hey, those of you who know me have already heard me wax apocalyptic about the ultimate value of all of these social networking sites: pure law enforcement and network modeling to catch criminals (remember how google’s orkut helped drug dealers and the cops chasing ‘em?)…so in another recent turn of events, some cops have begun to use the facebook quite regularly to identify possible perps and assailants by - get this - supposedly paying universities to get a “.edu” email address to allow for registration…

unlike myspace, where any russian hooker, pedophile or troglodyte can set up an account, the facebook actually requires the use of a valid “.edu” higher ed email address (see the eligibility section of their terms for more) - this (ideally) keeps it limited to people who a) are in college or have matriculated and b) keeps out people without a higher education (clever! the gentrification of the internet and cool ajax scripts at the same time - a marketing utopia!)…

…so, according to an article from the dartmouth (”america’s oldest college newspaper“), it all started with confusion about the hanover police using the college greenbook (aka “the facebook”) to identify wily students - but then folks got it confused with the actual “the facebook.com” web site…this was denied, until loopy student mandy lobel ran onto a game field in disguise - after which time she was nabbed, and pursuant to which she confronted the fuzz about using the facebook - which they admitted to doing…but here’s what’s loopy: the key copper in this incident admits to causing confusion by referring to “the face book” and claims total lack of awareness of the popular web site - yet others in law enforcement admit to using the site, actually many of them do (try a search for “police use facebook” and you’ll be blown away by college paper articles and local news out the wazoo)…again, all leading to that comment about paying universities for “.edu” email addresses..could one of these institutions please clarify for me? or rather, would the folks at the facebook perhaps take a few minutes to address this (mark, dustin, chris?)?

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