Man Arrested For Social Networking Spam And Extortion
from the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-no-one dept
With all of these various social network apps, one of the claims that many make is that it protects you from spam, by only allowing people within your inner circle (or a few rings out) to email you -- rather than giving everyone access to everyone. Well, apparently one teen thought that was too restrictive and worked out a way to spam everyone on MySpace, the social networking service that recently surpassed Friendster in popularity. To make matters worse, he then approached MySpace and asked if he could be given the exclusive rights to spam MySpace members. When ignored, he threatened to reveal how he spammed everyone to other spammers. In response, MySpace went to the authorities, and the guy has now been arrested. Yet another reminder that each one of these sites that you give all your info to may not do the greatest job protecting it.
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They did protect users
MYSpace did a great job of protecting its users. The bad guy did not get member email addresses or any private information. And MYSpace arrested him -- sedning a serious message to other spammers not to mess with them. 18 years in jail!
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odd I never got spammed
If he spammed everyone on my space, he must have missed me.
sounds like making a mountain out of a Molehill.
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Spam sucks
But I didn't get any of his message either.
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18 years is probably a bit harsh... but damn, what did he think myspace was gonna say when he asked if he could spam their users exclusively?
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It's the same as writing a computer virus, then demanding that all the social networking sites pay up a ransom demand to innoculate themeslves against your code hack. MySpace did the right thing by reporting it. This is one of the areas investigated by the FBI (http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/computer_intrusions.htm). 18 yrs is probably an accumulation of charges pressed against the guy, not specifically for one offense.
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Social Networking
Honestly, I think the era of social networking will be gone soon. Where are our privacy rights? The amount of time spent online dealing with these issues is taking precious hours away from actually living. My 2 cents. Warm Regards, Rob http://www.battlecall.com
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