Turns out tracking down some of the world's worst movie pirates is as easy as stalking them on social media.

A recent report published by TorrentFreak investigates the convictions of three of the biggest file-sharers in the United Kingdom.

Sahil Rafiq, for example, posted torrents under a variety of usernames. One of those usernames, however, was also used on a customer-support website for an online computer store. Rafiq posted a question related to his laptop, signing off with "Kind regards, Sahil Rafiq." Investigators were then able to find his Facebook profile, which then gave them his place of residence, which led to his home address.

Facebook was also the downfall of 40-year-old Graeme Reid, who used the same email address on his Facebook profile as he did for piracy. Law enforcement simply had to search the email, finding the Facebook profile, where he had listed his occupation as "encoder."

Last but not least is 22-year-old Reece Baker, better known online as Baker92. The report highlights that his main error was to include a shout out to "baby momzie Ria" in an info file. The Federation Against Copyright Theft, or FACT, guessed that Baker92 was a combination of his last name and birth year, then searching Equifax's credit database for that combination along with a child with a woman named Ria.

While movie piracy probably isn't something you should go into, the other moral to the story is that there are steps that can be taken to help give you privacy online, and it's important to be savvy about what you're doing on the Internet. Especially if you're, you know, a criminal.

Via: Engadget

Photo: Lisa Cyr | Flickr