MySpace Scams

As technology becomes increasingly more complex, law enforcement has to evolve to keep up with the modern perpetrator.

Adam Lebowitz, an ex-Grady Hospital doctor infected with HIV, was arrested in Coweta last November after allegedly soliciting sex from a teenage boy he met on the Internet.

Lebowitz was charged with criminal attempt to commit aggravated child molestation, to sexually exploit a child, to commit statutory rape, to commit aggravated sodomy, as well as reckless conduct — for knowingly exposing a person to the AIDS virus, which is a felony — and obstruction of law enforcement, according to Assistant District Attorney Kevin McMurry in a previous interview with The Times-Herald.

Lebowitz has since been indicted and arraigned and is awaiting trial. He also faces similar charges out of Clayton and DeKalb counties.

Recently, the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com created a database as a means to identify and remove registered sex offenders from its online community. Officials with the online site have also agreed to share sex offender data — how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live — with attorneys general from eight states, according to The Associated Press.

MySpace general counsel Mike Angus announced that the site has already used the database to remove about 7,000 profiles out of a total of about 180 million, according to the AP.

Federal privacy laws require states to file subpoenas or other legal requests before MySpace can release the information.

Sgt. Mike McGuffey, an investigator at the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office who primarily handles the local sex offender list, is pleased that MySpace has started to share information with law enforcement.

“Predators should have absolutely zero access to places where children congregate, whether that be in public places or on the Internet,” said McGuffey.

McGuffey has been receiving increasingly more reports of incidents that occur online. He admits to using MySpace as “a resource” in solving crimes, although this new resource sometimes complicates the process.

While McGuffey feels the progress being made with MySpace has the potential of making the Web site a slightly safer place for young people to investigate, he points out that technology continues to evolve and predators will invent new ways of targeting the public. Safety against online predators starts in the home, according to the investigator.

“Ultimately, it ought to be up to the parents — it’s their responsibility to take care of their children,” said McGuffey. “Parents should be more involved in their children’s lives than in anything else. They need to set rules and enforce punishment when those rules are broken.”

Parents are advised to monitor their children’s online activities and not allow free reign. Sometimes, children will think that setting their profile to “private” will prevent their personal information from being compromised. But it won’t, reminds McGuffey.

“Even grownups should be careful on the Internet,” said McGuffey.

He especially cautions against dating Web sites, because predators often seek out common interests as a way into that person’s life. Adults are advised against posting pictures of their children online for potential offenders to see.

“A child predator will zero in on your children,” he continued.

Overall, America appears to be more aware of the dangers lurking on the Internet, according to McGuffey. Programs such as Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” have educated parents and children about how easy it is to fall victim to a predator and how bold these offenders can be. However, according to the investigator, the program is also educating the predator about the justice system and may, in some cases, help the person commit crimes more effectively.

“A true predator is going to do whatever it takes to get to his victim — wherever children congregate, he will be there.”

The following is a list of tips for navigating safely online:

* Just as in public, people should not talk to strangers.

* Parents should set computer filters and activate security features on all home computers whenever possible.

* Don’t allow children to have Internet access in their bedroom.

* Check the computer’s Internet history to see what sites have been visited.

* Finally, never underestimate what people are capable of.

Written by Elizabeth Richardson

MySpace Scams has redesigned the website, hoping to make it easier for you to find the information you need. Let us know how you like the new look and special thanks to ndesign for the layout.

Have you seen the Tractor Supply Company commercial about the free puppy?

A man says “My neighbor gave my daughter a puppy,” and then describes how they’re now buying toys, food, dishes, etc. The actor smiles and says “It’s like my dad always said: there’s no such thing as a free puppy!”

Well, this couldn’t be closer to the truth when it comes to the latest Nigerian ‘email’ scam: pets. Even worse, this genre of scam is rearing its ugly head on MySpace.

The American Kennel Club and the Council of Better Business Bureaus issued a joint press release on May 29th regarding this situation. A victim in Pittsburgh has described her experience in news stories in the LA Times and on WTAE Channel 4 Action News.

Here is an example ad that has been determined to be fraud by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

“Lovely English bulldog puppy needing a loving and caring home, full of wrinkles, she is up to date on all her shots. Fine with kids and other pets, AKC and will come along with all her papers and toys, she will make the best house pet, will bring much love and joy to your home or family. Contact for more if you want to add her to your family.”

Chances are, there will be pictures included.

The rest of the scam goes like this:

1. There are shipping fees to get the puppy to the US (usually a couple of hundred dollars). You will be asked to wire these funds.

2. The seller will inform you they can’t ship the puppy because apparently there are also shots that are required for international travel. You will be asked to wire these funds.

The list goes on. The money flows out. And the dog? It doesn’t exist.

Written By Tina Parcell

The number of page views garnered by fraudulent sites climbed by a factor of five in March and April, fueled by a phishing scheme targeting MySpace users, stated a Google analysis published on Monday.

The attack used a modification to the style sheet of a user’s profile to place a transparent image over the page, causing a click on a link — or anywhere else on the page — to redirect the visitor to a fake MySpace login page, Colin Whittaker of Google’s Anti-Phishing Team, stated on the search giant’s security blog.

“The effectiveness of the attack and the increasing sophistication of the phishing pages, some of which were hosted on botnets and were near perfect duplications of MySpace’s login page, meant that we needed to switch tactics to combat this new threat,” Whittaker stated.

Phishing — using fake e-mail messages and Web pages dressed up with the brand names of trusted corporations — have increasingly been used to trick victims into giving up their valuable information. An e-mail posing as a complaint from the Better Business Bureau has recently been targeting the executives as small- to medium-sized business in a scam designed to shake free usernames and passwords from key corporate personnel. While the current attack spreads virally through MySpace, actual viruses and worms have been created for the social networking site.

“While a MySpace account does not have any intrinsic monetary value, phishers had come up with ways to monetize this attack,” Whittaker said. “We observed hijacked accounts being used to spread bulletin board spam for some advertising revenue.”

In mid-April, MySpace changed their server side code to disable bad links in users’ profiles and the traffic to known phishing sites dropped down to its pre-March levels, he stated.

Article from SecurityFocus