What to do if you are blackmailed on the Internet: Skype, VK

The World Wide Web has long become part of the habitual way of life of a modern person. Along with new technological capabilities of users, new methods of crime have appeared that affect the privacy of those who cannot imagine themselves without a computer or tablet. Many of us have long followed the habit of “sharing” personal photos with our friends, colleagues, and spouses. Sometimes actively capturing yourself brings problems associated with extortion, coercion to perform some action in exchange for non-distribution of candid photographs. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the ransomware often “works” under a fictitious name and nothing is known about it. What to do if you are blackmailed on the Internet?

Methods of blackmail on the Internet: intimate photos, videos, VKontakte, Skype

There are a lot of ways to ruin the life of an ordinary “user”. Here are the most common:

• Personal page on popular social networks has been hacked. In such a situation, the attacker gains access to all the friends of the page owner and, of course, to all photographs that he can use to achieve criminal goals.

For example , you habitually go to your Facebook page (in Contact, in Odnoklassniki, etc.) and see a message from an unknown user of the following nature: “Photos of an intimate nature have been found on your page. To prevent them from being sent to all your friends, send 3,000 rubles to a Qiwi wallet. If you try to block the user who sent you this message or file a complaint with the admins, the photos will be sent to strangers automatically.”

• Often the victims of online extortion are former lovers who are blackmailed with the distribution of photographs or videos. In such a situation, the attacker can hide under someone else’s name or pose as his own, depending on the nature of the requirements.

For example , a man and a woman were in a long-term trusting relationship, recorded so-called “home videos” together, and took naked photographs of each other. After a breakup, a man (less often a woman) begins to take revenge and threaten to send images. The condition for non-proliferation can be not only the transfer of the required amount of money, but also other options: becoming a couple again, breaking up with a new man, etc.

• Users of online dating may be the target of blackmail.

When you have met a charming lady who asks to exchange intimate photographs, it is quite possible to face threats of sending them to your friends. Moreover, such threatening messages are also common: “You just sent me an image of your genitals, I’m 13 years old, I’m forced to go to the police with a statement of child molestation if you don’t transfer money in the amount of 10,000 rubles.” At the same time, the discouraged man is sent screenshots of the correspondence that existed between them, confirming his firm intentions to provide all this to the police.

• Video on Skype. A somewhat new method of extorting money from Internet users mainly affects young people and high school students.

Unexpectedly for the owner of a tablet (computer, smartphone), a charming stranger appears on Skype and asks to confirm authorization and add her to your contacts. It’s a rare young man who will refuse to chat with an attractive girl; usually this move works and now a nice stranger tells him that she was bored, broke up with her boyfriend and called a completely random Skype user, who turned out to be such a nice young man. Next, the conversation smoothly turns into flirting, followed by an offer of virtual sex. Immediately after the Internet love session is over, the girl leaves and leaves a message with the following content: “Your intimate video is recorded, if within 24 hours you do not send 15,000 rubles to your wallet (WebMoney, Yandex and other anonymous payment systems), I will send it people on your contact list."

Deception No. 4: Video communication begins with dangers

And after all, Katya, when I was already thinking soberly: after all, there were so many moments in the correspondence... that internally greatly jarred me, and the brain itself somehow began to selectively filter it.

Next, the scammer needs to start communicating and gain trust. A short correspondence ensues, during which the girl showers you with compliments. And now she is asking you to add her to your friends list on a page on VKontakte or another social network.

The only legal way to fight this is to contact the police. Searching for a blackmailer on your own is ineffective and most likely will not yield results; entrust the search to professionals. Since I am a man myself, it’s easier for me to understand and explain the psychology of the stronger sex, and I’m basing it on a specific situation and will describe a scheme aimed specifically at a male audience. Most often, it is men who become victims of such a scam, but women also fall for this bait.

What responsibilities are provided?

Regardless of what the blackmail is used for - photographs, videos, correspondence of an intimate nature, such actions are always criminally punishable. Responsibility for this form of extortion is provided for in Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, where the punishment may be as follows:

• restriction of freedom for up to 4 years;
• imprisonment for up to 4 years with a fine of 80,000 rubles;
• imprisonment for up to seven years (if the extortionists act as part of a group or extort more than 250,000 rubles);
• imprisonment for up to 15 years (if an organized group operates or extorts more than a million rubles).

You should know that extortion is already considered over from the moment demands are made and threats are made to disseminate facts from a person’s life. So, if the attacker announced his intention to send screenshots of the correspondence to the victim’s friends, but did not do this, extortion as a crime has already been committed.

Let us add that the subject of threats must be such personal information, the dissemination of which actually harms the reputation of the victim.

The actions of attackers to hack email correspondence on the Internet (e-mail, pages on social networks) are separately classified - responsibility for this is directly provided for in Article 138 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of the secrecy of correspondence - punishment in the form of a fine of up to 80,000 rubles or community service).

If the extortionist nevertheless sent incriminating evidence to other persons, he must be additionally prosecuted under Article 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for violating privacy (punishment in the form of a fine of up to 250,000 rubles or imprisonment of up to two years).

Where to go

What to do if you are blackmailed in contact? Experts recommend contacting the police. To do this, we write a statement:

To the head of police department No. 0________district of ________ A.A. Molchanov, residing at ____________ (specify) Tel._______________ (specify)

STATEMENT

I ask that an unknown person under the nickname “Sergey” be brought to criminal responsibility, who, under the threat of distributing intimate photographs to my friends, demands the transfer of 20,000 rubles to a Qiwi wallet before 01/02/2016 until 24 hours.

A message of this nature was delivered to me at 23:20 on 01/01/2016 on the social network page in contact. The actions of an unidentified person can cause me significant harm, humiliate my honor and dignity, and violate my rights to confidentiality of correspondence.

On criminal liability for knowingly false denunciation in accordance with Art. 306 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation warned.

Appendix: screenshots of a contact page, screenshots of messages from an unknown person.

Molchanov A.A., date, signature.

The application should be taken to the police department at your place of residence. Any new information that appears to you after the statement (the criminal nevertheless sent racy photographs to your friends, new threats were received, the required amount has increased) will be useful for the police, since each time the extortionist “gets in touch” can help in establishing his location.

Of course, blackmailers almost always use a special program that prevents the IP address from being determined. At the same time, the blackmailer can be exposed if employees of Department “K”, investigating crimes in the field of computer information, manage to track the route of sending the messages.

If you contact the police, be prepared to testify about your personal life not only during the investigation, but also in court. You will have to go through the unpleasant moments of thoroughly studying the information that has become the subject of blackmail. The investigator will find out where the photographs were taken from, whether they were sent to the extortionist or whether he gained access to them without permission, whether friends know this person - the investigation of the case will not be complete without such procedures. It is likely that the compromising photographs used to blackmail you will be included as evidence in the case, therefore, they will be examined by a lawyer, public prosecutor, judge, secretary, etc.

Of course, not every victim has the patience and fortitude to go through this, so many prefer not to write a statement to the police and “not wash dirty linen in public.”

How to avoid fraudulent activities against yourself?

1. The best way to avoid blackmail is not to give incriminating evidence about yourself into the hands of untrusted people. Be vigilant and careful. Do not trust unfamiliar interlocutors, especially with whom you have never met in reality.
2. If you start communicating and start to like a person, do not rush to take active action, wait a little, chat, try, if possible, to meet at least a couple of times in the real world and get to know the person better.
3. If you have already decided to take such a step, then check your interlocutor’s page for reality and take the trouble to install a video capture program on your computer. I do not encourage you to engage in fraudulent activities, but just in case, have compromising evidence in return. If everything is in order, you can delete it, or keep it for yourself as a pleasant memory. Just make sure that unauthorized people do not gain access to such videos or photos.
4. For girls. To you, our dear and beautiful representatives of the fair sex, I can only advise one thing: be doubly vigilant and distrustful, because material with your participation can not only be used for blackmail, but also sold to groups or sites of a certain orientation.

Take care of yourself and the secret of your identity! Take care of yourself! Don't feed scammers and blackmailers.

What happens if you don’t go anywhere?

In this case, there are two options - pay the required amount or simply ignore the threats:

1. if the user transfers money, usually the extortionist destroys all photographs, videos, etc., and disappears from his virtual life. At the same time, there are cases where blackmail is long-term and continues for years: periodically appearing online, the criminal demands again and again that amounts be transferred to his accounts for silence.
2. If you do not respond to threats, in 95% of cases they are carried out. If you are ready to go through the time when your acquaintances and friends will ask you about what happened and discuss your personal life, then completely ignoring the blackmailer’s letters is a suitable way out of this situation. In the end, all these unpleasant events will be forgotten and, perhaps, soon you will remember them with a smile.

What should you do if you are blackmailed in contact by contacting the police about sexual harassment of minors (when they report that you sent photos to a person under 18 years of age)? In this case, we strongly recommend contacting the police, thereby preventing a possible unfounded charge of a serious crime. Under no circumstances accept help from the so-called “Internet police,” whose services may be offered to you for a fee. Such a unit does not exist in law enforcement agencies and, quite possibly, the same fraudster is hidden behind this name.

Extortion via Skype

Learning foreign languages ​​via Skype is gaining popularity, and this has long been done not by single tutors, but by professional online schools with a permanent staff of teachers and their own unique curriculum. True, such projects try, first of all, to offer their clients knowledge of the English language, and the rest fade into the background. A pleasant exception to this rule are the Melene and Ninnel schools, with the help of which you can get a good level of Spanish via Skype.

How to avoid becoming a victim of online blackmail

Of course, no one is immune from hacking of pages on the Internet. And yet, by following some recommendations, you can significantly reduce the risk of others using your privacy:

• make your profile on social networks “private”;
• do not add unverified users to your contacts;
• change your password periodically, choosing a complex combination;
• never send intimate photos of yourself to strangers or those you just met (even if the person you are communicating with sent the photo first);
• do not correspond on topics of intimacy online;
• do not communicate and, especially, do not participate in video chats with strangers;
• if your page is hacked, be sure to report it to technical support.

Extortion via Skype

2. Take screenshots of your correspondence and his requirements. Send this to the support of the social network from which the threats come (Skype, VKontakte or another) They do not respond too quickly, sometimes it takes them more than an hour to respond. It’s better to immediately take a photo of yourself with your passport against the background of a support message to prove that it’s really you sending the request and you’re in this video, image and have the right to apply for deletion.

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