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Deception Online

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DECEPTION ONLINE

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One of the main reasons why I have choosen this photo is because these two characters have chosen to disguise their faces, which makes them automatically appear artifical that could then potentially lead to deception 'hiding the real' (Whaley, 1992). This can be quite a serious matter when deception occurs online.

Online deception can occur in various ways. Many of these are often false statements intended to gain some advantage to the deciever. However, deception includes indirect methods too. The three main issues which I will be outline here are:

Are we really who we say we are online? (Identity deception - mimicking, lying by insincere statements, false excuses or false promises)
Looking at how easy it is to hide your identity online
Examining fraud online

Identity deception in a nut shell is pretending to be a different person or kind of person than one really is (Donath, J:1998) This is arguably intrustic in online fantasy world's in particular 'Second Life', this enables you to build your very own virtual world whereby you could potentially be anyone. In the 'London lite' there was a very small article that corresponds to this which I felt was quite alarming, it reads.

'Child abuse fear in Second Life'

Click here to find out more about Second Life.

'Internet detectives are hunting for paedophilies using the web community to

abuse virtual children. A probe into Second Life, a site where users can create and control characters, found that paedophiles had created a playground to carry out sex acts on virtual children. Police now fear that the abuse could spiral into the real world and said "We'll infiltrate these rings.'

John,G London Lite Wednesday 31st October 2007 pg3

In addition online deception is mimicking of data and processes. For instance articifical websites such as epinnacle.co.uk intended to steal credit card details, fake bills for services not rendered, and hijacking of sites and connections, such events are increasingly common.
False promises. False advertising is another example, where limited ability to view and feel a product online permits inflated claims to by the seller. In news groups due to sporadic appearence of members of a virtual community, there may not be as much social pressure to fulfil commitments as it is in the real world. This can lead to strange phenomena such as fake virtual suicide (Brundage, 2001)
Coordinated? disinformation? campaigns to convince people of something false (Floridi, 1996).
Other forms of fraud, attempts to mislead people to achieve criminal ends (McEvoy, Albro, and McCracken,2001; Mitnick, 2002) either directly (like fake investments or fake charities) or indirectly (like sending emails with implanted viruses).