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Comment by smelendez | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious whether this is actually as dangerous as the article implies for the people participating.

Obviously for most people on HN installing random software and turning over the keys to a social media account is a bad idea. But I know people who have mostly quit Facebook and have an old laptop lying around they never really use with nothing particularly sensitive on it.

Now morally it sounds like this is a bad idea, since the ads are promoting sketchy drugs and gambling. But as far as computer security risk? I'm not sure.

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Security risks I can think of:

- lots of information that could be used for identity theft unless you clear it all

- an attack vector for scamming your friends unless you defriend them all

- leaking information about your friends unless you defriend them all

- access to any apps where you’ve used FB as your identity service unless you make sure you have no connected apps

- reputation risk

- just generally having your identity connected to potentially criminal activity

- installing an extension would give attackers access to all your internet traffic (bank accounts etc)

- remote access to your machine using TeamViewer is just nuts

>I'm curious whether this is actually as dangerous as the article implies for the people participating.

It almost certainly is not. There's no reason these guys would be significantly more likely to screw you over than literally any software vendor.

Lots of weird scaremongering in the article:

>“They can easily install a backdoor or steal your personal files including but not limited to personal photos, electronic tax records, banking information, etc,” he said.

... Yeah? It's perfectly normal for people to pay money for software capable of doing all these things. On the other hand, these account rental people are actually compensating you.

I wonder how this guy would feel about Steam for example, millions of people paying for videogames that can easily install a backdoor or steal your personal files.

> There's no reason these guys would be significantly more likely to screw you over than literally any software vendor.

No reason? Compared to literally any software vendor? The fact that their entire business model revolves around shady if not illegal practices designed to circumvent others' terms of service isn't a reason?

Why would that be a reason? Why would they want to harm their existing business by acting like that?

How would they benefit anyway? Installs aren't worth shit. They'd be better off going to a forum and buying thousands of installs for their malware if they wanted to spy on people, the kinds of people renting out their facebook accounts certainly won't be particularly interesting targets.

If someone wanted to "install a backdoor or steal your personal files including but not limited to personal photos, electronic tax records, banking information, etc," this would be the worst imaginable way of achieving that.

>> Why would that be a reason?

In short, because of Bayes' theorem.

That is:

- X% of people with "questionable" morals are willing to scam you when given the opportunity

- <X% of people with "standard" morals are willing to scam you when given the opportunity

Given that these guys have "questionable" morals, the likelihood that they are taking advantage of their software to inflict harm is higher than those with "standard" morals.

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