Teens Arrested in MySpace Extortion Scam 193
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 (Score:4, Funny)
Grammar not Grammer (Score:2)
if the story is factual (Score:5, Insightful)
So, two kids hacked MySpace, and threatened further damage unless they were given $150,000, but cry "foul" when lured into a job offer/interview for the purpose of arresting them.
I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet extortion dollars thay MySpace would not bother luring people into their space if no extortion were there in the first place.
It's pretty amazing how criminals (alleged) cry about violated rights when apprehended. Yeah, there are constitutional procedures to guide law enforcement and judicial, thank goodness for that.
I don't see, assuming these are the kids who did hack MySpace, any impropriety nor violation of their "space".
Re:if the story is factual (Score:1, Insightful)
Nothing in the article says anything about them 'crying foul'. It mentions that they're pleading 'not guilty' to the charges but nothing else about their reaction.
Re:if the story is factual (Score:5, Informative)
My bad, I read a different (additional) article... From this Chicago Tribune article [chicagotribune.com] (possible registration required).
The pertinent text from that article:
Re:if the story is factual (Score:5, Funny)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2)
Sadly, the latter right is pretty much gone thanks to laws like RICO that encourage anonymous tips.
Why are anonymous tips required? Because the punishment is generally far out of line with the behavior, so the punished feels the need for "revenge". Selling pot is not harming anyone (some drug dealers turn to violence because they cannot get restitution from the courts; however, it is a true statement that less tha
Re:if the story is factual (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the guys could have clubbed a baby to death on national television with a rolling-pin, and the lawyer would have to find some way to blame it on Martha Stewart because her rolling-pins are deadly weapons and magnetically attracted to babies, and plus, the baby was kind of being a dick, you know.
Exactly! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Exactly! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2)
I thought this was a felony offence for the FBI and the DA to sort out.. I'll never understand Law Enforcement post Department of Homeworld Lament...
Re:if the story is factual (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:if the story is factual (Score:2, Insightful)
What about the guy who was held hostage [indymedia.org] in his own home by 5 Sheriff Deputies while they dunked his head in a fish tank and a toilet, connected batteries/live electrical wires to his genetals, and put a gun to his head in an attempt to force him to sign a waver to allow them to search his home without a warrent. Funny thing was his wife set a tape recorder in the kitchen before being ordered out of the house.
Ofcouse that
Well that violation will happen later (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, young love. Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:2)
Ah, young love. Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.
I'm in utter awe at your sense of fairness and humanity.
In case you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:2)
Stay away from Bubba.
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:2)
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait... why is rape funny? Oh yeah: because we are as inhumane as anyone we've ever called evil.
I'm super glad these two pricks got caught. And I am glad they'll be removed from society for a while, or at least financially punished. But I hope they don't get raped, as they would be a) condoning torture, b) likely make them even more problematic members of the society in which I live and c) give an even worse criminal the pleasure of raping.
Cheers.
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:2)
Re:Well that violation will happen later (Score:2, Insightful)
I would bet that the majority of people here could care less that there is ongoing rampant rape and physical abuse in US prisons. They may not have a desire for it, but they aren't going to do anything to stop it.
I understand the desire for karmic balance. Raping a extortionist is not karmic balance.
Cheers.
A MySpace exploit? Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
--Rob
Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes! (Score:2)
Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes! (Score:2)
(On a slightly related note, the captcha for this message says "pregnant".)
Re:A MySpace exploit? Oh noes! (Score:2)
Sucks to be them... (Score:5, Funny)
Why It sucks to be them (Score:1)
Re:Why It sucks to be them (Score:1)
Re:Sucks to be them... (Score:1)
Screw the arrest... (Score:2)
(I'd really laugh if the exploit "leaked" now, costing MySpace much more than $150,000 in downtime, lost data and lost crediblity.)
Re:Screw the arrest... (Score:2)
The value of Myspace Data (Score:5, Informative)
It's always baffled me how so many people could miss what is so big and profitable about Myspace. Even if the site itself never made money (which I doubt, as they advertise heavily and widely) - the data they collect is worth millions upon millions of dollars.
Re:The value of Myspace Data (Score:2)
Re:The value of Myspace Data (Score:2)
Too bad the data is not verifiable. I have foster kids. They have accounts. I visited My Space and found the minimum age is 14.
I think My Space has a lot of 14 year old accounts that won't be 14 for several more years. I know of 3 that are really 12.
With some of the content on the site, I wish they had a way to verify the age of it's members.
Re:Screw the arrest... (Score:2)
Easier ways to take down myspace (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad thing is I can think of about 3 ways right now to bring myspace down at least from a users standpoint. The openess of css usage they allow, plus there is a great little expliot making the rounds after you clicked on an outsidelink it takes some actions on your account to propagate itself. You could make a nice cascading corrupted CSS plague, forcing all user pages to crash any browser.
Re:Easier ways to take down myspace (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Easier ways to take down myspace (Score:1)
*Greasemonkey must have the appropriate scripts installed to even work
Re:MySpace pages already make some browsers crash. (Score:1)
Re:MySpace pages already make some browsers crash. (Score:2)
Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:2)
So what is a "jumpsuit" and what is a "shifter"? Thanks!
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:1)
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:2, Funny)
<? flame_retardant_suit = on; ?>
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:2)
Re:Have these guys never seen a movie? (Score:2)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Slashdot _would_ love them... (Score:2)
Tracker Sites (Score:5, Informative)
These kids were associated with a site that charged for code that you can add to your MySpace profile which would allow you to see who had viewed your profile, when, and where they got to you from (another friend, search, etc). By my calculations they were making upwards of $20,000/month from their service ($5.00/mo with around 4000 users).
They, and other tracker sites, have been constantly battling with MySpace over the use of the "hacks". Most of the stuff they've used has simply taken advantage of bad programming. The first generation of trackers used a flash file in the profile to read users cookie data. Then MySpace forced all embedded flash objects to disallow the use of actionscript. They moved on to inserting javascript in CSS commands, using image files to capture browser info, etc. MySpace responded by blocking the use of certain domains within profiles. They then bought a bunch of different domains and assigned them randomly to users.
Then there was some random legal trouble that they never really talked about but had apparently moved past. The next planned release was supposed to be "unstoppable". They had promised the release for about a week and a half and it was eventually pushed back to May 19. Then they got arrested. The site, myspaceplus.com, switched over to a basic notice about "info coming soon" and that was it. There was a pretty active forum on there but I think people were starting to sense that there was trouble and/or the two owners (who went by Jack and Jake on the site) were skipping town.
Anyway, it's a really interesting phenomenon, especially considering that other services have built in the ability to see who's viewing you as long as you allow others to do the same when you view their profile (Friendster). Most of the tracker sites now are on a similar model where the tracker will only work with other users ot the service.
So, not really "hacking" per se. 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.
Re:Tracker Sites (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Tracker Sites (Score:1)
Re:Tracker Sites (Score:1)
Re:Tracker Sites (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Tracker Sites (Score:2)
My Space : The Visual IRC
Death sentence an option? (Score:5, Funny)
The abouve comment is a joke...laugh...
OMG! Entrepeneurs! KILL! (Score:2)
Seriously.. the extortion thing was pretty dumb of them, but this sense of ownership of everything a company touches is insane and needs to end. People will build on top of your work. Its the way free market economies work. Get over it.
Re:Death sentence an option? (Score:1)
WTF (Score:3, Informative)
However if you google for other news stories there seems to be more going on.
First of they are not teens. 18 and 19 makes them adult in america doesn't it?
Second is that they apparently ran a website http://myspaceplus.com/ [myspaceplus.com] (wich is still up but empty of content, and horribly laid out on opera/linux). Before this it apparently was a site for some software to hack myspace.
This "first" hack was discovered and plugged. They then apparently tried to extort myspace into paying 150.000 (or get paid to be consultants) and were then trapped by law enforcement officials at a meeting.
A lot of the explenation by the lawyer of the young idiots sound like typical lawyer crap "anything to get my clients off".
The real question is, what was myspaceplus.com about? Is this just a story of two idiots who were to greedy and now can learn a bit about the real world. Or did myspace step over the line in trying to get rid of a couple of hackers by appealing to their greed.
Either way the young aduls are stupid but you can wonder if they really need to spend several years in a federal jail because of it, oh who am I kidding. Fry the suckers.
It just is fucking hilarious. If their attorny is claiming the truth (HA) then you got to admire their lack of common sense. Ooh, yeah we publish a tool to hack myspace. Oh look they are sending us a job offer to advise them for 150.000 dollars. Lets travel across the country to get rich!
By the way doesn't the fact that they travelled across the state border (LA and New York are different parts of america right? You yanks ain't got a monopoly on bad education you know) make it a federal crime?
Oh well, since they are geeks they will at least soon loose their virginity. Squeel piggy, squeel!
"They are not teens" (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, could you say that again with numbers in writing? I'll give you a hint: EighTEEN and NineTEEN.
You are correct that they are adults (legally able to sign a contract). They are also teenagers.
Re:"They are not teens" (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know if the OP meant it this way, but I took it as a comment on how US society (or at least the media) tries to excuse behavior. Legally, at 18 you're an adult. The term "teen", while technically referring to someone between the ages of 13 and 19, tends to imply "child". So, are you still a child at age 18? What about at age 25? As an example, the local news continually referred to both the shoot
Re:"They are not teens" (Score:1)
When someone refers to someone as a "kid" then there's no way to know the age of the "kid" unless you know if they are referring to biological or mental age. Often it's just a relative term. A 70 year old may well refer to a 40 year old as a kid. I know that parents will refer to their children as their kids no matter how old they are.
On the other hand, I don't know how often people use "teen"
Re:WTF (Score:3, Interesting)
Not Entrapment: You are a drug dealer, you see an undercover officer (UC) and walk up to them and offer to sell them drugs, without them asking you anything. They then make a buy and bust you. All well and legal, since you made the offer, clearly you wer
Re:WTF (Score:2)
teenage [tfd.com] adj. Of, relating to, or applicable to those aged 13 through 19.
You can be tried as an adult a lot sooner then that. Nobody said they were children.
I would ask how your comment got to a three score, but that's of no use given your ability to understand simple numbers is so lacking.
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidence? ;-)
Welcome! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Welcome! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Welcome! (Score:2)
Some mothers do have 'em (Score:1, Informative)
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:XrpeKGWy2egJ:
The Real Deal (Score:5, Informative)
Myspace (Score:2, Insightful)
"Myspace.com: error" (Score:3, Funny)
And the connection is...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now *that's* a sophisticated web application. (Score:2)
A little unethical (Score:2)
Surprised? (Score:2)
Glad to have them out of the genepool.
150k, WTF (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats just plain stupid.
Re:Not surprised (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not surprised (Score:2)
Re:Not surprised (Score:2)
Americans (and being one I know how this is) are selfish in general on our every day lives and we think we can get away with a lot of things. Sure during disasters we are generous, but most of the time we don't lift fingers to help each other or give each other the time of day.
We cut each other in traffic to get ahead. We speed because we think we can get away with it. We lie. We cheat. We steal. We put others down so we can get ahead. And we do it all because we want more... More
Re:Not surprised (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly i have less of a problem with blogging than the governments privacy violations with the telephone network. I choose to blog, I didn't choose to let them listen to my calls or view the list of people I called.
Blogging isn't a breakdown in society, its just a new way to communicate information to people you know. (and don't know)
Re:Not surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
To heck with pretty pink ones. Great men have been keeping journals since inexpensive paper came to Europe.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it, people no longer care about privacy as they are publishing every single aspect of their daily lives for everyone to read about, including things like "My boyfriend dumped me today! I wanna die!"
Since when is a society on the decline when people can express themselves freely without any serious repercussions? The only use for privacy is protection against intolerant people, so societies where people voluntarily do not make use of it are probably very tolerant of individuals. I might have missed a few developments, but I always thought that kind of freedom is one of the things we consider to be a fundamental values of ours?
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, the easy one -- kids. Kids are NOT the only people who try to get away with anything, are interested solely in themselves, or try to get something for nothing -- here are a couple good ones:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060527/ap_on_fe_st/h
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060525/od_nm/cour
www.dumbcriminals.com/drugs/dil-doh/ (a couple steals sex toys and enhancement pills repeatedly from an adult store, they end up being caught on one of their many return trips and when they are caught, the "goods" are in a bag NEXT TO THEIR 3 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER),
and last but not least - EVERY drunk driver EVER.
Now for the "American" part. Stupidity is not a trait restricted to Americans -- PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE IDIOTS:
news.com.com/Worm+traps+alleged+child+porn+offe
And finally, to prove that not just American kids commit crimes -- www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1772630.html?menu=n
I think I've made my point. Sorry, I just get a little riled up when people make broad generalizations with negative connotations.
Re:Not surprised (Score:2)
From the Article: "Thompson is facing a felony charge of shooting or throwing a deadly missile into an aircraft."
You know what's sad? A bottle rocket isn't deadly to a human, let alone a helicopter. What she did was stupid, but
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
If they choose to, what harm is there to that? I mean, there are people starting wtih JennaCam and ending at BigBrother who'd like to be in front of a cam 24/7. Great for them. If they want to keep a public diary (read: blog), go ahead. For the most part I consider it a good thing that people aren't that insanely stuck up with their facade (dunno if that's the right english word) and that they live life with their ups and downs, just like everyone else.
What's important is that things can also be private when you choose to. That you don't feel on display, that people can grope into your private life when you don't want to. If you're a creepy stalker, a marketdroid or the frigging government, I don't like people profiling me, analyzing me, collaborating data. Chances are you'll be able to read out of it more than I want you to. It's well known from intelligence work that a collection of seemingly innocent unclassified information put together can reveal things that are (and should be) classified. Same goes for a personal life.
Even if there's a "breach" of privacy and things are already public, either because you were bloody drunk, your friends decided it'd be fun to surprise you or use a hidden cam, your ex was bitter or for some other reason it's still private. There are some kinds of mistakes or silly and embarrasing situations you wish would go away, or least limited in scope to some good friends and for a limited time. Good luck with that in a digital world though...
Re:Not surprised (Score:2)
Re:Not surprised (Score:2, Funny)
Re:lol (Score:1)
Re:lol (Score:4, Funny)
$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
Re:lol (Score:1)
Re:Man..... (Score:1)
If people are sitting around archiving every conversation and every event that ever took place (including the questionable, shady, illegal, very illegal, and WTFFAITYT), then the government only needs to go to someones website to find out that "I raped the head cheerleader last night!"
You see?
Re:Man..... (Score:1)
Re:Clearly not all teens have limited science abil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Smart enough... (Score:2)
Greed goes a long way. They got led into believing they would collect if they followed the money. I think they took up an offer. They didn't set and stick to firm secure terms. This was not a Western Union transfer out of the country.