crime

Report: Mom in MySpace hoax found guilty on lesser charges

Lori Drew, the Missouri woman who created a fake MySpace profile that she allegedly used to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was convicted of three offenses far more minor than the ones she could have been, the Associated Press wrote Wednesday.

Drew, indicted in May by a federal court after Missouri prosecutors could not find evidence of a state crime, had been charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of "accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress."

On Wednesday, a federal jury in Los Angeles failed to … Read more

Symantec: Underground internet economy continues to grow

Symantec is out with their annual report on the Underground economy and it's clear that crime pays. Apparently we all would have been better off investing in phishing scams and botnets instead of stocks and the US housing market.

Symantec estimates the value of total advertised goods on observed underground economy servers at over $276 million for the reporting period, with credit card information accounting for 59 percent of that total.

Using a median value for credit card fraud and an average bulk purchase size for credit cards, the potential worth of all credit cards advertised during this reporting … Read more

2 engineers sentenced for espionage

Two Silicon Valley engineers from China have been sentenced to prison for stealing chip designs and attempting to smuggle them back into their native country, the Associated Press reported.

The two men, Fei Ye and Ming Zhong, pleaded guilty two years ago. They were sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. According to the AP, they are the first ones convicted of the most serious violations under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996.

Ye is a U.S. citizen, the AP said, and Zhong is a permanent resident of the U.S.

Prosecutors did not allege … Read more

Mourning, unease after Silicon Valley slayings

Just a few months ago, Sid Agrawal, the chief operating officer of a 4-year-old semiconductor start-up in Santa Clara, Calif., was opining on the Silicon India site about the technology industry, noting that "green technology is the buzzword of the day" and bemoaning the challenge of "hiring good analog designers."

On Friday, however, Agrawal, 56, became one of three victims in a fatal workplace shooting that has saddened friends, colleagues, and family members, and left Silicon Valley employees--already shook up over constant reports of layoffs and bad economic news--feeling all the more uneasy.

"Silicon Valley … Read more

Cops say they've nabbed 'Craigslist inner tube robber'

Police in Monroe, Wash., say they've arrested that guy who robbed an armored car outside a bank, hired unsuspecting dress-alike decoys on Craigslist to fool authorities, and escaped downriver in an inner tube, according to the Seattle Times.

Contrary to what news media had speculated, tracking him down doesn't seem to have involved Craigslist at all.

Three weeks prior to the September 30 robbery, a homeless man contacted city authorities after seeing someone recover an oddball array of items from behind the same bank branch--a black wig, a reflective safety vest, dark glasses, a two-way radio, a baseball … Read more

The 404 198: Where we put the taint in tainted love

Dan the Mantern is responsible for a majority of the stories in the rundown today, so don't hesitate to burn him at the stake if you don't like what you hear. Personally, I think today's show is hilarious: Craigslist crime, driving exams and racial stereotypes, video game pirates, and the evolution of the Chinese "impossible" space drive. Once again, it's East meets West on The 404!

Big thanks to our buddy Jeff Sparkman for today's show title. We are literally the taint on the massive organ that is CNET.com. Anyway, even though Dan helps us by suggesting the stories for the show, I managed to sneak one by him, and apparently Caroline McCarthy also caught wind. It seems like Craigslist just can't stay out of trouble. This time around, a man used the job listings to post an anonymous ad for construction workers and requested that they show up wearing a blue shirt, yellow vest, safety hat and a blue shirt. The man then proceeded to rob an armored car before stripping his clothing to reveal the exact same uniform, effectively allowing him to disappear into the sea of construction workers. He later reappeared to make his getaway by riding an innertube down the local lake. I love the fact that robbers are getting more creative with their schemes--Jason Bourne over here, did this guy just watch "Ocean's 11" or something? For all that Craigslist has given the internet community (apartments, bikes, jobs, casual "encounters"), I think we can let this one slide.

Episode 198 Download today's podcast … Read more

Bank robber hires decoys on Craigslist, fools cops

In an elaborate robbery scheme that's one part The Thomas Crowne Affair and one part Pineapple Express, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities.

It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. "A great amount of money" was taken, Monroe police said, but did not provide a dollar value.

It appears to have unfolded this way, according to a Seattle-based NBC affiliate: around … Read more

NYC's 911 system upgraded to accept photos, video

New York City is touting a new weapon in its war on crime: cell phone cameras.

Tipsters in New York City can now send photos and video from computers and Web-enabled cell phones and PDAs to the city's 911 and non-emergency hot lines to report crimes and quality-of-life issues such as potholes, officials announced Tuesday.

While many cities' emergency systems are equipped to accept text messages, this is believed to be the first system that also is able to process photos and video.

When 911 callers tell police operators that photos or video related to their complaint are available, … Read more

U.K. crime fighters grapple with iPhone wipe threat

Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on devices such as the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned.

The head of the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit, Keith Foggon, cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smartphones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers.

Foggon said: "The 3G iPhone is brand new; there are not many tools for dealing with it, and it can be remotely wiped. It's a bit like the BlackBerrys, where users can carry out remote deletion."

He added … Read more