through some intricate manipulations.
Peace, love, and keeping it real on Facebook,
Benjamin
Benjamin Singer
October 23, 2007 at 2:40 am
http://wildcat-watch.com/blog/?p=99
Charles
October 23, 2007 at 2:07 pm
See also Gary Andrews on Facebook…….?
Adrienne Shon
October 23, 2007 at 2:32 pm
its creepy if you look at all of these people’s profiles that they are all structured the same…with like random weird quotes from their friends and stuff like that but they don’t look natural at all and totally made up…also at my residence hall’s metting in new student week they said that they knew about the New student week: we’re here to party week….so they have definitely infiltrated Facebook
Jay
October 23, 2007 at 5:03 pm
o yeah and if you look at their mini feeds they only go on like once and a while and do a whole bunch of stuff when they go on…so its not like they are a normal kid on every day or so
Jay
October 23, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I don’t think people are asking the most important question of all – who the hell is the picture of the girl on Lauren Cohn’s profile ACTUALLY of?
Eric Bodge
October 23, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Good story. There are a lot of answers to this story that I feel like we will never know.
Ryan
October 23, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Yeah–and how does she feel about her face being used like this?
James Chapin
October 24, 2007 at 4:36 pm
looks to me like a certain somebody deleted their profile off facebook….
alex
October 24, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Wow… This is an extremely interesting story. Even though I’m a student at NYU, I’ll definitely watch out now for scammers… Thanks for writing this!
Zoe
October 26, 2007 at 11:29 am
Careful, folks. Maybe it’s some neo-Nazi nut, because of the Middle East conflict going on, or something.
Sounds rrrrrreal suspicious that everyone happens to be Jewish.
Don’t be too paranoid, but can’t be too careful.
Angie
October 28, 2007 at 2:46 am
ok, this “Lauren girl”, if its someone from the administration, is really stupid. the article comes out, and the profile gets deleted. how obvious/stupid can you be???? IDIOT!
ItalianFood
October 30, 2007 at 4:59 am
Hey, by the way, everyone should be aware that since NU email accounts are given out BY the university, the administration can also monitor campus email accounts as well as Facebook.
Someone flipped out when I mentioned that to them earlier this week, and they work in corporate management where monitoring goes on all the time. “A university doesn’t do that like in the private sector…”
Um. Yes, it does go on. Just a word of warning lest people think that campus email is safe from snooping. It’s required that everyone use campus email for school related stuff (contacting profs, reading news alerts, etc.), but if there’s anything at all you wouldn’t want someone to read that is personal at all…swap personal email account info with friends, cuz I’m quite certain it’s legal and common that administrators can snoop in your northwester.edu email accounts as well as your Facebook pages.
Best bet….don’t anything illegal, eh?;-)
Angie
November 1, 2007 at 4:20 am
good story…
silvia
November 4, 2007 at 12:46 pm
was snooping around the other day and found hundreds of fake accounts with hot women profile pictures that had all hot women friends. Every time i search there friends they all had the same hot friends. I then googled there names and they where all randon mix matched names. Here are some of the names i have found
Solly ”Ross
Sandra ’smaiil
Charlie Joe Abbate
Linda Abedlnour
Zulpha Adams
the list goes on and on
just search one of them and then search there friends. Its not good
peace
utah
December 28, 2007 at 2:38 am
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
I MERKED VE
January 12, 2008 at 9:44 am
If someone is stupid enough to post something on facebook then they deserve to get caught.
Chung Li Wu
January 12, 2008 at 9:53 am
someone has taken one of my photos and is now impersonating me on facebook what can i do about it?
lisa marie dennis
September 15, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Fake Facebook Profiles are one of the most annoying and even dangerous issues that facebookers (facebook users) face, and one of the most challenging problems for the facebook admins, so efforts to eliminate such profiles are set to the max!
So here are some tips to guide you detect fake facebook profiles!
Rani
November 3, 2008 at 3:23 pm
DF GF
KIM
April 20, 2009 at 5:42 pm
could it be that lauren cohn was created by some (jewish) frat as a rush tool?
VS
June 16, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Greetings from Chile, South America
I was lookin’ for some info about fake Facebook profiles. And I find your blog. Is very interesting, and I can share my history.
I’m a rapper boy, I’m a student and here at our high school there was a profile named “Emilia Razzano Dominguez”. She added nearly 195 boys and girls from our high school, and she had very dark photographs of her face, showing “mortal phases of the human being” as she said.
I wrote her once “Digame senorita, ¿usted donde estudia?” (Tell me little woman, where do you study?) The entire high school never knew about her
Asking to the old records of the school, showed that
EMILIA RAZZANO DOMINGUEZ
Born 1891, was the psycho girl that killed two teachers and five girls during the month of march, 1906.
She died at a charity hospital here in Santiago, Chile, in 1920.
And the answer… Who was she?
The Policia Nacional de Chile (Chilean Police or Carabineros), told that “THE IP ADDRESS IS UNEXISTANT”
……………
A mistery that never ended…
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME MY FRIEND, OR AT LEAST ONLY FUNNY CHAT ABOUT THIS TRUE HISTORY, ADD ME MSN OR FACEBOOK
rapper@zonahiphop.cl
Diego A. Castillo
rapper
November 3, 2009 at 5:58 pm