Teens Arrested in MySpace Extortion Scam

An anonymous reader writes "Two New York teens have been arrested after trying to extort $150,000 from the makers of MySpace, the popular online community site." From the article: " MySpace discovered the intrusion earlier this year and blocked it. The Los Angeles-based company also reported the incident to authorities. During the course of the investigation, threats were made that unless $150,000 was paid, new exploit code would be released, according to the statement. By this time, the sting operation had been set up, so instead of meeting with MySpace late last week, the pair from New York met with undercover officers from the U.S. Secret Service and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Bureau of Investigation. "

Go to jail

[linvir]

Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $150,000.

A MySpace exploit? Oh noes!

[autophile]

I feel a disturbance in My Space... as if a million preteen girls all shouted "OMG, poniez!" at once.

--Rob

Sucks to be them...

[jonoid]

If I were them I wouldn't be worried about the press publishing my name in connection with extortion, I'd be more embarassed about people finding out I was involved with MySpace.

Have these guys never seen a movie?

[llZENll]

Come on now, a job interview? Don't they know the way a transaction like this goes down is on the docks at night (when its foggy of course). The guy drops the money off in a breifcase, then you zoom by on a motorcycle with a hot chick on the back who picks it up as you fly by at 80mph in black leather jumpsuits.... ...oh I see where the plan fell through, being old enough to reach the shifter on the motorcycle, and knowing a hot chick.

Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes!

[Meagermanx]

Shows what you know. Preteen girls don't use commas.

Re:Easier ways to take down myspace

[__aalnoi707]

Yea but who is going to pull up your Myspace page and read it?

Death sentence an option?

[a_greer2005]

They had an opprotunity to take down the most annoying site in the history of the internet and the greedy bastards didnt pull the trigger? HANG 'EM!

The abouve comment is a joke...laugh...

Re:Not surprised

[tysonedwards]

I am already a journalist, somehow I think that politics may be seen as a demotion.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

lol some more..

$150,000? This is 2006; MySpace probably spends that much money on office coffee every year.

Flew out to LA? I couldn't find any details on this, but I'm willing to bet that the two kiddies were given free airline tickets to fly out to LA.

MySpace? It's not much of a challenge breaking that site, right? Seems like there's a new exploit discovered every month. I hope the media doesn't portray them as l33t "hackers".

Straight "A" students? This is a funny comment left on the ZDNET site..

Not hoodlums
Thier not hoodlums genius, i live like 20 minutes away from them. thier both straight a students with alot of computer expertise but were using thier skills in the wrong way and tried to make some illegal money off of myspace. Some people need to drop the "everyone from new york is a gangster" stereotype just like they tell us to drop the "anyone not from ny is a redneck" stereotype.
Posted by: gtapro91 Posted on: 05/27/06

Well that violation will happen later

[SmallFurryCreature]

Two fresh kids, a warm summer night, a dropped piece of soap, twenty horny harderned criminals.

Ah, young love. Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.

Heh

[Hawthorne01]

And this was posted right above an article about how science learning was down in U.S. schools.

Coincidence? ;-)

Welcome!

[Lip]

Welcome to MyJailSpace.com!

Re:if the story is factual

[suffe]

Are you insane? Not only did you Read The Fucking Article, you read another fucking article on top of that. Who are you and what are you doing on Slashdot?!

Re:Tracker Sites

[Mooga]

It seems that MySpace was most worried about people's IP addresses getting stolen. The sites started hashing them so you couldn't see the actual address. Seems like a weird thing to be worried about on the privacy front if you ask me.

So you can post your name, age, birthday, address, and all your other personal information for everyone to see on MySpace, but now they wont find your IP address! That's privacy for you!
If people on MySpace wanted privacy, they wouldn't BE on MySpace.

"Myspace.com: error"

[mattpointblank]

This had to fail, if everyone who found code issues in Myspace's programming wanted $150,000 they'd be bankrupt by Monday.

Re:Welcome!

[commodoresloat]

Bubba is in your extended network!

Re:Have these guys never seen a movie?

[jamesh]

Careful, now you will have half of the American viewers asking "what is a 'different parts of the world'"?

<? flame_retardant_suit = on; ?>

Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes!

[Anonymous Coward]

On a slightly related note, the captcha for this message says "pregnant".
Well are you?

Re:Not surprised

[MysteriousPreacher]

Give us Europeans the credit we deserve. We're just as capable of being jerks. We just have smaller cars, fewer missles and better beer.

150k, WTF

[Old Wolf]

[pinkie in mouth] One hundred and fifty ... THOUSAND ... DOLLARS!!!