I will EXPOUND on Tinder!

I will EXPOUND on Tinder, and accuse the Hufffington Post of plagiarism!

OK, Weird title, but fuck it (butt-fuck it?) Sorry,

 

Tinder is weird. A combination of social networking, spam and Match.com

Well who can blame us?

Well, at least half the planet i suppose. Tinder represents the kind of desperate, anti-social srcew-ball-ism that pervades American society: we want to connect, to get laid; but not leave the house. Welcome SPAM BOTS! And other, weirder individuals who actually use their Facebook page to garnish more extensive personal information before selling it to Russian and Nigerian spammers, scammers, and hackers.

Tinder may be the hot new dating app for regular folks and beauty queens, but it’s not without flaws. Cybersecurity company Symantec revealed in a blog post earlier this month that it had come across fake Tinder profiles, which spam people and direct them to an apparent porn site designed to take their money.
The fake profiles show up alongside the other photos of strangers you see once you’ve signed into Tinder through Facebook via the iPhone app. For those who haven’t used it, on Tinder you fill out a simple profile and post a few photos of yourself. You are then presented with strangers’ profiles one by one and you can swipe the person’s profile left to essentially “pass” on them and right to “like” them. If both people “like” one another they are connected through an in-app chat feature.
According to the blog post, the fake accounts only chat with you if you chat them first. Once they start chatting, many of them have similar scripts.

The bots use stunted language, and Symantec even found a few glitches in their chats.

Tinder doesn’t currently have any way to report spam in the app, and Symantec suggests that you just “block” any users who you suspect are fake. “We are aware of the spammers and have already taken precautions to prevent them from bothering our users,” a Tinder spokesperson said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “It’s safe to say that it will no longer be an issue.”
The fake profiles are not just there to annoy you, they’re there to take your money. Once they entice you with stilted flirty language, they invite you to videochat with them. The “girl” that Symantec chatted with sent a shortened link to a webcam site.

If you’re silly enough to accept that invitation, you’re brought to a page that asks for your credit card information. The fake “girls” on Tinder will explain to you that the site needs your credit card information to verify your age.
Once you give your credit card information, you will be automatically signed up for the sketchy webcam site’s premium membership. If you don’t read the fine print you won’t realize that you’ll automatically get charged almost $80 if you don’t cancel your account quickly enough.

Satnam Narang, Manager of Symantec Security Response, who wrote the blog post, gave the Huffington Post some tips for identifying a fake profile on Tinder. “Check to see if you have any interests in common. Of all the fake profiles I encountered, none of them shared a single interest with me,” Narang says. “This is likely because they created fake accounts on Facebook and did not populate them with any interests.” He also suggests that you read the short bio they provide. Many of them look suspicious. A few fake bios that Symantec encountered included lines like “will u do it right” and “just need a booty call.” Also, remember that spam accounts never send the first message.
Fake online dating profiles are nothing new. On one popular dating site, OKCupid, users can be chosen to become moderators. Any OKCupid member can “flag” any content on the site, which often includes fake-looking profiles and messages. That content is then sent to the moderators who each say whether the item or profile should be “deleted,” “left alone” or “can’t tell.”
People are likely less skeptical of profiles they see on Tinder, since most of the information on someone’s profile (name, photos, etc.) come directly from Facebook. In order to make a fake Tinder profile, one first has to make a fake Facebook profile with a fake name and fake photos. It takes a lot of work. To make, say, a fake OKCupid profile is simple. You choose a username, use a fake photo you found on the Internet, make up fake information about yourself, and you’re ready for a troll down waste-your-time avenue. After all, how do you expect to meet someone real if your own profile is fake?

: : : : : : : : : : :

PJ Britton Chronicles

 

     It was late July, mid-nineties, and a classic PJ summer: party all Friday night, crash on the disgusting red couch, wake up Saturday and eat breakfast before heading to the beach. On this particular Saturday morning, on the way to breakfast, PJ saw a man dropping a turn-table onto a pile of junk next to some trash bins and pulled his silver Volvo onto the curb. We got out to get a closer look. PJ asked the man, “Are you throwing that away?”
    “Well, yeah,” said the man. “I’ve been meaning to fix it but I just don’t have the time.”
    “Oh?” PJ said, “What’s the matter with it?”
    “Its missing a needle, but other than that it’s in great shape. I hate to get rid of it. Do you want it?”
    “Well my brother is a DJ,” PJ said. “”I was thinking maybe he could use it.”
    “Oh yeah, well it’s a great unit. I really hate to get rid of it, I mean, if you could give me something for it I would let you have it.”
    There was a pause, then PJ said, “Well, if you’re throwing it away I’ll take it, but, you know, I was just maybe going to take it if you were throwing it away. Maybe my brother can do something with it, I don’t know.”
    “I really hate to get rid of it,” the man said. He looked lost, and then, somehow defeated. “I guess you can have it. It’s been sitting in my garage for years now… well, just take it.”
    “Thanks,” PJ said, grabbing the unit and putting it in the back seat. We drove off, and drove, and were driving over the green bridge when PJ said, “I’ve never been given such a hard time about taking something outta the trash before.”
    I laughed, “He had a real hard time getting rid of that turn-table.”
    “Well come on, ” P said. “”You’re throwing it out and then you want to haggle with me while it’s in the trash?”
    “But it’s a really great unit,” I said.
    “And I hate to get rid of it,” P said.
    “That’s why I’m throwing it away.”
    “But maybe you could give me something for it.”
    “Yeah,” PJ said, his head turned and his blue eyes beamed, “it’s a really good turn-table.”

    By the time we reached the Diner we were in tears. It wasn’t the funniest thing, but the timing was perfect; hung-over, pre-breakfast, and suddenly exposed to some guy’s lengthy personal relationship with a stereo component. We saw the years of frustration in his eyes; the lack of time; the cost/return analysis… and the inevitable conclusion that it was not worth it anymore ——so toss it. But then, the last-minute hope that some value might be re-claimed from this man who wanted to pull it out of the trash… a man who saw it’s potential, who might want to make the effort that he himself had failed to make for years——and even pay him for it… but then the inevitable let down of realizing that, no, even in the trash it was only worth its weight in freedom.

    Classic hilarity, but when we walked into the diner, reality set in. Sober reality. We were in ludicrous mode; sacked-out silly-stupid mode, but the patrons were stone-cold sober; eating eggs, drinking coffee, wondering just what crazy fucks walked into their world. We sobered up immediately.

    PJ ordered his usual; eggs over easy, bacon, toast, coffee and milk. I ordered the same but with orange juice instead. When the meal came he said, “Bretsky, try this milk.”
    “I don’t like milk.”
    “Just a try it,” he held out the chalice.
    “I don’t like milk. I never drink milk.”
    And so PJ took it as a challenge, naturally, and insisted that I have a sip of his milk. “Fine,” I said, taking a sip, and it was delicious. I guess it was the depraved, alcohol-laden stomach lining that appreciated the nectar; the smooth, sweet richness coating my insides. So I ordered one myself. P was right. Mother fucker, he was usually right.