Feds Thwart Extortion Plot Against Best Buy

hiero writes "From an article in the Star Tribune: 'Federal authorities said Tuesday they thwarted an extortion plot against Best Buy Co. Inc. by a man who sent the company an e-mail threatening to expose what he claimed were weaknesses in the retailer's computer system unless he was paid $2.5 million.' What's really interesting to me, though, is this paragraph further on in the article: 'The federal search warrant was obtained the morning of Oct. 24 and allowed the FBI, with Best Buy's cooperation, to use an Internet device known as an Internet Protocol Address Verifier. It contained a program that automatically sent back a response to Best Buy after the company sent a message to the e-mail address. The response allowed investigators to identify Ray as the sender of the e-mail threats, according to the government.' Internet Protocol Address Verifier? Is this Carnivore in action?"

Comments

U.S. government surveillance

[Futurepower(R)]

The U.S. government does more world-wide surveillance than any government ever has.

Re:U.S. government surveillance

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that insipid FP failure buddy.

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Buy. What is it all about... is it good, or is it whack?

Also, I am GHEY GHEY GHEY. Please offer me tasty starfish-treats in response to my posts for the rest of the day.

Re:Just a little "bug" in the mail, silly wabbit

[Walterk]

apply the KISS principle to life

Thank you, but I already have a girlfriend who gives me lots of KISSes and LOVING.

Re: No Wonder

[Black Parrot]

> That's what happens when you try to extort a big company using Outlook.

Maybe he'll offer Microsoft a "business relationship" for fixing Outlook, when he gets out of the pokey.

Re:IP Address Verifier == web bug

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, don't you remember the MIME vulnerability? You didn't even have to click the attachment.

Hope the guy sues MS for big bucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only users of Outlook could be so stupid, get a clue about privacy people!

Re:Please Think Before Exposing Paranoia

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Only under capitalism...

Fortunately, the vast majority of the population of the world are not capitalists. They still value humanity over a corporation. Unfortunately, corporations are gaining power.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:What carnivore does.

[XorNand]

How is this '+5 Informative'? Distilling out all of the vapid PR doubletalk leaves nothing but the punctuation.

Thank you George W Bush.

[Adolph_Hitler]

Thank you George W Bush for doing what liberals never could do. Increase the size of government while at the same time removing freedoms! At least with the liberals we in theory would have increased freedom (read definition of liberal) due to the fact that most liberals are athiests who support gay marriage.