Monday, September 16, 2013

Want to buy some Instagram followers?

Want to buy some Instagram followers?  Nope? Me neither.  But in case you were thinking about it, there are a couple of blog articles out there that warn you that this is a good idea.  Now I hate blog aggregators that steal my content, screw up the formatting and give me minimal or no credit.  Here's a great example of fixya doing just that in this post.

Can you find anything below that might scare you a little?


Yep, that's right, these clowns actually recommend you visit the offending URL (mistaking it for the FTC's website).  I checked the link and found out that apparently the account has been suspended.

Good, so at least fixya.com isn't directing people to what may be an identity theft site (but not because they are competent).

Let's talk about the meat of the article in the first place.  They claim researchers discovered that buying Instagram followers could result in identify theft.  This conclusion was largely based on the fact that people who purchased this "service" revealed their phone numbers, email addresses, and payment information.  The author determined that this "is essentially all that is needed to begin a full-fledged phishing attack."

Seriously???
Right.  When you have that information, you have their identity.  Later the article mentions that it's a bad idea to provide payment information to any untrusted site.  Next time lead off with that sagely wisdom and avoid putting direct links to scam sites in your blog articles.