HOAX – 'Maggie From Sweden Hacker Alert'
The original site is no longer online; links go to the Internet Archive copy.
The claim
Circulating social media message warns users not to accept a friend request from a person called ‘Maggie from Sweden’ because she is a hacker. The warning includes a photograph that supposedly depicts the ‘hacker’.
ALERT!!!!! ALERT!!!!! Don’t accept a friend request from Maggie from Sweden, she is a HACKER. Tell everyone on your list cause if someone on your list adds her then she will be on yours too. She will figure out your computer ID and address, so send this to everyone on your list even if you don’t care for them cause if she hacks them, she hacks YOU too. She is also noted for repeated sexual harassment and indecent private chatting.
[Image of woman removed]
What the fact-checkers found
This story was first published on May 15, 2014
The claims in the message are untrue. It is just one version among a series of hoax messages that warn that simply accepting a friend request can allow a specified criminal to hack the recipient and his or her friends. But, in fact, even the most artful criminals cannot ‘hack’ a computer solely because a user accepts a friend request. For a hacking attempt to be successful, some sort of file transfer or exchange of information must take place. Moreover, the woman whose photograph is included in the message has done nothing wrong. Her photograph was stolen from a personal profile and added to the hoax message. This nasty hoax has caused her distress and damaged her reputation for no good reason. Sharing this bogus warning will help nobody and will further impact on the privacy and reputation of an innocent person.
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This story was first published on December 8, 2009
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