6 ms·

Editing someone's Facebook page is a federal offense?

• sp332 9y ago
  While the CFAA has been interpreted very broadly, this would violate it pretty specifically. And if it's not the CFAA, it's at least fraud.
  • RyanOD 9y ago
    Interesting. I guess I still think of social media as nothing more than goofy, leisure time activities. Hard for me to think of it as associated with fraud or any other crime...but, the times there are a changin'...
    • sp332 9y ago
      Well it can be pretty personal. Plus they changed his profile picture to something intentionally damaging. If you log in as someone else, you get access to their private messages. You can send messages or make posts as them or delete old ones. You can see a history of where and when they logged in. You get access to photos and posts they haven't made completely public. Anyway if you're not lucky enough to have friends and customers physically nearby, social media could be your only connection to close friends or critical business contacts. Messing with that could really make someone's life difficult.
    • simplicio 9y ago
      Eh, accessing someone else's facebook to post mischievous posts seems to be a near universal prank amongst US teenagers, and I've never heard of the Feds taking an interest. Seems like its one of those things that's technically illegal, but is unlikely to draw any actual legal action unless done in the service of some more serious offense. (plus, I'm pretty sure fraud requires an intent to deceive. Given that the woman told a journalist what she was up to, it seems it would be hard to prove that she was trying to make people think she was actually the owner of the facebook account.)
      • sp332 9y ago
        The fraud in this case would be to Facebook, because she is pretending to be the other user. I'd be surprised in this case if Facebook took legal action against her, but they might ban her from the platform.
        • snowwrestler 9y ago
          Ok but that's pretty far from a federal offense.
          • sp332 9y ago
            If they can prove that she caused damage or obtained anything of value, it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_offenses_under_the_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#C...
        • pcl 9y ago
          Is there any case law on this? In particular, I wonder what establishes ownership of an account. For example, I know people who share email accounts. How does the law distinguish the two cases? If Alice were to go after Bob for logging in with credentials to an account she created, things seem pretty simple. But it seems difficult for Facebook to determine whether Alice and Bob are ok with a shared account or not. And even more so for the government to determine if it's ok for Bob to use those credentials.
          • c22 9y ago
            Facebook doesn't have to determine whether Bob and Alice are okay sharing an account because doing so is already expressly prohibited by their terms of service[0]: > "You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account." [0]: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
            • 9y ago
    • Gargoyle 9y ago
      You're focusing on the social media part, the illegal part is circumventing security with a stolen password.
      • itronitron 9y ago
        If someone writes their password in a book and leaves that book in your vehicle which they stole from you then I wouldn't really consider the password 'stolen'
  • dalore 9y ago
    But if the page was fraud to begin with? Can you be done for fraud for editing an already fraudulent page?
    • sp332 9y ago
      Yes. Anyway the first fraud was against other Facebook users, while the new fraud is against Facebook.
    • Bartweiss 9y ago
      Yes. The CFAA is terrifyingly broad, and this isn't even a tenuous application of it. Accessing and using someone else's account without their knowledge or permission is a clear violation regardless of who they are or what you do. Posting "I forgot to log out!" on someone else's account is probably a criminal offense. Posting a picture injurious to their career and reputation clearly violates multiple sections of the CFAA. Prosecutorial discretion is the only thing rescuing this situation; literally any internet operation on an account that isn't yours is arguably a criminal violation.
      • dalore 9y ago
        That's for access, but the question was is it fraud? If someone gave me access then I'm allowed but am I committing fraud?
      • jpatokal 9y ago
        But the edits are not libelous: he's a convicted criminal and even the mugshot is (presumably) and actual one. I'm not sure a judge would grant a lot in damages for injury to his career as a con man...
        • Bartweiss 9y ago
          Libelous doesn't matter; the CFAA only cares if you accessed a protected computer and obtained information or caused damage. And getting the password from the account owner may not matter either since the protected machine belongs to Facebook - Facebook v. Power Ventures held that user account access isn't enough. I agree that a suit or damages would be unlikely, but that's only at the discretion of judges; the basic CFAA violation here is unambiguous.