A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists.
A man travelling on a stolen passport on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was a young Iranian who has no links to terrorists. Reuters

Hoax video makers continue to have a field day over social media sites, fooling people into believing that the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 jet was found. These sites trick readers by using catchy titles such as Shocking Video but frustrate them by asking clickers to first share the video before they could view it.

The real situation is that the unmanned submarine searching for the ill-fated plane was forced to cut short its first search mission on Wednesday because upon exceeding its depth limit of 4,500 metres, its built-in safety feature made the sub return to the surface, according to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).

The search, now about to enter its sixth week, has been frustrating for followers of the event that video sites which tease the public with seemingly fresh developments appeal to people.

Such hoax sites often collect reader's data since requiring Internet users to share the video which means allowing the site to access their social media accounts or to install apps which could contain malware. The latest one from the site www://plane.clipvdo.in requires the reader to install a new Codec pack. It has been allegedly shared more than half a million times

Another social media post titled SCAM -' Flight MH370 Found in Indian Ocean Shocking Video' exposes the hoax site. It explained that the first message is a scam "designed to promote and gain new sign-ups for a dodgy video streaming website."

The second Web site called Hoax Slayer pointed out that when the reader follows the instruction, the scam post would then be seen by all the friends of the user, in the process gaining more potential victims. Having shared the hoax video, they are then directed to create an account to view the video, but they end up never viewing the non-existent footage.

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Malaysian Airlines Flight 370: Return of Pings Results in Narrowing of Search Area to 75,000 Sqm; Australian Navy Holds Underwater Search for Missing Jet

Meanwhile, on the real search, JACC coordinator retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said that for the past six days, there has been no acoustic trace of the aircraft's black box Bluefin-21 sub underwater.

The JACC has extracted the sis hours of data gathered by the Bluefin and is analysing it. It takes two hours for the sub to reach the ocean floor.