September 12, 2006

News Commentary: Craigslist 'Prank' Shows Ease of Online Privacy Invasions

In early September Jason Fortuny, a web designer and network administrator from Seattle, took an apparently real ad from one Craigslist site and posted it in the Seattle "casual encounters" section. The advert was from a woman looking for a man. Within a day he had 178 responses, many with photos. At which point he posted them all onto a public website, complete with the photos, e-mail and IM addresses and even mobile phone numbers. He has since asked people to help him identify those respondents who were more cautious about revealing themselves in their e-mails, presumably so he can humiliate them further online.

Commentary: When public and private collide, BBC News, September 11, 2006.