Facebook, as you probably know, is a social networking web site similar in some ways to MySpace. I actually use facebook, though, because I feel it’s far superior to MySpace. Every now and then, I come across something something unusual that most people would never notice. I should clarify at this point that my use of the term ‘hacking’ is in reference to the classical definition. That is, hacking is studying a system to see if you can improve it or exploit it to perform a function it was not originally intended to (my definition). It is rarely illegal and is more of an exercise in understanding than a malicious act, as it is portrayed in the modern sense.
Tonight, I came across an article that mentioned a unique facebook group. It uses a special character known as a non-breaking space, and represented as ” ” to create a group that has no name. This also makes it somewhat difficult to search for. Thinking this was clever, I searched facebook for ” “. In addition to the aforementioned group, it listed what seemed to be hundreds of the same person: The Creator.
Intrigued, I delved into it a bit further. There was a ‘The Creator’ at CMU, and many other places. The profile didn’t indicate that it was any real person, but I was able to piece together some odd bits of information. Obviously, there’s the reference of creation, or being the first. The profile number of this person was 21700001–a surprisingly round number. If this person was the first person, then they would be number 1. But there’s the ’217′ part–but that’s simple: Each network is numbered sequentially on the left, and each profile sequentially on the right. CMU was simply the 217th network to be entered on facebook.
I was able to figure this out by comparing my profile number (21704861) to the Creator’s. The first three digits are the same, since they’re both in the CMU network. For the last 5, mine’s much higher, probably indicating I was the 4861st person at CMU to register for facebook.
This hypothesis was confirmed by a quick Google search, which led me to http://thebillygoatcurse.com/43/. That page said this:
The first Facebook member at every school is called The Creator. You can?t search for him, but it is the first member for each school added into the Facebook system.
Looking at your ID from your profile?s URL, you?ll learn that the first couple of numbers will represent your school. If you change the rest of the numbers to zeros, and the last number to 1 (making it the first ID for your school), you?ll view ?The Creator?s? profile. And? that?s it.
I had done one thing this person didn’t know was possible, though. I had stumbled on a way to search for The Creator (by searching for ” “). And that’s something apparently very few people know about.
All content ?2007 Tony Magri
