Man Mines Facebook For Security Questions, Nabs Nude Photos From Email

itwbennett writes "George Bronk, 23, has pleaded guilty to charges that he broke into the e-mail accounts of thousands of women, scouring them for nude photos that he then posted to the Internet. How he did it: He searched his victims' Facebook pages for answers to common security questions and then logged in to their e-mail accounts. In one case he persuaded a victim to send him even more explicit photographs by threatening to post the ones he'd stolen if she didn't. Bronk faces 6 years in prison on felony hacking, child pornography and identity theft charges."

Comments

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Pics or it didn't happen

Re:Obligatory

[ian_from_brisbane]

Pics or it didn't happen

Here you go... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41082627/ns/technology_and_science-security/

Think of the children too

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I sure hope all of the girls who took pictures of themselves got child pornography charges against them too.

Re:Think of the children too

[crow_t_robot]

No, because producing child pornography and distributing it on the internet is producing child pornography and distributing it on the internet. If a 16 year old girl sends a picture of her tits to your phone you are now in possession of child pornography and in direct danger of having your life destroyed and everyone you know hating you.

This is akin to weaponry. This shit needs to stop.

Re:Think of the children too

[CAIMLAS]

You have very little imagination.

Girls have boyfriends. They also have female friends. They are not solely keeping these pictures on their hard drives and cameras for personal use (more than likely).

Funny thing about pictures on the Internet: they're trivially copied. Boyfriend copies the picture to his friends (or just one friend), or posts it to a forum: the picture is out, and will live forever on hundreds of 'porn agregators' (lacking a better term), presuming the girl isn't a skag. Likewise, girls are/can be catty: what's stopping them from spreading the nude pictures in a bitter attempt at becoming more popular themselves (thinking it would ridicule the origin)? We're talking about virally social teens, here, not top secret data on government networks: there's literally a thousand and one ways for such pictures to spread to the Internet At Large.

So, in short: it's entirely possible that hundreds of thousands of men and women have viewed, downloaded, etc. child porn and not even be aware of the fact that it is child porn, simply on the basis of "some women look like children and some girls look like women". I recall a couple girls in high school who looked significantly older than 16-18 - and no, I'm not just talking about curves (though that applies too).

It's just like "honest, I thought she was 18, officer!" scenario, except the evidence never disappears and the so-called 'victim' can never grant consent. I would not be surprised if there is legal child porn floating about the internet right now, on "valid" sites which the US federal law enforcement agencies knows about, but allow to exist -so that they can use it as an added charge for someone down the line, if they ned something to vilify them further/want to make sure the charges stick.

Re:Think of the children too

[Anonymous Coward]

Pictures of naked people should not be classified as porn simply because of the lack of clothes.

Re:Think of the children too

[Schadrach]

Actually, legalize possession of child porn, and step up the penalties for production (or just for child abuse, since using a child to produce child pornography is itself abuse) and purchase/sale. That removes the "weaponry" portion of child porn (if I send you a CP picture, you have committed a crime is a *bad* thing) and makes those who receive such pictures accidentally (mislabeled P2P files, for example) or against their will (as in the sending a picture to your phone example) more willing to openly provide them to authorities as a way to help the producers get caught, as well as making being involved in the financial promotion of the production of child pornography still a crime.

Re:Think of the children too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a US thing. Over there:
- You're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Except for terrorism, in which case the rule is "If you were innocent, you wouldn't be a suspect".
- Sexual assault is a horrendous crime. Except if the perpetrator is wearing a TSA uniform.
- The Constitution stops the government from abusing it's authority and power. But only as long as the government agrees.
- Infringing copyright on music steals copyright holders of thousands of dollars. Except for the music industry, they only steal 60 cents per song from artists.
- Child Porn is illegal in order to protect victims of child abuse. Unless if children willingly make and send pictures of themselves, in this case they're not victims but vicious pedophiles. So vicious, they abuse themselves!
- You're too young to drink beer at 21 but you're old enough to die for your country.

Well, that will look grand on a resume

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Hobbies?

• felony hacking
• child pornography
• identity theft

Hell, yeah, you're hired!

Re:Well, that will look grand on a resume

[Haedrian]

I see an executive director job at Facebook on the horizon.

Re:Article in summary redirects

[CrashandDie]

Indeed. It would appear ITWorld is vulnerable to a simple XSS comment post.

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Mountaineer76 provides us with a print version of the article which isn't affected, though.

PS: WTF is it with Slashdot's broken support for paste? Trying to recreate the goodness of iOS 1?

Re:Security Questions Security Risk

[Lalakis]

I can't believe that no one blames the online services for requiring and using security questions as a security measure(!). This is such an insecure practice that I'm just baffled from the so much widespread use of it!
  Theoretically, security questions could be used as an ADDED security measure and be marginally effective at that, but in most times you can't know exactly how your answer will be used, so the sane response would be something like kashiqewnchkdhsflakjshflvkdsvhpexiojnasdjlna.

Re:Imagine what Facebook is able to do if some dud

[betterunixthanunix]

That was, in fact, the first thing Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook to do: gain access to others' email.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3

Think of the children laws.

[0100010001010011]

In some states, the age of consent and child porn statutes have the same age limits.

For instance, a quick read of NV law shows the AOC to be 16. Child porn is defined as sexually explicit blah blah blah involving a person under 16. Federal law makes it a crime with a person under 18, but there may be some state line/interstate commerce nexus that needs to be fulfilled.

I didn't feel like looking at too many states, but found this same AOC/CP thing with NH-16/16.

Many states forbid distributing/exhibiting obscenity to people under 18, regardless of their AOC/CP statutes.

So, excluding the feds, it's not a crime to have sex with a 16 year old or film it. But, she can't watch the tape afterwards. It's a crime to allow her 16 year old friend to watch the act as it occurs, but not a crime to have her join. Neither of them can smoke a cigarette or have a beer afterwards. If either one were to rob,beat,kill one of their fellow particpants, they would be tried as an adult in every state in the country.

Re:Reminds me...

[tragedy]

Also, it would open up anyone fully consenting to massive repression by family. If they insist that it was consensual, in many cases, they'll receive counseling tantamount to brainwashing for years. There will be guilt trips and threats of excommunication from the family. She will be made to feel that, if she affirms her consent, she'll be releasing a monstrous sexual predator who will rape someone not so willing next time and she'll be to blame for that girls suffering, etc.

I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the concept of "honor killings". It's not a phenomenon unique to Muslims as many people seem to think. It's a cross-cultural set of attitudes about the importance of a girls "virtue" and reputation and her obligation to her family and society in regards to it. In some places and among some people it's still taken to the extreme of murder for transgressions, but the exact same behavior, just to a lesser degree exists just about everywhere. I've met plenty of fathers of daughters of various ages in the US who are almost psychotically overprotective and who insist, in all seriousness, that their daughters have no sexual relations whatsoever and sometimes that they not date, etc. The behavior is always hypocritical with regards to their own behavior when they were younger and frequently their behavior as adults (with regards to enjoying pornography of young women, etc.). But they seem to view it as an obligation. Feeling protective of your child is, of course, not a shameful thing, but far too many tie such behavior to possessiveness and a form of objectification that denies their children their humanity.

Society in general seems to at least subconsciously share these values. A young woman, whether above or below the various ages of consent/adulthood/etc. who expresses her sexuality in some way, especially publicly, has to be either a victim, or a slut. Generally there is no middle ground, and when there is, it's often given by people who think that she's both a victim _and_ a slut.

So, an underage girl who chooses to have sex before her society says she's ready, whose older partner is arrested and who has a few years to decide whether to re-affirm consent or not, is going to have to spend that time under a lot of pressure. She will, essentially, have to decide whether to call herself a victim or a slut. Whether to be the dedicated family member protected from the outsider, or the prodigal child who shunned her families protection.