by Tyson Fraleigh
In the recent month, a new app has come into view as the nextgreat phone application. The name is ‘Yik Yak’, a site where people can post anonymously based on geographical area. If you are within 1.5 miles within the original post location, then you will receive it in your feed. The app only requires a username for use. No passwords to hassle with, just pure anonymous posting. Or, is that the case?
According to venturebeat.com, the security firm SilverSky Labs has found major flaws in the Yik Yak’s security measure. The first is obvious; without having to login with a password, all a person needs to know is a username, and they can access your account, and begin posting on your account. But, it’s anonymous, is it not? Nobody is going to know it’s you anyway, right? Wrong. Only a month ago, SilverSky Labs had to alert Yik Yak about a major vulnerability found in their servers. They were quick to create an update that would fix this vulnerability. However, the idea still stands; people are trusting a site with their secrets and supposedly ‘anon’ posts, and they screw up coming out of the gate?
These facts alone disregard one thing that we have been repeatedly taught from our parents, teachers and even from speakers that have come all the way to our school to warn us; NOTHING WE POST ONLINE IS ANONYMOUS. With every link you click, every post you make, you are leaving a ‘cyber footprint’, leading a trail that hackers and law enforcement can easily follow right back to you. And, as many have seen all over the country, and the world for that matter, the word ‘anonymous’ brings upon one opportunity that many have been taking advantage of: cyber hate.
Cruel messages have been springing up all across Canada and the United States, especially in high schools and colleges. Anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, racist and other offensive comments have been plaguing students of all social groups. People have been attacking from the popular to the awkward, men and women, the jocks to the nerds. Even more disturbing and horrific, even the deceased don’t seem to be safe from the site’s hate. From these horrible posts, students have left schools in tears, while others sit in their desks not realizing how they have just hurt a person or a group of people. But, if nobody knows who posted it, then nobody can find out who did it, right?
Wrong.
Fox News reported that in California, a teenager boy was charged for making a terrorist threat on Yik Yak. He thought the post would be “funny”, and nobody would know it was him. Two more teenagers were charged in Alabama for making threats of shooting up their high schools. These maybe extremes that we (hopefully) would not find in our school. But, the fact of the matter still remains; people can see past the ‘anon’ face of a post if they dig for it.
The creators of the app, two college graduate students, have stated to combat the rise of attacks on their app, they are actively trying to stop high school students from getting access to the application. “We think that psychologically high schoolers aren’t ready to use our app,” the two creators stated to Business Insider. And, based on all the evidence seen around North America alone, it is clear they are right. And, though it is good that they the creators are helping fight the gossip war that has been plaguing our student body, this is only one part of the issue. Another issue is simply this; teenagers are getting sickeningly malicious towards each other. There is clearly something wrong when people are posting about shooting up their schools, or that they are spreading hurtful rumours for everyone to see. People have had a saying for decades about the infamous high school years; teenagers will be teenagers. This somehow makes the tears, scars and depression of hurting others suddenly okay. This is not the case whatsoever. No saying can make insulting someone or talking about someone behind their back all right. Shakespeare once wrote, “We cannot find our destiny in the stars, but merely in ourselves.” Well, it’s time we stop star-gazing at how anonymity makes hateful things okay, and look into who we are as people. This is the only hope we have for helping each other – looking for the compassion in ourselves to make the school a safer and happy place for EVERYONE. If we can’t do that, then how are we going to handle the world beyond the school house walls? We are all good people. Why is an app changing all of that?
Yik Yak as an application has shown what anonymity can force good people to do to each other. It is time we end this nightmare before it goes any farther. Anonymity is a fake façade that doesn’t exist on the internet and doesn’t exist in our lives. SilverSky Security put it quite nicely when they said, “Be careful what you say or do on social media. You’re probably not as anonymous as you think.” Hopefully, we can all keep this in mind before we think of sending that next angry tweet, status, or comment.
Resources:
ckssgazette.wordpress.com 