Kirby fraud exposes online concern

A case of online identity theft targeting High Court judge Michael Kirby highlighted ongoing concerns about internet misrepresentation in the gay and lesbian community.

A profile claiming to represent Kirby appeared on popular website MySpace and included a photograph of the judge and offensive comments.

An image of Kirby with a woman was headlined I’m A Pimp, The Sun-Herald reported.

Kirby said he was unaware of the MySpace profile and would ask for it to be taken down. It was unclear whether MySpace had removed the page as the Star went to press. The website did not say who had posted the profile.

Other MySpace profiles claiming to represent high-profile Australians including prime minister John Howard and immigration minister Amanda Vanstone were still active.

The fake pages have highlighted an ongoing problem in the gay and lesbian community.

Larry Singer, operator of popular gay website Pinkboard, said he received reports a few times each year of people using misleading photos in the Pinkboard personals section.

Occasionally I do get emails saying that this photo belongs to someone else, Singer told the Star.

The only way I can resolve that is to ban the use of that photo on Pinkboard.

I advise both parties that I’ve received a complaint and [tell them], -˜Please do not use this photo again.’

In the past Singer had also discovered users signing off with other people’s names on Pinkboard’s graffiti wall community forum pages.

You should never really trust everything you read online, he said.

A current national internet survey of gay men and their attitudes to online and non-internet relationships suggested concerns about web privacy were common.

Preliminary data from the e-male survey, being run by the National Centre in HIV Social Research, indicated gay and bisexual men were more cautious about men they have met or spoken with on the internet.

In particular, they are less likely to trust and confide in gay or bisexual men they meet online compared to those they meet face-to-face, Dr Martin Holt, research fellow at the National Centre in HIV Social Research, said.

The e-male survey, which will run until 2009, does not include specific questions about identity theft. But Holt said anecdotal evidence suggested gay men were generally careful about online security.

I suspect a lot of men take reasonable precautions by thinking about who will have access to the information they post, what they want to be publicly accessible and what they want to be private, he said.

Most of the big gay chat sites allow you to limit who has access to your profile -¦ and you can usually lock your pictures until you know a bit more about who you’re talking to.

However, if people want to meet each other they need to disclose personal information in order that they can trust each other … that’s what identity thieves exploit.

The e-male survey can be completed at www.e-male.com.au.