Is "humhide.com" what it sounds like?

December 28, 2008 7:58 AM

My fifteen-year-old niece has a notice from a friend that she has been posted on the internet in a potentially dangerous way. More inside, potentially NSFW.

The site her picture or video has been posted to is called "humhide.com" My sister and I have tried to find out what the website is about, but do not want to give it the information it demands for us to proceed. Does anyone out in the hive know anything about this website? She is emotionally very vulnerable and most definitely below the age of consent.
Thanks all.

posted by anonymous to human relations (17 comments total)

This was on Facebook, right? It's a scam message. The friend's account was hacked. Do not access the site; it's a fake warning.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:04 AM on December 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

Looks like a scam to get your info. I just went to the site...apparently "a photo from [my] ip address has been uploaded to this site within the past 48 hours."

Right. I'll take my chances.

If your niece received the notice via Facebook, Myspace, or some other similar site, there's a chance that her friend's account has been compromised.

I'd just ignore it if I were you.
posted by ASM at 8:06 AM on December 28, 2008

Just visited the site now. Did your niece receive this "notice" from an actual person, someone she knows? If not, this looks to me like no more than a popup scam--along the lines of those annoying, flashing ads informing that one has won an iPod or free dinner at Red Lobster. Don't panic. Just avoid.
posted by applemeat at 8:10 AM on December 28, 2008

Yeah, it's got to be a scam. I went to the site and immediately got a Windows alert message saying "Our system indicates that a photo from your ip [sic] address has been uploaded within the past 48 hours." Then when I closed that, the login popped up. When I tried to close that, a few more windows opened to make it harder for me to navigate away.

These are all classic signs of a scam web site, so rest easy. It's bullshit.
posted by MegoSteve at 8:11 AM on December 28, 2008

Delete the message/post. This one has been floating around for awhile. Here's another scam similar to it.
posted by toaster at 8:11 AM on December 28, 2008

Definitely spam. Ignore it.

(Warning: if you visit the site, you may have to force-quit your browser to circumvent the browser javascript popup crap.)
posted by nitsuj at 8:12 AM on December 28, 2008

Yeah, that's a phishing website. I've seen it under different aliases in the past, as well.

ASM and ThePinkSuperhero are right - the friend's account has been phished, and now the baddies are using it to send out these messages to try and get other people's accounts. If you and your niece haven't given out any details, then you have nothing to worry about.
posted by The Shiny Thing at 8:12 AM on December 28, 2008

From what MegoSteve said, it sounds like the same scam that I linked to above.
posted by toaster at 8:12 AM on December 28, 2008

Sounds like a variant of the koobface thing (hey look at this cool video of you!!) - I'd ignore it, and tell the friend who sent the message that their account is compromised and they should know better than to download dodgy software off the 'net.
posted by handee at 8:13 AM on December 28, 2008

Just visited the site now. Did your niece receive this "notice" from an actual person, someone she knows? If not...

Wait a second -- even if she received the "notice" from someone she knows, it's still a scam. As ASM said, people's Facebook accounts gets hacked into, so your niece's friend could post a message on your niece's profile saying her photos have been posted on the website -- but it wasn't actually the friend sending it. It was someone who hacked into the friend's account for the purpose of posting these bogus comments to try to get people to go to the website. This happens all the time and isn't worth worrying about at all.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:17 AM on December 28, 2008

One way to gather evidence as to whether it's a scam is to see if the friend who sent this to your niece has posted similar messages on the facebook/myspace pages of others as well.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:53 AM on December 28, 2008

It's a facebook virus thing. It happened to me over the week and the friend whose account was compromised was apologetic.

The virus was discussed in this Ask question. If you read through the comments, there's a link to a blog that explains what it does. There's no reason to believe there's a compromising picture of your niece on the web site.
posted by immlass at 8:54 AM on December 28, 2008

This was covered quite extensively previously.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:00 AM on December 28, 2008

This is almost certainly what everyone else has said. If you are still worried, call the friend on the phone and ask. The friend will likely have no idea what you are talking about because they did not leave the message.
posted by grouse at 9:00 AM on December 28, 2008

Yes, a friend of mine had her facebook hijacked to send out stuff similar to this.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:41 PM on December 28, 2008

This happens all the time on facebook (and probably myspace etc. as well). It isn't anything to worry about- just don't visit the site and delete the wall post or whatever.
posted by MadamM at 3:15 PM on December 28, 2008

Spammers have recently this year started hitting these buttons pretty hard to get the spam to work. They pray on you being worried about something said about you online and assume you will do anything to find out what the deal is.
posted by OwlBoy at 6:27 PM on December 28, 2008