Another scam targeting teenage girls

We recently noticed this chilling article from The Ottawa Citizen detailing how one man, using a complex system of multiple aliases and old fashioned trickery, successfully utilized the Internet to sexually exploit and blackmail several girls from around the world.

It seems he had a system whereby he would pose online as a young girl to lure in young women on different sites and earn their trust. Believing he was a female, these girls let down their guards and willingly complied with requests to expose themselves on web-web cams. Once he had these girls sufficiently fooled, he would then begin asking seemingly innocuous questions in order to hack their passwords for social networking sites. From there, he launched his blackmail campaigns, threatening to post the embarrassing web cam photographs and expose the girls to their friends and families.

There’s a very good sort of litmus test highlighted in the article by OPP Det. Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt, the provincial co-ordinator for strategy concerning illegal Internet activities:

“If there are things you would feel uncomfortable doing in your school hallway, why would you do it on the Internet?”