A 23-year-old computer hacker in the Sacramento Valley burg of Citrus Heights has pleaded guilty to seven felony charges stemming from an ingenious scheme to hack into women's email accounts -- with the help of information available on Facebook -- and gain access to their nude photos.
In a ploy that one victim called "virtual rape," George Samuel Bronk used womens' Facebook pages to find answers to their email account security questions. (These are the prompts you get when you forget your password asking about your pet's name, or the town you were born in.)
Once Bronk had fooled the email service providers into letting him access an account, he changed the password, locking out its rightful owner.
Bronk then scoured the women's sent mail for naked photos or videos. These he sent out to his victims' entire address books, or posted them to their Facebook pages. According to the California Attorney General's office, he told one victim that he carried out the scheme "because it was funny."
After one victim in Connecticut alerted authorities, the California Highway Patrol and the AG's office eventually zeroed in on Bronk's home in Citrus Heights. More than 170 files containing racy images of women were found on his computer, according to the AG's office, including an unidentified "film actress." More than 40 victims came forward to cooperate with the investigation.
In a statement, Attorney General Kamala Harris suggested that Californians take more care to protect their email and Facebook accounts from being hacked.
She omitted another common-sense suggestion: Don't let those digital photos from the couples club linger in your outbox.
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