NYT Article on Cyberextortion Including Ricin and Grenades

" August 7, 2005 The Rise of the Digital Thugs By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN

" Early last year, the corporate stalker made his move. He sent more than a dozen menacing e-mail messages to Daniel I. Videtto, the president of MicroPatent, a patent and trademarking firm, threatening to derail its operations unless he was paid $17 million.

" In a pair of missives fired off on Feb. 3, 2004, the stalker said that he had thousands of proprietary MicroPatent documents, confidential customer data, computer passwords and e-mail addresses.

" Unbeknownst to the stalker, MicroPatent had been quietly trying to track him for years, though without success. He was able to mask his online identity so deftly that he routinely avoided capture, despite the involvement of federal investigators.

" But in late 2003 the company upped the ante. It retained private investigators and deployed a former psychological profiler for the Central Intelligence Agency to put a face on the stalker. The manhunt, according to court documents and investigators, led last year to a suburban home in Hyattsville, Md., its basement stocked with parts for makeshift hand grenades and ingredients for ricin, one of the most potent and lethal biological toxins.

" Last March, on the same day that they raided his home, the authorities arrested the stalker as he sat in his car composing e-mail messages he planned to send wirelessly to Mr. Videtto. The stalker has since pleaded guilty to charges of extortion and possession of toxic materials.

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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The NY Times article did not note however, whether or not some snippity, uppity Usenetters were 'horrified' that the company had drilled down deep enough to find the _actual offender_ and afford him some severe punishment rather than just -- as they would prefer -- the guy's messages had just been filtered out, perhaps ineffectually, as filters go, but the preferred (by some who are quite vocal) way to deal with offenders. It is _good_ to see some of these bozos get caught and severely dealt with. PAT]

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Danny Burstein
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