More Amor -- the bigger look at MySpace hacking
After a quick hit on the Amor Hilton story a few weeks ago, we came back with a somewhat more in-depth piece on MySpace hacking today. I'll admit it's not my best work, but, hopefully, it's a good reminder that this isn't just harmless kids' stuff.
It starts off innocently enough.
A probe launched from a laptop in a coffee shop or a spare bedroom. Hackers find a pretty girl or a popular guy goofing around with friends on MySpace or Facebook.
But the hackers don't just click and watch - they invite themselves into the youths' online world and make themselves at home. And whether by sophisticated, high-tech tools or just an old-fashioned guess of a password, they seize control of the account.
In doing so, the hackers have committed a felony - an increasingly common one.
"We're beginning to see more and more instances of people committing intrusions into social networks, PDAs, even cell phones," said Kathryn Showers, deputy in charge of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office's High Tech Crimes Division.
"The hackers are getting very sophisticated. They seem to think that the norms we expect for people's privacy don't apply to them. It's sort of like electronic voyeurism."
The rest is here.
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