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.'""

Comments

You'll never hear about the smart criminals.

[AltGrendel]

They never get caught.

Re:You'll never hear about the smart criminals.

[Everleet]

Also, most crimes that go to court result in conviction (well over 90%).

Of course. Bringing the innocent to trial would be unfair.
-- Q, Encounter at Farpoint

Re:You'll never hear about the smart criminals.

[m1kesm1th]

Actually its been a while since I read any American Case law, but I am aware of there being a particular reference to when the jury disagree with the law where they find the defendent not guilty. This is called Jury Nullification.

It is very easy to get dismissed by a judge from a jury, if you state that you believe in Jury Nullification.

It is common today for judges to tell prospective jurors that they must apply the law as he gives it to them and that their business is simply to determine whether the defendant has broken the law or not. But that is not what was intended by the right to trial by jury in the Bill or Rights. Thomas Jefferson said;

"...it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact."

In respect that removing people from society will halt them from perpetuating crimes, there are no clear answers. Some people benefit far better from rehabilitive methods, their chance at a new life if you will, other are probably better off incarcerated. It is becoming clearer it is impossible to just lock people up indefinitely, yet the only other method, would be to kill the individuals concerned. Yet many innocent people are incarcerated each yeah, it is as likely people would be killed, but I digress. If a jury has a reason to bypass the law (or through necessity) it can be done. However this normally occurs in extenuating circumstances. For example the ignoring fugitive slave laws.. etc etc

Re:You'll never hear about the smart criminals.

[Pharmboy]

The problem however, is that the American judicial system (or perhaps more clearly, the American criminal system) does not have a single perspective on the goal of the system [and in all fairness, no other nation in the world has a single perspective either].

All other points aside, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. I would also add that there is a huge problem with the system in that a criminal detainee can demand cable TV, but can't be protected from being raped. Our priorities in the penal system are quite messed up.

Re:You'll never hear about the smart criminals.

[Khazunga]

The purpose of putting someone in jail is NOT to rehabilitate them, its to remove them from the rest of us who do not go around committing crimes, in the hopes that they will not want to do that again. If they keep doing it again and again, then permanant removal *IS* the answer.

I don't know what is more frightening: That the "Land of the Free" removes people from society, or that north-americans take it so lightly. FYI in most European countries, the prision system has, as primary objective, the rehabilitation of individuals to society. And in no case is anyone considered unrecoverable (in my country, the maximum sentence, for any given crime, is 20 years). After a large enough time period, you can't be positive that the former criminal will be reincident, and everyone deserves another chance.

Did they use a trojan or spyware?

[Shoeler]

"At one point, the company president tried to use a "Web bug" to trace his cyber tormenter, but Tereshchuk detected the ruse."

Uhh - sounds like they tried to install some kind of activex microblaster-enabled spyware bug?? Maybe he was using Mozilla or something less spyware-enabled? ^_^

Still not a bad hack attempt - smart to use others unsecured wireless connections. I'll bet we hear about more of these types of intrusions in the future (if the media prints it).

Re:Did they use a trojan or spyware?

[krumms]

Uhh - sounds like they tried to install some kind of activex microblaster-enabled spyware bug??

Chances are it was just a GIF/JPEG image embedded in an e-mail. Your e-mail client downloads the image from a web server to display it and whammo - they have your IP address.

Re:Did they use a trojan or spyware?

[hyfe]

Web bugs work on all web browsers, unless you have image loading disabled. Read about them here, and repeat after me: "I will not be a mindless fanboy. I will not be a mindless fanboy.".

For christs sake, woke up on your bad side this morning? Your parent is misinformed, but hardly fanboy'ish.

Webbugs works in all browsers yeah (except lynx I guess), as turning off image loading while browsing seems kinda silly. However, as you'd probably realise if you bothered, E-mail clients are a whole different slew. The only use I've ever seen of external images in mail is exactly for tracking.

That makes the real difference lie in the default settings. I know Opera blocks them by default, Outlook does not (for that matter, I'm not even sure it can). In my little world, that makes the microsoft product unsafe to use, while *my* alternative is safe(r).

this is why extortion never works

[Ubergrendle]

You can make your threats as vauge or specific as you want... you can be ~very~ anonymous given the tools available today (mail, internet, courier, payphone, stolen cellphones).

However, at one point, sooner or later, you need to pickup the cheque or cash. Wire transfers can be traced, as can direct deposits. If there's a cash-only transaction, the cash can be marked and the police can watch the drop point.

Re:this is why extortion never works

[iabervon]

If an extortion victem is willing to go to the cops, it's already not going to work very well. If catching you is worth the information getting out, then you don't have sufficiently valuable information.

Re:this is why extortion never works

[ChrisGuest]

Yes, this is why extortion never works, because the extorter never figures out an anonymous way of having money transferred.

But, if the extorter is trying to achieve a behavioural response, such as a political concession, extortion can be higly effective. I guess, though, we refer to in these instances as 'blackmail' rather than 'extortion'.

Re:this is why extortion never works

[beebware]

I guess in case of security cameras - most places will archive their footage for between 7-30 days, banks may do it for 3-6months, but I doubt any where would archive all daily footage for a year+ "just in case".

Re:this is why extortion never works

[Sigma 7]

Hmmm, HIV is not transmitted by eating and doesn't survive long outside human body.

Most people don't know that.

The threat doesn't have to be 100% realistic - it just has to contain a minimum amount of buzzwords in order to incite fear in the subject, as most people do not think rationally when confronted with such a demand.

Re:this is why extortion never works

[cpghost]

How difficult would it be to hack into bank computers, creating a bank account, have the money transferred, disable the software bug temporarily, divert that money to other accounts that you create on-the-fly? There's a small window of opportunity where that new accounts are not yet bugged. Withdraw money. Then never log back into their servers! Oh, of course, don't do this from your own phone... :)

If you're that good a cracker, you won't have to use plain old extortion though...

Re:this is why extortion never works

[Chris Mattern]

Of course. And then you show them why not paying the money was a *bad* idea.

Chris Mattern

make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk

[smchris]

Yup, the drop is always the hard part, isn't it?

And thank goodness. We'll always have action movies.

most CAUGHT criminal are incredibly stupid

[aepervius]

But as the stupid one are caught you are left with the intelligent mastermind, which will enjoy their million extorqued. "Darwnism", if I may use the analogy at its best.

When will people learn.

[Chatmag]

You can't stay anonymous forever on the Internet. There are too many methods available to trace a person back to the source. Subpoenaing server logs or ISP client records is a good start.

Writing hold up notes on one of your own return address formatted envelopes is not a good way to go about it either. Or in his case demanding a check in his own name. Cracks me up when I see people make fundamental mistakes like that.

Re:Almost as smart...

[jyoull]

If it's been debunked, that was a mighty fast debunking as the linked story's dated today, only about 2 hours ago, "9:57 am EDT June 27, 2004" .. this one appears to be real, not an urban legend... it names names, lists charges, reports a fight and a knife, bloody sneakers, has a location...

Not all criminals are dumb

[brunes69]

Only the dumb criminals get caught. The authorities don't even know the smart criminals are committing crimes, let alone catching them.

Re:Almost as smart...

[TotallyUseless]

Here is a link to the CNN story on this from yesterday.

Re:The actual court document is even funnier

[rzbx]

Actually, I would not say that it is funny, but interesting. There is a lot of comments about how the company he was extorting was in corruption with the USPTO. I would not doubt this either. The sole purpose of this company was intellectual property. In the world of IP, it is much easier to make money from basically nothing. You take the work of others, and make it illegal for any one else to use it. The problem is, you need some good lawyers and some connections in the USPTO to guarantee that you receive the patents soon enough and that they go through. Now, you can argua about IP and the function it is supposed to serve, but it is what is happening in reality that I am concerned about. IP is not about progress, rarely is the case. It is about keeping control over a particular industry/technology/company/etc. It appears that this criminal was in the know of the problems, but was unfortunately a complete idiot and when it came down to it, acted foolishly. Even all the comments on slashdot are about "darwin" this "dumb criminal" that. For a bunch of geeks, it makes me sad to hear that most of you fail to look deeper into this. Go ahead, make your jokes. Laugh at the foolish criminal that has the same immoral thoughts as the company he went after. He went for the money, not the right thing to do. If he really did have information that would have exposed the company to ties with the USPTO, it would give more firepower to changing the patent system or even eliminating it and replacing it with something that would work more in helping progress science. Now, I don't know what is true or not, and these all could be lies, but I don't ignore it as absurd simply because it was a foolish criminal that said it. Making a fool out of a someone that is an enemy will tend to help you escape some of those ugly comments they made. Then again, I could have misread, I did read through only some of it really quick anyway. I recommend people read this, not any foolish remarks on a foolish person. This is slashdot, not Criminal Minds R' Us. I'll read it later, will you?

Talking about high conviction rates ...

[Savage650]

Also, most crimes that go to court result in conviction (well over 90%).

And that is supposed to mean the system works and society is safe? THINK AGAIN!

A 90-plus percent conviction rate says nothing about

• crimes that go undetected (obviously not part of any statistc)
• crimes that never go to court (lack of evidence/suspects, or shady deals with the DA)
• innocent people being convicted (erroneously, or -even worse- deliberately)

I'm not advocating crime (i concur with other posters in suggesting a political career instead), but i recommend scepticism towards these bogus statistics. Especially with the current abrogation of civil rights, the conviction rate is about the worst metric for the qality of a judicial system

And make no mistake: a right taken from a "suspected terrorist" is a right taken from YOU. Just wait until your name shows up on some computer-generated list of (probable) suspects.

But coming back to conviction rates: history has quite a few examples of systems with really high conviction rates. You might want to read up on Cheka, NKWD, GESTAPO, STASI, .. All of these have one thing in common: they were not bound by the law they were (supposed) to uphold. Then read on about Camp X-Ray.

Re:Talking about high conviction rates ...

[miu]

You are absolutely paranoid. There is a big difference in taking rights from someone, and someone being wrong about having a "right" to begin with anyway.

Fucking Christ. Is there some sort of neo-con mint that presses out people who say things like this?

Re:Darwinian criminal behaviour ...

[paulm]

It's not just a good thing, its the only way.

Society strives to create an environment whereby you will be better off by putting energies into playing the game and getting ahead.

As the process continues, those who are doing well
will make laws to allow them to continue to do well, thus further fostering the environment.

People too far below the average intelligence can't make it far enough down the path set before them, and so turn to crime, and are caught.

This works fine until those at the top start to use infuence to prevent their competitors, and hence those behind them from getting ahead. This turns into a class system and accelerates until revolution and then socialism.

This in turn leads to loss of competition, and then a continued slowing of progress. Smaller factions break off and start to create their own internal competition, and more capitalist leanings , and then the whole process starts over again.

wait, what was I talking about?

Hello.

[warrax_666]

They are not bogus, they are statics that indicate the conviction rate of the cases brought to court.

Yes, but as he was pointing out, hailing 90% conviction rates as evidence of the 'success' of the criminal justice system is unreasonable. There are a number of alternative explanations for the statistics aside from the "we convict almost all criminals we catch". For example, the statistics could just as easily be evidence of significant bias in the judicial process in favour of the prosection.

If you can't recognize that, then you are beyond help.