New 'Stalking' App for Mobile Phones Due Out Soon

(UNITED KINGDOM) A new social networking tool allows mobile phone users to identify people just by taking a photo.

The 'recogniser' application gives any mobile phone owner access to almost all online information about anyone they photograph.

IT expert Charlie Brown has expressed concerns about the application, saying it's a walk up start for stalkers and could see an increase in identity theft cases.

'You can pretty much know everything about (a person) that is listed on the internet within about 30 seconds,' he said.

Facebook and Twitter accounts and business cards become available when recogniser matches an image of someone's face online.

Software developer Dan Garden says there is a lot of ways to use the application sensibly.

'During a party, you might want to figure out some more information about the person standing across the room from you.'

Police and government agencies use a similar device to identify criminals.

The application could be on mobile phones around the world by September 2010.


original article here

Posing as Soldiers Online, Stealing Women’s Hearts & Money

Think twice before falling for that hot soldier stationed in Iraq, says the U.S. Army - especially if you met him on a dating website.

It’s rather easy to spot and avoid those Nigerian-prince email scams, but hundreds of women have been falling prey to this more sophisticated “romance scam,” reports Jezebel.

In this type of plot, thieves take on the identities of actual servicemen based in Iraq or Afghanistan, grab a couple photos off the Internet of said soldier, and go to work scamming on social media based dating sites. The scammers start building relationships with women online, eventually asking them for money after wooing them and gaining their sympathy and trust. One woman fell so hard she sent $127,000 to her supposed military love.

The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) has issued several memos about the situation, including one last month, warning citizens to be “extra vigilant” and not fall for these impersonation frauds, “especially scams promising true love, but only end up breaking hearts and bank accounts.”

Victims tend to be unsuspecting women, 30 to 55 years old and the scammers are usually based in African countries and go to great lengths to make their email addresses untraceable and route accounts around the world. After manipulating their victim’s emotions, the scammer will ask for money in some rather creative ways: money to buy “leave papers,” to cover medical expenses, for a flight home to see their fake lover in person.

So, things to keep in mind when online dating?

One, it’s not real until you’ve met the person.
Two, “Don’t ever send money!” Remember, love don’t cost a thing.

read more here

original article found here

Posed as Rock Star on Facebook - Really a Murderer

by Andy Dolan

She met him on Facebook, and was impressed enough to cross the Atlantic to meet him. But Maricar Benedicto’s naive trust was repaid in the most horrific way.

The man who lured her to the UK, David Russell, took her to a forest and persuaded the 19-year-old to wear a blindfold, saying he had a gift for her.

Russell then stood behind her and slit her throat. The terrified teenager tried to escape but the 20-year-old McDonald’s worker stabbed her several times, hit her in the face with a log and headbutted her. Miraculously, she survived.

At Northampton Crown Court, Russell admitted kidnap and attempted murder and was jailed for life. The court was told he had posed as tattooed rocker Oliver Sykes, lead singer in the Sheffield-based metal band Bring Me The Horizon, currently touring the Americas.

Prosecuting, Christopher Donnellan QC said that the day before Miss Benedicto arrived from California last April, Russell had searched the internet for ‘how to kill someone with bare hands’, ‘how to cut skin with a knife’ and ‘the best knife to kill’.

After meeting Miss Benedicto at the town’s railway station, Russell took her to a nearby forest, claiming it held special childhood memories.

Mr Donnellan said: ‘He asked her to sit down on a fallen tree trunk and said he was going to blindfold her. He said she would get a surprise or a present. He stood behind her, blindfolded her, asked her to put her head back, and her arms up. She did so with her palms up, entirely trusting him.

‘Although she did not see any implement because of the blindfold, the next thing she felt was her neck being sliced.’ The court heard that as Russell did it, he shouted: ‘Why won’t you die? You’ve ruined my life. It’s all your fault.’

The court was told she jumped up and the blindfold fell off. She began to run away ‘but he caught up and stabbed her in the back’. A serrated breadknife was found at the scene.

He stopped the attack only when Miss Benedicto told him she had given his name and address to immigration on arrival in the UK. He ran home, where he took a suspected overdose, while she staggered to a nearby house for help.

The pair had met on Facebook last year and ‘engaged in conversations using pseudonyms’. She went by the alias Ruby Townsend. They chatted online using Skype and Miss Benedicto knew Russell was not who he initially claimed to be before she flew to Britain.

Steven Crouch, defending, said Russell was ‘borderline autistic’ but had never offended before. ‘He is a troubled young man, very young, who committed an act in bizarre circumstances, never to be repeated.’

Jailing him on Tuesday, Judge Charles Wide QC said Russell was ‘exceptionally dangerous’ and must serve at least 17-and-a-half years in jail before being considered for release.

He added: ‘The features of this case are truly horrifying. When she was able to escape, you intended to kill her and must have come very close.’

original article found here

Staying Safe Online -- Are You REALLY Anonymous?

It's tempting to feel that you're anonymous online, protected from potential cyberstalkers by cryptic user names and website privacy settings. But is that really true? How easy is it for a malicious person to track someone down, based solely on personal information they've made available?

We launched an investigation to find out.

The process started by picking a random person on Flickr. She had an unusual user name that we're going to call French Puppy (although all personal details have been changed), so no obvious clues there, but her profile linked to a personal website, LeahTphotos.com. First name Leah, but what was the T?

Website registration details often include the name and address of the creator, so we searched for "LeahTphotos.com" at whois.net. No luck, though, as it was registered to the name of a web design company, presumably the folks who built the site.

People often use the same user name around the web, and so we next tried searching for "French Puppy" at Google. Some hits, but not the right person.

Maybe her website name was the key? We tried another Google search for "LeahTphotos.com" and Leah, and success - we found a reference on another site that included her full name, a real breakthrough.

Entering this at Facebook gave us several hits, but we recognised her photo as a match for others on Flickr. The account was private, but revealed that she was in the Brighton network, and provided a list of all her friends. Within 60 seconds we had her phone number from BT.com, while 192.com helped out with her address, details of the neighbours, and even a handy map revealing how to get to her house.

That was enough, and we then emailed our test subject to explain what we were doing and why. She's since removed the page that linked LeahTPhotos.com to her full name, and so is a little safer as a result.

But what's really worrying isn't just that we could uncover so much in less than five minutes work on the very first person we tried. It's that the next two individuals we investigated were even easier to track down. And that suggests your privacy could be compromised just as quickly, unless you follow very strict rules about what you say online.

Seven rules for staying safe online

1. Don't give away your real name unless it's absolutely necessary.

2. If you register a domain name for a website then consider getting privacy protection as well. This lets you register with your real details, but ensures they're not available to the public, and is an option now offered by many companies (1steuro.net say they include it for free).

3. Don't tell people where you live, or work. Don't hint at it, perhaps saying you've just visited a particular place because it's "just around the corner".

4. It really should be obvious to say don't post details like your phone number online, but astonishingly people do this quite frequently. Try a Google search like "my cell number is" site:myspace.com to see what we mean.

5. Don't post links between your various internet homes, for example telling people on favourite forum A that you also post on message board B. And don't register the same user name everywhere. This only makes it easier to stalkers to follow you around the web, put together clues from different places, and uncover useful information.

My Life was Stolen on Facebook

Sounds like our Exposed Cyberpath - Lissa Daly!


By JENNA SLOAN

Fleeing into the Tube station, Carolyn Owlett felt her heart racing with panic. Behind the ticket barrier, a man she did not know was yelling her name, shouting that he loved her and that he wanted to be with her.

Hurtling on to the safety of a train, the mum-of-one was soon to discover she was at the start of a nightmare brought on by a rogue user of a social networking site.

Cybersex
Carolyn, 26, said: "I was terrified. This man was shouting my name and personal information about me across Oxford Circus station but I had no idea who he was.

"He said he'd come from Belgium to be with me. I was so scared. I yelled at him to leave me alone. He looked like he'd been shot through the heart."

Carolyn was to discover that a 21-year-old woman in Belgium had stolen her identity on Facebook.

She had set up an email and Facebook account in her name, grabbed 2,000 pictures from the net, doctored some of them and conned Carolyn's friends and family into becoming her "friend".

The fake Carolyn, using pictures and details of the real one, had been in a 17-month cyber affair with Regis Remacle - the man at the Tube station - and had even claimed to be the mother of Carolyn's son Billy, three.

The story started to unravel last week after lovestruck Regis travelled from Brussels to declare his feelings to Carolyn in person.

Carolyn - who has a boyfriend - said: "I eventually discovered my Facebook account, and those of my friends and family, had been plundered and that a Belgian woman was pretending to be me.

"She claimed to be the mother of my son and even had cybersex with men online.

"The whole incident has been very upsetting."

Carolyn, from east London, is a radio and TV producer and presenter. In 2004 she was part of girl group The 411 who had two top five singles in the chart. She said: "I had a great time as part of the group and a few fans set up tribute sites online.

"It was flattering that they enjoyed our music and I sometimes went on the forums to chat.
"The group split in 2005 and I had my son Billy in 2007 with my ex. As a new mum I found Facebook invaluable for catching up with friends and staying in touch with my parents, who live abroad."

Carolyn, one of 26million Brits to use the site, said: "I had no problems until June this year, when I received an odd message from a stranger called Regis.

"It said 'Does your boyfriend know what you've been up to?' I thought it was a case of mistaken identity, so I sent the guy a message back to say so.

"I also started getting messages from men in Africa and Turkey calling me 'sugar lips' or 'hot stuff'.

"Then last week I was walking to Oxford Circus Tube. I was aware of someone walking very close, then I heard 'Carolyn' whispered in my ear. I realised it was the man following me."

Doctored ...
Carolyn ran through the station, leaving the stranger shouting after her. He turned out to be Regis, 28, a graphic designer.

On the train Carolyn recalled the odd message from months earlier. She said: "As soon as I got off the train I found him on Facebook and my boyfriend messaged him, asking what was going on. He replied within seconds and the story came out."

Regis believed he had been conducting a steamy virtual affair with Carolyn for 17 months. He had seen thousands of pictures of her friends and family and knew where she worked.
He'd had text and online sex with 'Carolyn', chatted to her on Skype and had bought her a diamond necklace.

Carolyn explained: "Regis sent me dozens of emails showing our supposed conversations. I felt sick and violated.

"My boyfriend was with me and we have a great relationship so he believed me when I told him the affair was fiction. But if we hadn't been so strong this could have destroyed us. She'd trawled the internet for more than 2,000 pictures of me and had badgered my pals, family and work contacts to be 'friends'.

"I do feel sorry for Regis, as for the past 17 months he's been living a lie through no fault of his own."

The pair discovered the stalker was a 21-year-old Belgian woman calling herself Kristella Erbicella.

Following the Tube snub, Regis contacted the fake Carolyn and Erbicella responded with a confession. Regis then shared that message with Carolyn.

Carolyn contacted her pals and discovered Erbicella had asked every single one to be her Facebook "friend", saying she was a mate of Carolyn's. Several believed her and accepted the request, giving her access to Carolyn's pictures and information.

Carolyn said: "Erbicella said she had been a fan of The 411. When she was feeling down one day she decided to use my picture and set up a Facebook page. She got compliments and it made her feel good, so she carried on.

"She had to find out more and more about me to keep the pretence going and the whole thing spiralled out of control."

She used one of Carolyn posing with a girl pal and replaced the friend with Regis, shown above, showing how they would look as a couple. Carolyn said: "I couldn't believe my eyes. It looks like Regis and I are a happy couple but in reality we'd never even met. It's scary to see what Erbicella was capable of."

In the one message Erbicella sent to Carolyn, she wrote in broken English: "I want to apologise for everything I've done.

"I really respect you. You have always been my idol. I'm sorry for everything, I do not want have problems with you.

"It is hard for me as I love someone who does not know I exist as me. I just want you to understand me and what I feel right now."

Carolyn said: "This woman has harassed my friends and used photos of my son. She even set up an online photo album dedicated to Billy - who knows what kind of people have seen those photos?

"I communicate with Billy's nursery through email and dread to think what could have happened. She could have turned up at the gates and taken him.

"The experience has shown me that nothing you post on the internet ever goes away. People should be careful when posting pictures of their kids and their lives.

"I found out the hard way that you never know who is watching."

original article here

Dark Market

To the casual observer, there was little to distinguish the Java Bean internet cafe in Wembley from the hundreds of others dotted around the capital. But to surveillance officers staking it out month after month, this unremarkable venue was the key to busting a remarkable and sophisticated network of cyber criminals.

From the bank of computers inside, a former pizza bar worker ran an international cyber "supermarket" selling stolen credit card and account details costing the banking industry tens of millions.

Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, was revealed today as the founder and a major "orchestrator" of the secret ­DarkMarket website, where elite fraudsters bought and sold personal data, after it was infiltrated by the FBI and the US Secret Service.

Membership was strictly by invitation. But once vetted, its 2,000 vendors and buyers traded everything from card details, obtained through hacking, phishing and ATM skimming devices, to viruses with which buyers could extort money by threatening company websites.

The top English language cybercrime site in the world, it offered online tutorials in account takeovers, credit card deception and money laundering. Equipment – including false ATM and pin machines and everything needed to set up a credit card factory – was available.

It even featured breaking-news-style updates on the latest compromised material available, while criminals could buy banner adverts to promote their wares.

So vast was its reach, with members in the UK, Canada, US, Russia, Turkey, Germany and France, the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which helped bust it, said it was "impossible" to put a figure on how much it cost banks worldwide.

Subramaniam, who used the online soubriquet JiLsi, was remanded in custody at his own request at Blackfriars crown court today after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud and five counts of furnishing false information. Judge John Hillen warned it was "inevitable" he faced a "substantial custodial sentence".

A Sri Lankan-born British citizen, Subramaniam was a former member of ShadowCrew, DarkMarket's forerunner, which was uncovered by the US Secret Service in 2004. "JiLsi was one of the highest in cybercrime in this country with what he managed to achieve setting up a forum globally. No JiLsi, no DarkMarket," said one Soca investigator.

Its 2,000 members never met in real life. Quality, not quantity, was the key. DarkMarket was fastidious in banning "rippers" who would cheat other criminals. Honour among thieves was paramount.

It operated an "escrow" service, with payments and goods exchanged through a third party – "like a PayPal for criminals", the judge observed, and an arbitration service resolved disputes. To keep off the radar, the rules were strict: no firearms, drugs or counterfeit currency.

Built on a pyramid structure, administrators decided who joined, moderators ran specific site sections, and reviewers vetted wannabes – each demanding 5% or £250 per transaction as a fixer's fee.

To get on, criminals had to present details of 100 compromised cards free of charge - 50 to one reviewer, 50 to another. Reviewers would test the cards and write an online review of customer satisfaction – just like eBay customers. "If the cards did what they were supposed to … they would be recommended. If not they weren't allowed in," said the investigator.

Payment was via accounts on WebMoney, or E-Gold. "It was the QuickTime method of sending money anywhere."

Subramaniam was one of the top administrators. He kept his operating system on memory sticks. But when one was stolen, costing him £100,000 in losses and compromising the site's security, he was downgraded to reviewer. Surveillance officers caught him logging on to the website as JiLsi unaware the fellow criminal MasterSplyntr he was talking to was, in fact, an FBI agent called Keith Mularski.

Considerable money was exchanged, though actual transactions took place away from the site for security reasons. One buyer spent £250,000 on stolen personal information in just six weeks.

Described as "a very quiet man", Subramaniam worked at Pizza Hut and as a dispatch courier. "He owned three houses but was largely itinerant," said Sharon Lemon, Soca deputy director. "The key to investigations of this sort is finding the evidence to connect the online persona with a living, breathing person."

Harendra de Silva QC, defending Subramaniam, said the "evidence was unchallenged" but said the "question of interpretation does arise in certain areas" and there would be submissions on "nuance" of the fraud in so far as it applied to his client. He is charged alongside John McHugh, 66, known as Devilman, also a site reviewer who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and at whose Doncaster home officers found a credit card-making factory. The two will be sentenced later.

But the battle against cybercrime continues. "This was one of the top 10 sites in the world, but there are more than 100 we know of globally, and another 100 we don't yet know of," said the investigators.
In the DarkMarket

DarkMarket price list

Trusted vendors on DarkMarket offered a smorgasbord of personal data, viruses, and card-cloning kits at knockdown prices. Going rates were:

Dumps Data from magnetic stripes on batches of 10 cards. Standard cards: $50. Gold/platinum: $80. Corporate: $180.

Card verification values Information needed for online transactions. $3-$10 depending on quality.

Full information/change of billing Information needed for opening or taking over account details. $150 for account with $10,000 balance. $300 for one with $20,000 balance.

Skimmer Device to read card data. Up to $7,000.

Bank logins 2% of available balance.

Hire of botnet Software robots used in spam attacks. $50 a day.

Credit card images Both sides of card. $30 each.

Embossed card blanks $50 each.

Holograms $5 per 100.

original article here

Womans Sues Whoever Posted her Nude Pics Online

(some cyberpaths take your nude pic and then, without your knowledge - SELL THEM to Amateur Porn sites! Never take nude pictures... EVER!)

by Lauren Smiley

​No need to dream of being Pamela Anderson or Paris Hilton or even former Miss California Carrie Prejean. You, too, can have your own internet sex scandal. Or nightmare.

A private citizen of San Francisco has filed suit in Superior Court against some rotten anonymous internet trolls who posted photos of her topless when she was 16 on Flickr and Badongo.com with her real maiden name. (We do not know her name because she has filed anonymously as Jane Doe.) The reign of cyber-terror continued when someone calling themselves "Iknow Whatitis" emailed her current husband six photos of her performing oral sex on her ex-husband. The message only said "[The woman's name] is using you. think about it." Ouch.

According to the suit, the woman, "through substantial effort, and the expenditure of considerable funds," was able to convince both Flickr and Badongo to take down the photos. Finding out who the culprits actually are is the trick now. After the woman's attorney wrote a harsh cease-and-desist letter to the her ex-husband, he wrote back denying any knowledge of the photos. The woman's current San Francisco-based attorney, Colette Vogele, has filed to serve subpoenas for business records on third parties to track down the bad guys' (or gals') IP address or user information.

Vogele declined to talk about the case, saying she wanted to keep it under wraps. "I don't want it to come out who she is. It would be bad if it would come out."

The woman is suing for injunctive relief, and compensatory and punitive damages. She is charging harassment, intentional infliction of distress and placing the plaintiff in a false light since the internet trolls posted the images using her own name as if she'd done it herself.

Moral of the story: Do not take sex pictures. Ever.

original story here

Cyberstalker Arrested in Indiana

FORT WAYNE -- Police in Wabash arrested a man for cyber-stalking two sisters -- one of them underage -- and using their identities for sex for two years before he was discovered.

Prosecutors charged the man -- who worked at the family's church -- with felony stalking and misdemeanor harrassment.

Police say he created Facebook pages under the young women's names, then pretended to be them -- posting pictures of them, displaying their addresses and phone numbers, and even detailing their after-school activities and work places.

Using those fake identities, he had virtual sex with men around the world, using language so graphic, we can't share it with you.

The ruse was discovered by their pastor, who was compiling an Internet list of his congregation to take to his new position out of town.

And since their personal information was in cyber-space for two years, the young women now fear for their safety.

Haley Flanagan\Had Identity Assumed:

" Me and my sister have both taken a self-defense class. We carry Mace on our keychains with us. And I don't go anywhere by myself."

Cindy Flanagan\Daughters Had Identities Assumed:

"These laws need to have some teeth to them, and not just a general law. They need to be substance, they need to be basic enough that it's okay if the Internet changes that they can still apply it to whatever the new technology would be."

The best way to protect yourself and your children? Google your name and see what pops up. If there's anything fishy, call the police.

The man is scheduled to be in court August 20th.

But even if he's convicted of stalking and harrassment, he still wouldn't have to register as a sex offender, which would restrict his Internet use.

That's partly why the family is working with state and federal legislators to draft some stricter laws.

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