Two US teenagers have been charged with attempted extortion and illegal computer access following an attempt to blackmail social networking site MySpace.com
Social networking site MySpace.com has been the target of a blackmail attempt
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Teens charged over MySpace blackmail

$150,000 or we tell everyone how to steal personal details

Matt Chapman, vnunet.com 26 May 2006
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Two US teenagers have been charged with attempted extortion and illegal computer access following an attempt to blackmail social networking site MySpace.com

Shaun Harrison, 18, and Saverio Mondelli, 19, both from Suffolk County, New York, are accused of threatening to reveal how to steal personal information from MySpace unless a ransom of $150,000 was paid.

Harrison and Mondelli were originally kicked off the site for stealing information from other MySpace users.

The pair were arrested in Los Angeles as part of a sting operation by the Electronic Crimes Task Force when they were hoping to collect the ransom. 

The combined prison sentence for both felony charges is more than four years. The preliminary hearing will be held on 5 June, following a plea of not guilty from both teenagers at this week's arraignment.

Bail was set at $35,000 by the Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

See also:

British hacker Gary McKinnon has lost the first stage of his fight to avoid extradition to the US on hacking chargesMcKinnon wins all inclusive holiday to Cuba  10 May 2006
A man has been jailed for nearly five years in the US for building a network of 400,000 slaved PCs and using it to install adware and send spamRecord sentence for 'arrogant' adware distributor  10 May 2006
A federal judge has ruled that Sanford 'Spam King' Wallace must pay $4m in damagesFederal Trade Commission claims decisive victory in battle against spam  08 May 2006
Alleged hacker Gary McKinnon has accused the US of " using a hammer to squash a gnat" ahead of his 10 May extradition hearingAlleged hacker not looking forward to being fitted for an orange jumpsuit  28 Apr 2006
Hacking attacks on UK businesses are falling but the cost of security breaches is rising fastBig companies doing well, smaller ones less so  25 Apr 2006
The Russian interior minister has called for the world to take a united stand against online criminalsInternet crime as deadly as weapons of mass destruction, says Russia's interior minister  20 Apr 2006

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