By now you may have read about how Tracy Turkish Brooks and her “other pussy” had an embarrassing Facebook moment when she – supposedly – posted a very steamy note to “Michael”, and accidentally published it for the world to see instead of sending it via private Facebook email.
The post, which was real enough, read “Thank you too, Micheal, I had a great time as well.I’m glad you enjoyed my OTHER pussy ;). I must admit, I haven’t had sex in a while, so getting mounted by such a strong and powerful man was a pleasant surprise after so many long months of …abstinence. I hope this message doesn’t scare you off, I just wanted you to know what a wonderful time I had with you.You are permanently invited to “the love-cave-between-my-legs” ”
However, while the post was real, by all accounts, the person who posted it was not Tracy Turkish Brooks – rather, her Facebook account was (and apparently still is) hacked.
In reality, the last time that Tracy herself actually posted to her Facebook account appears to have been several hours earlier on the same day – in the mid-morning Tracy announced that she was glad that it was Friday; she followed that up at almost 1:00 p.m. indicating that she was looking forward to the weekend:
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More than four hours later, the steamy “other pussy” post hit Tracy’s Facebook page, immediately followed by “Tracy” acting embarrassed that she had accidentally publicly posted it, followed by a whole slew of comments (some razzing her, some declaiming that Tracy had written it).
In the midst of this, the hacker also changed Tracy’s relationship and religion statuses to “engaged” and “atheist”, respectively:
According to her sister, Tracy is certainly not engaged (nor, presumably, atheist, as the hacker changed her status to that of atheist).
So, how could this happen?
A few weeks ago we wrote about how easy it is for someone to hack into your Gmail account using the password recovery feature if the answer to your password recovery question can be gleaned from your public Facebook or other social networking account information. This caution holds true for any site which lets you either select or create a password recovery question and answer where the answer is easily guessed based on ‘private’ information that you may be sharing on Facebook, Myspace, or any other social network where you can be found.
Facebook itself allows you to select from one of eight possible security questions to recover your password, including “Who was your third grade teacher?”, “What street did you grow up on?”, “What is your mother’s maiden name?”, “When is your mother’s birthday?” and “What is your father’s middle name?”.
The vast majority of these questions could be readily answered by anyone with whom you grew up – or anyone who is able to steer you into a conversation designed to elicit the information – allowing them to gain access to your Facebook account, change the password and lock you out, and then masquerade as you.
And, because many people use the same password across many sites, they may now also have access to your other email accounts, other social networking site accounts, and even your banking accounts, if they all use the same password (which is why you should never use the same password for two or more different accounts).
In this case, there is evidence that Tracy was also locked out of her Hotmail account, suggesting that the most likely scenario is that the hacker first gamed Tracy’s Hotmail account, and then once he or she had access to Tracy’s Hotmail account, they had the Facebook password reset link sent to the Hotmail account in order to gain access to Tracy’s Facebook account.
We can expect more and more of these sorts of incidents to happen as our society continues to become less and less concerned about and protective of our personal and private information. The “this is so cool!” factor of being able to keep your friends constantly updated as to what, how and even who you are doing, and where you are doing it, eclipses all sense of self-protection (or indeed, sense at all) when it comes to sharing that information.
Tracy is lucky that she had so many friends and family to rush to her virtual side, and to publicly decry the naughty deed as a forgery, hopefully before her employer, a potential boyfriend, or other person whose opinion could be devestatingly negatively impacted could misjudge her.
While some may laugh at the whole thing as a silly episode, with no harm lasting harm done, the underlying messages are loud and clear:
1. Use a strong password;
2. Use a different password for each site and service;
3. Use obscure, hard-to-guess password recovery hints; and
4. Don’t go sharing private information on public forums.
[Ed. Note: Sometime between 6:00 a.m. and noon EST on Sunday, August 23rd, Tracy Turkish Brooks’ hacked Facebook account was finally taken down.]
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What does “other pussy” mean?!?!?
would seem this story a year later is still making the rounds. cause except for Faux, I don’t believe everything I read so I gotta make sure it wasn’t a hoax. or worse it would seem hacked. Feel sorry for Tracy. Someone basically ruined her life. Probably needs to change her name, and her hair or something. Already one of the guys on Mythbusters messed up by posting a picture of his landrover with a cell phone. which had a geocache metadata clip on it so now way too many people knew where he lived and when he’d be gone.
“I reckon you see yourself as a bit of an intellectual, kiddo. Next.”
I’m not sure what you base your astute assessment on but..(shrugs) it’s your planet.
I reckon you see yourself as a bit of an intellectual, kiddo. Next.
“Good bye. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
And you enjoy your imaginary planet. I admit I just take up cyber-space on it.
“(I bet you reply to this.)”
Shoulda bet money, bub. Youda won.
Good bye. Enjoy the rest of your life.
(I bet you reply to this.)
“Perhaps by now, “Tracy, my dear” will have read your comments”
One can hope.
“and be so impressed, as I was,”
Aw shux!! Stop, you’re making me blush!
“by the wisdom you have bestowed upon us all, and your generous support for her and her plight,”
That’s just the kind of guy I am. No need to thank me.
“that she will post a message here in support of you and to thank you for your gracious comments…”
I eagerly await that moment with much anticipation. Thank you for for your support. Thank you and good-bye.
I’ve been reading these comments and two come to mind for me:
1) SO WHAT??
2) WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL??
If the hack is true then let that be a lesson to all of us.
If not, then an attractive 40 something woman got sum VERY satisfying nookie. Some of you should BE so lucky.
Either way we all got a good laugh at this poor woman’s expense. Now let’s all get on with our lives and leave it and her alone.
END OF STORY
PERIOD
Tracy, my dear, I am so sorry it had to be at your expense but it did provide me quite a laugh. Hopefully you can get through this. I know a lot of these yo-yo’s won’t make it easy. Good luck.
Perhaps by now, “Tracy, my dear” will have read your comments and be so impressed, as I was, by the wisdom you have bestowed upon us all, and your generous support for her and her plight, that she will post a message here in support of you and to thank you for your gracious comments…
“Like I said… go fuck yourself.”
I “heard” you the first time. See above comment.
” *Punches Joey in the face* ”
You take this cyber interaction rather seriously, don’t you? TSK!
Like I said… go fuck yourself. *Punches Joey in the face*
Joey – Are you calling me a yo-yo? If so… go fuck yourself!
Comment by PeeCee — 4/22/2010 @ 10:47 am
My, my, my!! Did I hit a nerve there, bub? You sure get your panties in a bunch for someone that “couldn’t care less.” Flexing internet muscles on me with anatomical improbabilities is a waste of both of our time. Run along now, I’m sure there are plenty of boards for you to troll.
Joey – Are you calling me a yo-yo? If so… go fuck yourself!
I’ve been reading these comments and two come to mind for me:
1) SO WHAT??
2) WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL??
If the hack is true then let that be a lesson to all of us.
If not, then an attractive 40 something woman got sum VERY satisfying nookie. Some of you should BE so lucky.
Either way we all got a good laugh at this poor woman’s expense. Now let’s all get on with our lives and leave it and her alone.
END OF STORY
PERIOD
Tracy, my dear, I am so sorry it had to be at your expense but it did provide me quite a laugh. Hopefully you can get through this. I know a lot of these yo-yo’s won’t make it easy. Good luck.
I now believe that it was a fake. I was one of the ones who got a good laugh from this and sent it to others. Good thing the link I saw had her surname obscured.
I like Facebook. People should be careful with online behavior. However, the chances that this sort of thing will happen to you is highly unlikely.
TOTAL BS
NO ONE HACKED IT
IT IS CLEAR SHE MADE A MISTAKE
END OF STORY
PERIOD
I actually read about this already myself. The other article that I read gives alternate reasoning for how her information was obtained however.
Here it is http://monsterfresh.com/2009/08/27/tracy-turkish-brooks-facebook-hack-4chan/
You are doing exactly the same thing by calling a bunch of people you don’t know “losers”. Are you one of Ms. Brooks “friends”?
If it were you who’d had your account hacked and then had a bunch of losers you don’t know saying you were a ditzy tart who slept around, you’d be pretty annoyed…watch what you say about people, especially when it’s uncharitable, karma will bite you back. This happened to a friend of mine, legitimately. He had his Facebook account hacked as well as his Twitter and two email accounts – this is why I don’t use those idiotic sites!! They’re not safe!!
Alternatively, the “hacker” story is a con, a cover-up, conceived by her friends and family to save her from the embarrasment she feels. Maybe the hacker wrote those comments in order to sound convincing… or maybe Ms. Brooks wrote them herself that’s why they ARE convincing. Anyway, to be frank, I couldn’t care less. I’m sure those who care about Ms. Brooks will believe the hacker story and the rest will believe whatever they want.
Umm maybe it says “wrong box” because the person who hacked it was trying to convey some sense of realism. They wanted it to be very convincing as Tracy, the facebook noob who can’t figure out how to delete a wall post intended to be a private message, even hours after someone has instructed her on how to do so. Let’s be real. If she really had accidently done this, she would have been on facebook in a panic trying to figure out how to delete the post, so even if she couldn’t figure it out herself she would have promptly deleted it when one of her friends told her how. But like I said, the hacker attempted to be convincing, and obviously they reeled some of you in.
If she was hacked, then why would she say ‘I wrote in the wrong box’?
Hacked – I think not
If it’s a hack why does she admit she wrote the comment in the wrong box immediatelly after? I smell something fishy!
You’re just guessing how the hack was done, did you not hear that this was just one of several resulting from the hack of a christian dating site? The full story’s on the coffee desk from 22nd August, google for coffee christian dating hack.
Just goes to show that you need to be careful. She’s going to be sore for a week, and sitting won’t be any fun.
It could’ve been even more embaressing if it had been a TROY rather than a Tracy. Someone did a bad thing and I hope it catches up with them some day when they least expect it.
Blah it wasn’t hacked. it was legit hacked only after the fact.
I wanted to share 2 suggestions that I find helpful when I have to use the standard “security” questions. First, answer the questions from another person’s point of view. Hackers might be able to get my Mother’s maiden name, but I doubt they will ever know my best friend or aunt’s mother’s maiden name! Second suggestion is to use the wrong answers. If you give your childhood pet’s name as your place of birth or favorite color, chances are greater that no one will be able to guess it.
You realize that you don’t have to enter a REAL answer for those “security questions”, right?
The main isue here is not users being lazy/stupid with their passwords; it is the inherently broken way such sites deal with passwords. When you request your password, not only do they ask a stupidly simple “security” question; they send it to you plaintext in open e-mail.
Ten again; this certainly isn’t FaceBook’s first gaffe, it won’t be their last. I suggest shunning the site alltogether.
Carrie wrote: As Tracy’s cousin, and someone who knows her very well, I was of course horrified by the recent postings. Thank you for your suggestions on how to better protect ourselves from being hacked.<<< Carrie - thank you so much for posting - the interest in Tracy's story has been incredible (over 16k page views in just a few days). I hope that the recommendations help! Please let Tracy know that, if she's interested, we'd love to let her tell her story here - we can only *imagine* what it has been like for her since this happened, and her story could really help others to realize *just* how serious this is!
As Tracy’s cousin, and someone who knows her very well, I was of course horrified by the recent postings. Thank you for your suggestions on how to better protect ourselves from being hacked.
Great post! I heard this story elsewhere and figured it was weird. Good of you to post this article
Yeah… hacked… NOT. She emailed to facebook from what email account? From locked and hacked email account on hotmail? ;-) Or she created new account a than write to fb? So I could write to fb that i am Pope and theyll send me password for that account? I dont think so…