Scambusting Through Internet: Reverse Image Search

Image via WikipediaWhen a photo arrives with a description, how do you know if it's really the item / event being illustrated?

You use Reverse Image Search, such as TinEye.com

Let's say someone forwarded you a picture of the most beautiful prison you've ever seen. It's a new SuperMAX prison for the ultra-rich, the e-mail claimed. Is it true?

The correct answer is "it's a prison, but it's NOT in the US". It's actually an Austrian detention center. 

TinEye would have given you the link, and a click would have taken you to a blog entry which identified the REAL place.

However, this can also used to identify picture pirates, who stole / copied pictures without attribute. Scam websites often fill their website with stolen stock photos in order to look somewhat professional.

Do NOT steal pictures blindly on the Internet. People WILL find out.

Related articles

• TinEye - Reverse Image Search (freetech4teachers.com)
• Perform A Reverse Image Search With TinEye (maketecheasier.com)

Fake Profiles in Online Services

Fake Profiles are all over the Internet. It is almost expected if that half the profiles online are fakes. Facebook? Fake. Match.com? Almost certainly fake.

But LinkedIn profiles? Where professionals go to get networked? Plenty of fakes there too.

Linkvarrk.com have found and busted quite a few fakes, where fakers borrowed photos from other websites to create fake employees for (their own?) firms and such or just put up fake pictures.

And it's amazing how easy it is to find fakes now... If you just use TinEye the image search engine.

Here's one example: Susan Burgos on LinkedIn

http://linkvaark.com/2010/12/05/meet-susan-burgos-angel-johns-mentor/#comments

(borrowing this screenshot from Linkvaark)

Except that's a picture of a makeup artist called Petra Strand

http://www.beautyinthebag.com/wordpress/beauty-gurus/brand-pioneers/petra-strand-pixi/

Can you say... BUSTED?!

Related articles

• "Persona management": how automated fake profiles threaten the heart of online community (robcottingham.ca)

Proof that China is an Oligarchy, not a Communist Nation

Someone did a tally of the National People's Congress, which has 2987 members.

Taking the richest 70 people out of that group... Guess how much money they have together? 75.1 BILLION

Guess how much money the richest 70 people out of US Congress (535 members, including both houses) have?  LESS THAN 5 billion together.

Yet the US have TEN TIMES the per-capita income of China.

Communist my ***.

Related articles

• Members of Congress in China worth billions more than US members of Congress (americablog.com)
• Wen Jiabao Sees Billionaires in Congress as Wealth Gap Widens (businessweek.com)

Stupid SEO Hacks: Mixing Languages

Some websites try to hack Google by mixing languages. They put in content labelled as one language / encoding, but mix in content of another language.

Here is one example:

http://rostislaw.com/maahad-tahfiz-sains&page=6

The interesting part is this page not visible. If you go to that URL in a browser, you get forwarded to the main website, rostislaw.com

But Google treats it as a separate page.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ms&u=http://rostislaw.com/maahad-tahfiz-sains%26page%3D6&ei=SPRzTYm_GJDWtQPpgojcCw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CGkQ7gEwBziCAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtvi%2Bexpress%26start%3D130%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1C1GPCK_enUS321US322%26tbs%3Dqdr:d%26prmd%3Divnsl

So by submitting all these "fake pages" to Google, which all link back to your website, you got backlinks. And they APPEAR to be unique content. Google use the first word to guess the language and in this case it's Malay. So it thinks the page is Malay when it is actually in Russian.

F***.