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Community Corner

Tsunami 2.0: Spammers "Clickjacking" Facebook

Not everyone wants to use social media for social good, especially spammers.

In the , we went deeper into social media campaigns providing relief to victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

With many causes, however, come those that will try to profit either from the misfortune or from the aid response that follows. In this case, the spammer community is beginning to exploit the tragedy in Japan to, well, who knows what end, exactly?

In some cases, the motivation is to spread viruses and in others it is for monetary gain. For some "hackers" and spammers, it may just be for the virtual notoriety.

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Japan, a whale and a "clickjacking"

No, we're not talking the Twitter "fail whale".

Find out what's happening in Pacificawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

According to the Internet security solutions provider Sophos, a "video" has been published on Youtube titled "Japanese Tsunami Launches Whale Into Building" with a link to it on Facebook.

Once a Facebook user clicks on the link to watch this "video", they are re-directed to a spam site parading as Youtube: Foutube.

Clicking on the "video" doesn't actually reveal any whale-on-building action, instead a survey crops up which earns commission for the spammers.

A "like" message is then sent out to the network of "friends" of any Facebook user who clicks into the spam attack, prompting a new group to fall into the same scam. 

With the extraodinary, first-hand videos of the natural disaster's wreckage proliferating across the Web and the hundreds of thousands of people watching them, this scam seems like a spammer's wet dream. 

Fake disaster relief groups asking for cash

John Bambenek, internet security expert with the U.S.-based Internet Storm Center, said that approximately 350 Web addresses related to the Japan earthquake and tsunami were registered within a 24-hour period following the event in an Associated Press report.

Bambenek suspects that most of the sites are fraudulent, and it was found that a few were asking for wire transfers from donors. Legitamate charity agencies do not ask for donations via wire transfers, the AP report asserts.

Even the Federal Trade Commission has issued a statement warning consumers against such scams.

In the statement, the U.S.-based national consumer agency "urges consumers to carefully consider urgent appeals for aid that they receive in person, by phone or mail, by e-mail, on websites, or on social networking sites."

Fend off spammers while donating to the American Red Cross

Computer security back-up provider, Crash Plan, is donating 10% of all proceeds now through April 15 to the American Red Cross. 

The American Red Cross is providing disaster relief to the people of Japan. 

Crash Plan "tweeted" the promotion just an hour before this article went to publish - now that's real-time social activism. Or marketing, but let's not get into that glass half-full debate quite yet. 

More coverage on the social media response to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to come. 

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