“Sextortion”

It’s quite a dangerous cyber-world out there in the internet, Nate Anderson from Ars Technica wrote a scary real life story about how a hacker took advantage of the tiny little webcam, the hacker then ‘sextort’-ed (read: sexually extorted) the victims using nude pictures captured with the hacked webcam:

But the truly odd “sextortion” behavior was Mijangos’s calling card. Indeed, as the government later put it, he “dedicated considerable time to toying with victims.”

* “sextortion”: Sextortion is the extortion and/or blackmail of an individual, wherein the item or service requested/demanded is the performance of a sexual act.

Citing a few more recent examples, an August Associated Press story claimed that sextortion is on the rise in the US, and the government has taken to using the term in its criminal filings.

But Nate put the punch line right: “Without nude pictures and compromising videos, the attackers in such cases have no leverage—but digital devices have made it so easy to point, shoot, and share”. So be extra careful on using your devices to take picture or video, whatever it is.