Slashdot Mirror
Man Accused of Attempting to Extort Google
sandalwood writes "A programmer has been arrested on charges of attempting to "threaten Google with a software program he devised that creates phony clicks on pop-up advertisements delivered by Google. Google pays Web site publishers companies a certain amount for legitimate hits on those ads, but Bradley created a method that generates false clicks that appeared to be real Internet traffic, which would have repeatedly defrauded Google... Bradley contacted Google in early March, informing company officials that he had created the program and wanted $100,000 to keep him from selling it to spammers, according to an affidavit by a U.S. Secret Service agent." A harbinger of organized crime to come? That's a real nice website you have here... a shame if anything were to happen to it..."
I wonder how long he had to Google before he figured out the technical details of how to do that? ;-)
;-)
Search terms: "how to extort" AND money AND "from google"
You can find articles about the fellow by looking at the top Google hits for "moron," "fucktard," and "what the hell were you thinking?"
Next time, just go straight to the spammers.
That's a real nice website you have here... a shame if anything were to happen to it...
Isn't this what Slashdot is trying to do? No?
Martin
feeling lucky
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such search-engine fraud films as "The Altavistan Job", "The Great Dogpile Caper", and "Lycos Grifters IV: Electric Boogaloo".
...a new revenue stream.
Hi little guy, this is Cmdr.Taco... We're going to link to your site in an article. What? You say you can't handle the traffic? For the low low cost of $699 we can grant you a license to mirror your site on our finely tuned slashdot-proof servers.
This guy tried to extort the search engine that allows you to find almost anything including almost anybody and he was expecting to not get caught?
Stupid!
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
For your Occupation, choose 2 of the following three:
1) Fun
2) Well-paying
3) Legal
This guy probably was legal up to the point of threatening Google. I guess that the fine line between the criminal mind and normal everyday greed.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
"Come out with your hard drives up or we'll send in the slashdotters and Shaft!"
The way of the future... Just wait till Bush catchs on, Cowboy Neal and Taco will be billionairs with an army of geeks on hand...
TO THE SLASHDOT MOBILE!
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
I figured out and wrote a perl script to increase my karma. Give me $1200 worth of ThinkGeek stuff, or I'll post it in the forums!!!!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
A series of funny quotes come to mind: 'You want I should break your links?' 'Mario, I need you to 404 this site.' 'I will ping flood you so fast, you wont know what hit you.' 'I host your site. You've never google me. You dont visit my page. And now you want me to bring down this site. What am I supposed to think?' 'Johhny, I swear, I'll get you your page hits. I just need some more time.'
The flying hamster of DOOM rains coconuts on your pitiful city.
Very similar to the google case, I think step 4 only applies to the lawyers
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
He was very easy to track down. Apparently, a red flag gets raised at Google whenever anyone actually clicks on those ads. So, they eliminated the guy who needed ink jet cartridges and sent the police in.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Maybe Linux Today can ask for money from major media outlets to prevent them from linking.
a pair of those blinking Nikes while running away from the cops?
-FL
this never would've happened if they didn't offer google in "hacker"
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
If only the world's more malicious traders in contraband goods would use this method.
"See, I have this cache of weapons in my house, and I'll sell them off to criminals at some point if you don't give me the money!"
"Wait...SWAT Team? What SWAT Team?"
"Outside my house?"
Michael Anthony Bradley, 32
Probably still has his mothers umbilical cord attached. Sheesh.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Imagine, he could have licensed his software to the spammers and charged them an annual fee to use it. He could have been the "Microsoft" of the spamming industry.
I would like to point out that, due to dangerously unsecure settings on installation of their home software, Microsoft is already the "Microsoft" of the spamming industry...
Note: WinXP really is better. Win2003 is much better. But if we don't have Microsoft to pick on, just who ARE we gonna pick on?
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I figured out and wrote a perl script to increase my karma. Give me $1200 worth of ThinkGeek stuff, or I'll post it in the forums!!!!
Awww, crap, you too? That's common knowledge:
num=int(rnd(0)*5)
select num
MSG="Microsoft sucks."
MSG="Linux rocks!"
MSG="MPAA is bad."
MSG="RIAA is evil."
MSG="This is a repost. Duh!"
end select
printf $MSG
A while ago I wrote a bot that posts to slashdot.
From the looks of things, you're not alone in that.
I always wonder when I see that seemingly redundant expression. I mean, what would a hardware program look like?
Okay, *theoretically* there could be a need to distinguish a computer program from, say, a TV program or a spending program or a concert program, but really, how likely is it that a computer programmer is threatening an information service company with information about who's playing second violin tonight?
Anonymous Coward,
Why do you say, you're not alone in that?
I think it was Carlin that said, "Think of how dumb the average person is... Half the people are dumber than that guy." Scary.
Carlin is almost certainly wrong. He is only correct if the following points are true:
* he's using the uncommon "median" definition of average (if he was using the more common "mean" definition, it would be extremely unlikely that he was correct, since there would have to be a distribution that splits exactly halfway at the mean intelligence point).
* There are not an odd number of people. If there are an odd number of people, fewer than half of the people out there are necessarily on either side of the median.
* Whatever metric Carlin is using for intelligence does not rate the two people used in calculating the mean to determine the median value as having the same degree of intelligence. If he is using something as roughly grained as an IQ score, for instance, he would certainly be wrong. (If he were, a number of people that would have been to one side of the median would be equally dumb as the median value, preventing half of the people out there from being dumber).
May we never see th
(Score -2, VB Programming)