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A How-Not-To Guide to Cyber-Extortion
TexasDex writes "The Register reports: Myron Tereshchuk, 42, of Maryland, pleaded guilty to "attempted extortion affecting commerce" for sending threatening messages to a competing patent firm, including a demand for $17 million in exchange for not revealing sensitive information. He was clever in hiding his tracks, the messages came from two different homes and a dentist's office, all of which turned out to be running unsecured WAPs. He also avoided a web bug sent by the firm, and managed to penetrate the company's computer system. But he made a few mistakes. First of all he was already a prime suspect due to "past altercations between Tereshchuk and the company". But "the clearest sign came when he issued the $17m extortion demand, and instructed the company to 'make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk.'""
the clearest sign came when he issued the $17m extortion demand, and instructed the company to 'make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk.
Almost as smart as this guy - "A man who walked into a Wal-Mart covered in blood and bought garbage bags Friday was charged with murder after authorities found a stabbed body in a trash bin."
Planning people, planning!
with various posts about CowboyNeal unless /. writes a check, payable to Rob Malda, for $1 million.
Beware!
To eliminate himself from suspicion, he should have told them to make the check out to "anybody but Myron Tereshchuk". They would then have everyone in the world BUT him as potential suspects! Brilliant!
What about the guy who robbed the convenience store and the clerk lady says, "I don't think you look old enough to be robbing a store, young man. I need to see some identification."
So the guy pulls out his driver's license and shows it to her. Haha.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
"Jack Hoff"... That takes me back. There was a local cop in my home town whose last name was Knouff. In his off duty time, he was a heavy drug user and mall cop, in that order. In junior high, we always called him Jack. Being sort of a failed body builder/wannabe stud/ scumbag type, he was usually hitting on high school girls who would then laugh at him and continue teasing him after we left. After a while, there must have been hundreds of kids doing this to him. Years later, I heard he had some kind of meltdown drunk and on duty at the mall where he beat the crap out of a 15 year old. Turns out his real name was Ralph, which I'm not sure was really any better. I wonder whatever happened to old Officer Jack Knouff? Now that it I'm thinking of it, the police chief here was named Richard Reems... I'm starting to think my hometown was run by the cast of a gay porn movie...
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
pffft. Amateur.
Everybody knows that only an idiot would ask for the check out to himself; so he could use that as an alibi, since nobody would believe that it was him.
Of course, a truly smart criminal would know that a smart investigator would realize that most people know that you shouldn't ask for the check to be written out to your own real name; so he should not have the check written to his own name. But naturally, a well-trained detective would recommend that possibility and immediately discount the possiblity that the name he demanded to be written on the check was his own name; so he should have used his own name.
But the company he was blackmailing was located in Connecticut, which is kind of like a miniature Australia; and everybody knows that Australia is populated by criminals...
(Ow, I think my head hurts now.)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig