impersonator
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Facebook wants the DEA to promise that it won't create fake accounts
Remember how the DEA got caught impersonating a woman on Facebook in an attempt to catch criminals who contacted her? Yeah, Facebook isn't at all pleased. It just sent a letter asking the anti-drug agency to promise that it won't create fake accounts or otherwise stomp all over the social network's terms of service. As the site argues, the DEA's moves "threaten the integrity" of its user base -- the point of Facebook's real identity policy is to foster trust, and sting operations violate that trust. Law enforcement isn't above this rule, the company says. It's not certain if the letter will have any effect; the Justice Department tells BuzzFeed News that it doesn't believe this trickery happens frequently. Whether or not that's true, it's safe to say that Mark Zuckerberg and crew have set some firm boundaries for future cases. [Image credit: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images]
The DEA impersonated a woman on Facebook to catch criminals
Law enforcement is no stranger to going undercover to bust unsuspecting crooks, but the Drug Enforcement Administration may have taken an online sting operation one step too far. A woman arrested in a drug case, Sondra Arquiett, sued the government after a DEA agent impersonated her on Facebook to trick at least one fugitive into sharing information. While Arquiett had consented to a search of her phone for the sake of investigations, she didn't give permission to the agent to post photos from that phone for the world to see. Her suit accuses the agent of not only violating her privacy, but of putting her in danger by making it look like she was cooperating with officials.
The GM impersonator
Ohword was just hanging out in Undercity the other day when he saw the conversation above roll through his chat window, and was suitably alarmed at whatever was happening here. GMs gone crazy?At first, I thought the same thing Timbal says-- that the player above the GM impersonator was just doing the trick where you add a bunch of spaces after whatever you type, and then write "[2. Trade] <GM>[Mike]: Hi" yourself (the chat window pushes everything after the spaces to the next line, making it look as though it's a legitimate chat message). Old trick, not really funny if overused (or if used as in the pic above), but it has its place.But then I got confused-- Ohword says he could click the name, and the search actually came up with "0 players total," which shouldn't work, if it's just typed out. Also, his addon timestamps everything, and clearly the GM's line is timestamped, which I'd imagine it wouldn't be if someone was just joking around.MVP Faizaniel suggests that it's just a player who was accidentally given a GM tag, but does that happen? I'm sure it's not a big deal-- even if this player did get a GM tag, he didn't actually have the power to ban anyone, so no harm done. But a strange occurrence just the same.
