Facebook's "Jayden K Smith" super-hacker viral hoax continues to fool users

[midian182]

Facebook recently passed the 2 billion monthly active users milestone. Ignoring multiple accounts, fakes, bots, etc. there’s still an awful lot of people who regularly access the social network, and not all of them are particularly tech-savvy - which could explain the latest incarnation of a viral message that’s spreading on the platform.

The hoax, which is circulating via Messenger, warns users of a cyber criminal called Jayden K Smith – not to be confused with Will Smith’s son, Jaden – whose hacking skills are seemingly so immense that he can somehow take control of your Facebook account, and those of all your friends, if you accept his friendship request.

"He is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it. Thanks. Forwarded as received," reads the message, which has been posted by users all over the world.

Homeland Security reports they have identified hacker Jayden K Smith pic.twitter.com/XyqNBtVi4b

— Neil Carter (@godlessindixie) July 10, 2017

The claims are, of course, a load of bull. But that hasn’t stopped many people falling for it and passing the message on. It’s actually a variation on a viral hoax that’s been around for years. In earlier versions, names such as Anwar Jitou, Tanner Dwyer and Bobby Roberts have been used in place of Jayden.

Such hoaxes are nothing new for the site. In October last year, the fake copyright post that had been circulating on Facebook since 2012 saw a new surge in popularity. It stated that the company was about to change its privacy policy to make everything you’ve ever posted, even deleted material, public. The only way to prevent this was to copy and share the message, thereby overriding Facebook’s terms and conditions of service. It even cited a law that was, in reality, a legal framework set up by the International Criminal Court that deals with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70050-facebook-jayden-k-smith-super-hacker-viral-hoax.html

 

[madboyv1]

Yeah, I woke up with several messages attributed to this hoax and I had to spread the message around to explain what it was... and was not. *shrug*

 

[m4a4]

Yup. A lot of people are id!ots (really? You guys censor that??). With a smidgen of understanding, they would know that it would be pretty much impossible for a hacker to do that because they are your "friend".

And the fake copyright stuff is my favorite. College Humor did a video on it in 2012, and I had the privilege to use it again recently on FB...

 

[texasrattler]

Every time the word hackers comes up there will forever be a image of the movie Hackers lol ... Was a good movie for it's time and I personally still like it.
I bet they get royalties every time it's used.

 

[erickmendes]

Every time the word hackers comes up there will forever be a image of the movie Hackers lol ... Was a good movie for it's time and I personally still like it.
I bet they get royalties every time it's used.

Hey really hacked into our collective mind, still atrocious to see these as 'hackers' (hey, I am an sysadmin, even I am disgusted to see them as 'hackers'), still nice to see them anyway (liked the movie too, I were a teen).