TinEye to Avoid Getting Face-Boinked on Facebook
Off-Topic but Important
I think this message is important, especially for industry gurus who use Facebook and similar social networking means to interface with a high volume of friends and/or patrons of their products & services. The bigger the network, the bigger the risks. Scammers have targeted the vulnerabilities of Facebook members to pull all kinds of stunts. This includes identity theft and various evils, from mild harrassment to serious crimes. It’s like taking candy from a baby for these criminals, since a lot of personal info is easily accessible from Facebook accounts.
My Personal Account
I recently visited Facebook and posted an announcement about my guest article on Leangains.com. I’m not very active on Facebook, but I do make it a point to add people with friend requests each time I drop in. I automatically avoid adding people without profile pics. Another thing I automatically do is get suspicious about seductive female profile pics. You know what I’m talking about, those with that “come hither” glamor shot-type of look. Scammers know full-well that the last thing that the average guy can resist is an attractive woman.
I’ll walk you through an actual example of me screening a prospective Facebook friend who might be a fraud. First, take a look at a snippet of my Facebook home page, once the friend request drop-down box is hit. There’s something fishy about the girl’s pic. It’s a little too dreamy, air-brushed-looking, and just out of the ordinary:
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Instead of reflexively hitting the “confirm” button for Venelle Legazpi, I clicked on her picture, then visited her wall. There’s nothing there but pics posted, no updates that would indicate a normal person. Her info page is blocked for privacy purposes. This person had already successfully ‘friended’7 guys, and 3 of them are well-known fitness industry folks. I already sensed a scam, but just to completely close the books on this case, I ran a TinEye.com search on one of her pics. TinEye is a unique type of search engine that retrieves the web location(s) of any image you feed it. The process is super-quick. As a moderator at Bodybuilding.com, I use TinEye to run checks on members who might have fake avatars.
The first step is to right-click on the pic you want to search. On the drop-down box that appears, click on properties. A box will pop up, and copy the URL (highlight it, then hit Ctrl + C). Then, make sure you copy the entire URL on the pop-up box (only part of it is circled in red below):
Once you’ve copied the URL, paste it (hit Ctrl + V) into the URL search field on the TinEye.com home page:
In the case of this suspicious Facebook friend request, 15 images were found of someone named Misa Campo, not Venelle Legazpi. Scam confirmed:
A Google search on Misa Campo yields results that are not necessarily safe for work. Clicking unfamiliar links is a good way to invite viruses & various forms of malware into your computer. If you think you’ve mistakenly ‘friended’ a fraudster, here is a guide to un-doing that move. Anyway, I hope this helps protect some of you out there with big fanbases or lots of incoming traffic on sites like Facebook.
Dude, you turned down an undercover porn star?!?
Red — It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I have to admit that I don’t take as much time to screen people out as this, but if someone looking like they might be a pornstar tries to add me I’m pretty quick to dismiss it. Mind you, I also have a family so my wife probably wouldn’t be cool with it anyway.
Mark — Does this mean that I don’t have to return your video collection – ever?
Facebook creeps me the hell out, it’s a big privacy invasion and I’m guessing it’s paradise for pedophiles (male or female), scammers, creeps, stalkers, etc.
jasper, the WORLD is such a thing. Does the world creep you out as well?
Whoa! Alan writes a “tech” article. Mind = blown!
hey frank
It’s your own choice of putting your information out there on the web, and on facebook, people can find out a lot about someone, with pictures to go along with it and it doesn’t take much time or energy to ‘facebook’ someone. It’s an easy convenient ways to interact with friends, fans, family, etc. But it’s still out there for everybody to see, even your ‘private’ info.
Not sure what the ‘world’ has to do with it. Facebook is out there, very easily accessible to anyone and without needing any skills to use it. With all these social networking sites on the internet, most people don’t seem to care about their privacy anymore. I’m not talking about the ‘world’, I’m not making a point here and I’m not debating anything. I’m just saying that people put their information out there voluntarily for everyone to see, you shouldn’t be surprised if something happens.
by the ‘world’ maybe you mean, there are a lot of scammers, pedophiles, stalkers, etc. out there, that is obv true. But why make it easy for them? ;p
Whoo-hoo! I know my compurrturr stuff sometimes!!!1 :p
It’s pretty creepy any way you slice it – tough to get around that. FB has been a good tool for me to alert folks to my goings-on, but I still am very weary of its risk.
Nice stuff, Alan. I didn’t know about TinEye.
Thanks for this tip, Alan. It’s great to know this technology exists. Wasn’t expecting to learn this from you!
That’s a beautiful information…..
It’s easy to check whether the person is fake or real but there is never a surety that the person is fake…..
I will try the tool, neer heard of it.. Tineye Amazing
What’s my wife doing trying to befriend you on facebook, Alan?
Good stuf, Alan. FB can have legit uses, but more than anything seems to be for those with too much time on their hands. And just a guess, but I bet that dude up there with the ‘scared of the world’ comment is a ‘booker, i.e., FB addict.. Good luck with all THAT
Miguel — Yes & lol.
James — I wanted to preserve our friendship as much as possible so I just chose to run the other way.. :p
CBPT — Tineye has come through for me as a mod.
Dark & T1ger — I like technology, only when it’s simple enough for a 2-yr old
there is a Tineye extension/add on for firefox and google chrome, it makes it easier to search the pictures because you basically right click on the picture and then it shows you an option “search tineye for this picture”
Things that make you go, Hmmmmm…
Interesting! Great tip
Shoulda known that was Misa Campo a hot model
Hey, I have been trying to do the same, just as described, Alan, and it won’t work on ANY facebook images. I’ve tried a ton, and I can’t get a single result. Does Facebook have a protection in the URL code?
Hey Alan,
I wanted to make a comment on your last post, “Quick Announcements and Product Plug”, but comments were closed. I followed your link to “The Dirt on Clean Eating” and was surprised about the findings from Surwit study indicating almost no difference between a high sugar diet and a low sugar diet.
In response to those results, the author of this article “Surwit and sucrose or when is a high sucrose diet a high fat diet?” made some valid points (I put their link at the bottom of this post because I don’t know how to put links in comment boxes).
Basically, the author says that based on the numbers used in the study, compared to the normal diet of the study group, the high sugar diet was actually less than what they normally took in. In essence, make this a low sugar diet for them. Coupled with the decreased calorie intake, the resulting weight loss was predictable. He concludes his article with the following:
“You can’t lose weight forever. Weight loss is fat metabolism. When weight stabilises how do you maintain the benefits of fat metabolism? Hint: Don’t replace it with sucrose.”
He sure sounds reasonable, what do you think?
*http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2011/05/surwit-and-sucrose-or-when-is-high.html
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BTW, are you still alive? It doesn’t appear that you’ve made a post since May and I joined your monthly membership in June and haven’t seen a new edition since. Everything ok?
Hey Robert,
Yes, I’m okay. Thanks for subbing to AARR, I just posted the latest issue last week. It’s a month behind, and my goal is to catch up before 2012 hits & the world ends. As for my citing of Surwit et al in the clean eating article, take a look at the actual point I made regarding the study. It has nothing to do with the subject’s baseline diets per se. It has everything to do with the difference in sucrose proportion between the two diets lacking any differential impact on weight/fat loss – that’s the point.
This is great – thanks Alan.
I’ve never even heard of TinEye before. I’ve just tried it on a face photo, using Safari on a Mac. It says “0 Results” which I am assuming means that this person’s pic should be OK.