Kiddie Porn Extortion Spam Scam?
from the real-or-not? dept
Interesting to follow the trail on this one. CSO Magazine came out with an “anonymous” article talking about a new kind of scam. Someone sends a spam message to people directing them to a certain, perfectly normal website. Then, exploiting some sort of browser security hole, downloads kiddie porn to the user’s computer. The final touch, of course, is to email the victim and extort money from them in exchange for promising not to tell their company about the kiddie porn on their computer. It wasn’t long before other news sites picked up the story. However, now, Dan Gillmor is questioning the validity of the initial story, saying that the anonymous nature of the article makes it pretty untrustworthy. Dave Sifry, who first brought the story to Gillmor’s attention is now wondering if the original story is true, but points out that it is feasable, whether it happened or not.
