In some bizarre news, the ISI and Pakistan Army have formally registered a complaint to PTA and the Ministry of Information and Technology against fake Facebook profiles registered under the names of their officials.
According to a report, some of the officials affected by the fake Facebook profiles issue include Raheel Sharif who is the Army Chief General, Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar who is Director General ISI and senior officials like General Haroon Aslam and General Asif Haroon. All accounts except for the one belonging to Director General Inter Services Public Relations, Major General Asim Saleem, are fake according to an Army spokesman.
Fake Facebook profiles issue affects the top brass of both the military and the ISI
Khurram Mehran, a PTA spokesman, confirmed that a request had been officially lodged. He said that in such cases, PTA assigns the tasks to appropriate departments for further investigation. Another official explained that Facebook and the Ministry of Information have a mutual understanding where unnecessary content and pages can be removed from the social network on the request of the government. PTA itself is helpless in Facebook’s case since the website operates from the U.S.
Sources indicate that more than 37 fake accounts on Facebook were made after General Raheel Sharif was inducted as the Army General Chief on 27 November, 2013. After they were reported, Facebook managed to delete most of them but the problem still persists as they were created again a few weeks later.
People are easily mistaken as these accounts regularly post updates, quotes and upload pictures as well
What’s interesting is that these fake accounts operate just like the real deal. Their friend lists include politicians, army officials and journalists. They even use Facebook and are routinely seen liking pages and posting status updates. Hilariously, many easily mistake these accounts as being real. A politician from Rawalpindi wrote “Thank you very much sir” after his friend request was accepted by a fake account pretending to belong to DG ISI Gen Rizwan Akhtar.
Since there aren’t a lot of verification methods employed to confirm the identity of a Facebook account, the problem remains a constant one. The government is, however, using IP addresses to locate the people who make these accounts.
thats interesting. I think i should make one and will send invitation to Imran Khan and Nawaz Shareef real ones hopefully.
thats interesting. I think i should make one and will send invitation to Imran Khan and Nawaz Shareef real ones hopefully.
or jub aap ki ip address say aap ko trace kar k utha lia jaega or chhitrol hogi to burnol lagana parr jaega… :P
hehehe
Meanwhile, why don’t they create real accounts and publicize that through ISPR so that politicians could switch to real ones and unlike fake IDs. I believe all developed nations do the same.
BOYS & their constant struggle to cope with the delirium that is Social Media.. :D Teeheeee
do you work in PTA?
for heaven’s sake! NO.
“PTA itself is helpless in Facebook’s case since the website operates from the U.S.” LOL! Everything is under control the bloody USA. Why you don’t simply say that we don’t have enough money to censor the accounts??!!??
Pagal ho gaye hen kya isi aur army wale ye possible he nhi, hmari females be fb use krti hem kya wo be apni real profile bnayen gii? Facebook hmari society ke liye nhi bni agr hamien use krni hai to fake he krni pare gi
Oh Man!! 83 million (8.7%) Facebook accounts are fake (2012). They’re not saying that every account must be authentic at least no official accounts should be duplicated!
Whole world problem…
*the whole world problem! :D
Propakistani got 2G! :D Congratulation!!
Propakistani got 2G! :D Congratulation!!
Good One, Change Your Name To “Just A Critic!” That Will Be Better.
Seems like Mr. Syed Talal was caught in a traffic jam while in some hurry to meet a deadline.
Lo G, Youtube ki tarah ab Facebook bhi gaye :-(
YouTube unblock or Facebook ban kar dena chaheye… video lectures dekhna mushkil kar dia hay…
kese
“The government is, however, using IP addresses to locate the people who make these accounts.”
Do you understand what this statement means? FYI, Facebook.com uses HTTPS by default. How can the government observe what exactly people are doing on it? (unless they have Facebook Inc.’s cooperation).
It’s very easy. All ISPs can keep track of the websites visited (Maybe they are already doing that) and harvesting that information can easily lead to IP address of the person who is managing a profile.
Yes it’s very easy to see what address a user is visiting even on https, but still practicality impossible to read the actual network traffic, without the cooperation (or compromise) of either the user’s computer or Facebook servers.
(There is yet another way to observe user’s traffic with fb by hacking some Web certificate authority and creating a fake certificate. But that method requires the resources and desperation of a paranoid government like Iran’s. And in the end, this type of attack is relatively easy to detect, especially after the Iranian case).
I do think some of these profiles are created for harmless fun. BUT, the government using IP addresses to trace them down points to a very sinister precedent – especially so given the absence of adequate legal cover for this = the power arms of establishment get to do what the want, to whom they want with no accountability/oversight whatsoever resulting in things we are all too familiar with. Hide your bases (IPs)!
I do think some of these profiles are created for harmless fun. BUT, the government using IP addresses to trace them down points to a very sinister precedent – especially so given the absence of adequate legal cover for this = the power arms of establishment get to do what the want, to whom they want with no accountability/oversight whatsoever resulting in things we are all too familiar with. Hide your bases (IPs)!
Mr Edhi and Dr. Qadir khan fake accounts running and all politicians also but no one notices but when it comes to Army they want them to shutdown.
Rahil sharif is already in US for some dollars, why don’t he solve this matter there.
Mr Edhi and Dr. Qadir khan fake accounts running and all politicians also but no one notices but when it comes to Army they want them to shutdown.
Rahil sharif is already in US for some dollars, why don’t he solve this matter there.
Did you read the first line of this article? If Edhi and Dr. Qadir Khan have problem, then can also lodge a complaint to PTA. Anyone can contact PTA & complain.
Yeah but actually you didn’t know that the PTA and FIA cyber crime never respond to such accounts even to journalists requests.
they should ask facebook for official ” TICK MARK ” on their profiles and demolish else.
what about tweets from asim bajwa of ISPR
face book band ki jay