What, exactly, is "sextortion"?
"It's a familiar script: boy chats up girl (or sometimes boy) online, hacks her or his e-mail, asks for or steals nude photos, and threatens the victim with the possibility of publicizing those photos, before eventually getting caught," Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica writes.
The latest online "sextortion" suspect has just been arrested by the FBI: Karen "Gary" Kazaryan, 27. He is accused of hacking into "hundreds of Facebook, Skype and email accounts and extorting women into showing him their naked bodies," according to the DoJ arrest notice, and he faces up to 105 years in prison.
Cyrus reports that the Glendale man was indicted last week on 30 total counts of "Extortion, Threatening Letters, False Personation, Identity Theft, and Contact by Electronic Communication with Intent to Annoy," as well as "knowingly and without lawful authority [possessing and using the] identification of other persons." PDF of the indictment is here.
