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D
id you know there is an actu-
al law in Judaism prohibiting
the theft of one’s knowledge?
Known as geneivat da’at, the principle
states that fooling someone and causing
them to have a mistaken assumption,
belief or impression leads the deceiving
individual to be held responsible for the
deceived person’s actions.
In Judaism, geneivat da’at is consid-
ered to be a worse offense than lying or
cheating. The repercussions often nega-
tively affect many more people than only
the original individual who was duped.
In the internet age, I have seen many
instances of geneivat da’at occur when
innocent people are misled by fraudulent
email messages, websites, text messages
or social media posts. Many times, the
result of these individuals being victims
of geneivat da’at is that their identity is
stolen, which is a nightmare scenario.
Not surprisingly, it is usually older peo-
ple who fall victim to this.
Facebook is certainly one of the most
common places in which users over a
certain age (we’ll call them “Boomers”)
become deceived. Most of the duplicate
friend requests I receive on Facebook are
from fake accounts posing as older users.
These illegitimate Facebook requests are
part of a scam. The Facebook user often
will post a legitimate message on their
Facebook account letting their friends
know that they shouldn’t accept any new
Facebook friend requests from them
because their profile has been duplicat-
ed, but they may not realize the serious-
ness of this act.
This scam involves a nefarious per-
son (often in a foreign country) making
virtual copies of real Facebook accounts
by copying the photos and information
from the real account’s “About” page to
the fake ones. They then send friend
requests to the friends listed on the
real account. While some might find it
humorous that so many seniors have
had their Facebook accounts mirrored,
the scam is more insidious than many
realize.
After the scammer has fooled enough
of the person’s friends to accept the
friend requests on the fake account,
there are many ways the scammer can
trick others now that they have stolen
someone’s identity on the social net-
working site. The scammer may request
a gift card, entice you to play a game
that downloads malicious software (mal-
ware) to your computer or trick you into
downloading a virus that shares your
personal data.
If you receive a friend request from
someone you are already friends with,
search your friend list to see if you are
still friends with that person. If you are,
you have likely received a friend request
from a fake Facebook account that was
duplicated from a legitimate account.
You can contact your friend by Facebook
Messenger, by phone or send them an
email or text message to verify if the
new friend request was intentional. If it
was not, they can report the duplicate
account to Facebook to shut it down.
There are many other ways seniors
are being taken advantage of on the
web by hackers and scammers. Through
my company, Access Technology, I am
often contacted by seniors unsure if an
Don’t Get Taken
Advantage of Online
RABBI JASON MILLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OUR COMMUNITY
JEWS IN THE DIGITAL AGE