Man used Facebook to try to blackmail girl for pornse

A 27-year-old California man pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges that he tried to coerce a 14-year-old girl into sending him pornographic videos by threatening to publicize sexually explicit pictures of her that he'd dug up.

Starting in December 2008, James Dale Brown used Facebook to contact the girl, who lived out-of-state, demanding that she send him a video of her having sex.

Somehow he'd obtained photos of the girl, some of which were sexually explicit. He said that if she did not send him a video, he would send the pictures to the unidentified victims' underage friends. If she sent the video, he promised to "delete all pictures of her 'from the Internet,'" the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday in a statement.
Brown, a United Parcel Service (UPS) worker who used the alias "Bob Lewis" on Facebook, finally carried out his threat on April 18, 2009, sending links to an explicit image of the girl to one of the victim's friends. Five days later, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Brown's Fremont, California, residence. He was arrested on Aug. 26, 2010.
Brown's lawyer, Robert Beles, could not be reached immediately for comment.

Just last month, another California man, George Bronk, admitted to breaking into more than 3,200 e-mail accounts in a hunt for explicit photos of women. He would use Facebook to learn answers to the security questions that Web-based e-mail services use to reset passwords and then use that information to break into his victims' Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts.

Bronk ultimately convinced one woman to send him even more explicit photographs before he was arrested last year.
It isn't surprising that there are so many of these images in women's e-mail out-boxes and mobile phones, according to Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
According to her, a May 2010 Pew survey found that 6 percent of adults have sent a "suggestive nude or nearly nude photos of themselves to someone else via text messaging," a practice known as "sexting," she said in a January e-mail interview. Amongst 18-to-29 year-olds, that group jumped to 13 percent.
In another survey, Pew found that 15 percent of cell-phone owning teenagers had been sent sexuallysuggestive photos or videos of someone they know.
Brown could face 30 years in prison on the extortion and child pornography charges. He's set to be sentenced on May 11.

Obama set to crack down on illegal software sales

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration will seek to aggressively enforce its intellectual property laws by putting pressure on countries that don't shut down piracy Web sites and by requiring all government contractors to check for illegal software, the White House announced.

The White House Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, in a 65-page report released Tuesday, said the U.S. government will also step up its efforts to identify foreign Web sites trafficking in pirated goods and will create a database of intellectual property investigations to be shared among law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. government will also seek to protect U.S. intellectual property (IP) through trade agreements, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the report said. Several digital rights groups have complained that officials from the U.S. and other countries have drafted ACTA in secret.

"I say to those that are suffering from infringement, 'Help is on the way,'" said Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator. "We understand the problems that you face, and we will work to make things better."

Copyright pirates and counterfeiters should beware, Espinel added during a news conference. "To those who have, for too long, abused the rights of American creators, I have a warning for you," she said. "We are committed to putting you out of business."

Vice President Joe Biden compared IP infringement to a theft where a burglar breaks the window of a store and steals the products inside. "Piracy is theft, clean and simple," he said. "It's smash and grab."

Counterfeit medications and vehicle parts are dangerous and need to be kept out of the U.S., Biden added. "We just want to make it real clear," he said. "We're going after people, we're going after the Web sites, we're going to go after those folks ... who sell us things that in fact have the effect of putting the lives of Americans in jeopardy."

If other governments fail to shut down Web sites that U.S. officials have identified as dealing in pirated goods, the White House will be vocal, Biden said. "We're going to be as public as we possibly can" about other governments that do not cooperate, he said.

The U.S. government will also provide training to local and state law enforcement officials on IP enforcement, and it will provide seminars and training programs for foreign governments, according to the new report. The report recommends new requirements that medical products contain electronic tags to make it more difficult for counterfeit products to be sold.

The report, called the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, also encouraged Web content owners, Internet service providers, advertisers and other online businesses to work together to reduce copyright violations.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an IP enforcement task force, and in April, the agency announced 15 new assistant U.S. attorney positions and 20 new Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to be focused on domestic and international IP crimes.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), a tech trade group, both praised the new report.

"Stated simply, globally-recognized IP enforcement standards will play a significant role in creating new jobs and driving growth well into the future," Dean Garfield, ITI's president and CEO, said in a statement.

But the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), another tech trade group, said it had major questions about the new IP enforcement efforts. The White House's IP efforts should focus on keeping dangerous products away from consumers and should take care not to hurt the U.S. Internet and tech industries, CCIA said.

"A proper enforcement strategy would ensure that legitimate innovation is not being squashed by an overly broad, overly zealous crackdown," CCIA president and CEO Ed Black said in a statement. "Balanced intellectual property will promote innovation, investment, and civic discourse, while ensuring that intellectual property rightsholders are fairly treated."