There's Competing... And There's Hacking Into Systems To Destroy Competitors

from the which-one-goes-too-far? dept

There are different styles to competition. Sometimes competition can be pretty aggressive... and sometimes it can involve hacking into a competitors system to try to destroy their business -- endangering peoples' lives at the same time. At least that appears to be what happened in New York, where the founder of a doctors' answering service went a bit overboard in his effort at taking down a competitor (and former employer). He tried to hack into their calling system so that patients received busy signals or, even better, "groaning, moaning in a sexual nature." This resulted in at least one patient being unable to reach a doctor and needing to be rushed to a hospital. Of course, the guy didn't stop there. He also spent time crank calling employees of the firm, sent forged audit requests and even sent a moving truck to the other company with orders to take away six boxes of financial info (claiming that it was for the state Department of Taxation and Finance). The fact that this went beyond just basic illegal activities to the point of endangering lives, it's almost amazing that he only faces up to seven years in jail. Either way, the reporter on this story must have loved being able to write that messages left at the company, Emergency Response Answering Service, "were not immediately returned." At least they weren't blocked by moaning noises.

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