One man in Pennsylvania is being charged with 68 felony counts after he went to painstaking lengths to manipulate underage girls through a series of fake Facebook accounts.

According to Attorney General Linda Kelly, the investigation into the activities of William R. Ainsworth began back in September of 2011, after he was arrested for attempting to engage in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl. After he was arrested, they found that this one lascivious meeting was just the tip of the iceberg. After combing through thousands of online communications, performing 18 searches, and interviewing over 30 children, the state has put together one hell of a story about Mr. Ainsworth.

“We quickly discovered that there was much more to this case than the sexual solicitation of one girl,” Kelly said. “What we found was an intricate web of false Facebook identities that were used to establish online relationships with vulnerable girls, who were then manipulated into sending nude photos to Ainsworth – believing he was a young surfer living in Florida – or physically meeting Ainsworth for sex – under the impression that those sexual encounters would help raise money so the girls could run away to Florida to be with their new online friend.”

Here’s how Ainsworth allegedly constructed his webs of lies:

First, he created two fake Facebook profiles – Bill Cano and Anthony “Riip” Navari. He built up both profiles by creating a network of friends with people in the greater Pittsburgh area. Both of his characters were young surfers who had dropped out of high school and ran away to Florida. He supposedly bolstered the believability of his characters by taking images from around the internet.

Apparently, he amassed over 600 friends between the two fake profiles.

He then used Bill Cano to make contact with young girls. Once he had manipulated them by gaining their trust over a period of time, he would get them to send him nude and sexually explicit photos.

But that wasn’t enough. Here’s where the story takes an even darker turn.

Once Ainsworth had established a community of girls that cared about Bill Cano, he killed him off. Then comes “Rip” Navari, who swooped in posing to be Bill’s step-brother or best friend. He told the girls that Bill had been attacked and killed. It’s pretty easy to see how young girls could get wrapped up in all of this.

Ainsworth then put a third fake character into play, named Glenn Keefer. Keefer’s profile said that he was a “Sugardaddy looking for Sugarbabies,” living in the Pittsburgh area. Ainsworth used Rip to introduce the girls to Keefer. The story was that if they stripped or performed sex acts with Keefer, then he would give money to Rip so that Rip could help the girls fly down to Florida to be with him.

All in all, Ainsworth’s web tangled up 7 victims from the ages of 13-15. Five of those girls ended up sending nude photos and he actually met with two of them (posing as Keefer) for the purposes of sex.

This is a pretty intricate fake identity scam, and if found guilty, Ainsworth is going to pay a heavy price for it. You always hear about stuff like this, and how it could happen. But it’s very rare to see something surface that’s this elaborate. The internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time – but damn, it can be cruel.

Karma, in this case, comes in the form of Apple’s Find My iPhone feature. The built-in app allows users to track their lost devices using the iCloud and GPS. If you find yourself missing your iPhone, you can log in to the iCloud from another device and pinpoint the exact location of the device. This, of course, assumes that you previously enabled the Find My iPhone feature.

UPI is reporting that Find My iPhone has led to a interesting drug bust in Marietta, Georgia.

After an iPhone was reported missing in the early morning hours on Tuesday, police used the Find My iPhone app to track the device to an apartment building. When they approached the door, one suspect tried to jump off a second-floor balcony. Unsuccessful, the police grabbed him and found the stolen iPhone on his body.

But what they also found was 1,100 grams of pot, five handguns (3 of them stolen), 42 tablets of oxycodone and an assault rifle.

Two suspects were subsequently hit with theft, weapons and narcotics charges.

You can add this to the growing list of idiot criminals that are foiled by technology. Want more? Check out idiot admits to brutal beating on Facebook, and after that, how about idiot taunts police on Facebook? If you want to go back even more, read about the rioting idiots that talked about vandalizing cop cars on social media or even drunk idiot who calls 911 because his iPhone “wont work.”

[Lead Image Courtesy]

Although one of the victims (a Purple Heart recipient) was seriously injured according to police, a fight in downtown Philadelphia between hockey fans doesn’t really tip the “most outrageous story” scale.

Except that this story involves Facebook idiots – and god how I love Facebook idiots.

Facebook idiots, simply, are people that do unbelievably dumb things on Facebook (or on some occasions, because of Facebook). In the past, for example, I’ve told you about the wanted idiot who taunted police with his location on Facebook – only to be arrested shortly thereafter. Or how about the guy who posted about vandalizing police cars and private property during the Vancouver riots last summer? Remember the guy who punched his wife because she failed to like one of his statuses?

Joining the Facebook idiots hall of the elite are some hockey fans who seem to forget that actions in the internet realm often translate into real life consequences.

Philadelphia hockey blog Broad St. Hockey posted a link about the violent Geno’s incident on their Facebook page, saying, “Some guys who think they’re Flyers fans beat up some Rangers fans outside of Geno’s Steaks on Monday…let’s not let them get away with it.” Amongst the comments denouncing the incident and the fans involved, young Edward Neary offered a different contribution to the conversation. The posts have since been deleted, but Broad St. Hockey grabbed some screenshots.

On the same thread a bit later, Neary expounded on the incident, eventually having a change of heart. He then began to blame some other guys by tagging them in posts:

After deleting many of the posts, Neary changed his profile picture a couple of times. His profile still says that he knows “Black Speech” and shows him as a fan of the page “Seriously I will punch you in the f*cking face.” One of his comments is still visible on the thread, from about 14 hours ago:

After denying the allegations, one of the guys he tagged as a participant in the assault also commented on the thread later saying, “It was me I live in gayville south dokota come.find me ans ill knock anyone out.”

Police are currently looking into the issue and as of right now, there is no way to know if any of our scholars actually participated in the crime. But if they can grab some more evidence, these Facebook posts will literally amount to confessions. Oh, and there’s also this video of the incident:

Dear Facebook idiots,

The internet is real. It’s not just some make believe place where anything goes and actions don’t have consequences. Things that you do on the internet can actually impact real life. In the future, remember that. Or, don’t. If your tales of idiocy ever ceased to exist, it would deprive us of untold hours of fun and ridicule. Proceed.

According to police in Madison, Wisconsin, two men were arrested after they attempted to sell stolen video games at a local video game exchange store. The police were waiting for the two thieves when they arrived, guns drawn. How did the police know they were going to try to cash in on their crime? Well, that’s the good part.

After making away with their loot (video games and DVDs from Target), our two master thieves started to discuss their crime. They talked about how they were better at stealing than other thieves, and how others fail to act nonchalant, and that’s their biggest mistake.

What they didn’t know was that one of them had butt-dialed 911, and an operator was listening to the entire conversation. Reportedly, this went on for about an hour.

The key part of their conversation (the one that eventually led to their arrest) was the tidbit about going down to the video game exchange to sell the stolen merchandise. After the 911 operator told the police of their plans, snagging the criminals turned out to be a pretty simple operation.

For some snippets of the unknown 911 call, check out this video below:

[ABC News via Kotaku]

A pair of robbers are targeting students in Upper Manhattan, and they are taking the worst thing imaginable – their iPhones. I’m not using “iPhone” and a generic term for “smartphone” like saying “Kleenex” for “tissue.” I mean they are taking iPhones – and only iPhones.

If the students don’t happen to have the popular Apple device, these guys refuse to take anything else as a substitute. Android? No Thanks. Blackberry? Get real.

From NBCNewYork:

Twice at 526 114th St., and once at 556 114th St., the suspects demanded the victims hand over their iPhones, police said.

The first victim complied, but the second only had a Droid, according to police. The thieves apparently didn’t want a Droid — so they took cash instead.

One student was quoted as saying, “It’s insulting they don’t want my Blackberry.” Columbia Campus police suggest that it might be the high resale value of the iPhone that’s making these robbers so picky. I’d like to believe that they just can’t bear the thought of losing the silky smooth vocal stylings of Siri.

Whatever the case may be, Apple could definitely spin this into a new ad campaign. “The iPhone 4S: Because when you want an iPhone, nothing else will do. Just ask these robbers.”

Check out the video below for some surveillance footage of the incidents. Maybe that guy’s right. Maybe Columbia students just need to carry old Blackberries and offer them up the next time they are accosted by our iPhone-only thieves.

What’s not a shame for 39-year-old Salvatore Miglino of Boca Raton is that his iPhone might just be the key witness in a crime reportedly borne of familial bickering.

According to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Miglino went to the home of his estranged mother-in-law, 66-year-old Cheryl Hepner, to pick up his 3-year-old kid for his court-mandated visitation. Apparently, Miglino and Hepner’s daughter are in the midst of a divorce.

After a brief discussion, Hepner allegedly pulled out a .22 caliber Beretta and shot Miglino twice – in the shoulder and the rib cage.

Luckily for Miglino, he had expected some sort of confrontation (although by the sound of his voice, obviously not any involving firearms), so he hit the record button on his iPhone before getting out of his car. The 90-seconds of footage has just been released by investigators and is making the rounds on the internet.

In the video, we don’t get much in the way of visuals. But the audio paints a pretty vivid picture of what happens:

According to the CBS local affiliate in Miami, operators received two distinct 911 calls – one from Hepner and one from Miglino. As you would expect, one doesn’t exactly corroborate the other:

Hepner: I tried to grab the gun and shoot. I don’t know.
911: Did you guys scuffle for the gun?
Hepner: Yes he had me down on the floor on the ground outside.
911: Did he pull the gun on you or did you pull it on him?
Hepner: No he pulled the gun on me and he’s got it and he drove away.

///

Miglino: Oh my God. I’m shot.
911: Ok
MIglino: I took the gun away from her. I have it.
911: Where are you shot?
Miglino: On my shoulder and on my side. I can’t believe she shot me!

The Broward Sheriff’s Office says that the gun jammed, and that’s probably the only reason that Miglino is alive. Hepner has been charged with attempted first-degree murder.

“The victim knew that something wasn’t right,” a BSO spokesman said. “He knew that there would possibly be a confrontation, he had the foresight to hit record on his iPhone. Thank goodness he did.”

[Via The Smoking Gun]
[Image Courtesy]

Monday night, 38-year old Rachelle Grimmer pulled a gun on a supervisor at the Texas Department of Health and Human Services branch office in Laredo. This would lead to a tense seven-hour standoff that would leave two dead and one in critical condition.

Grimmer, who entered the HHS office that day with her two children Ramie (12) and Timothy (10), was reportedly frustrated for being denied food stamps. According to reports, Grimmer had various applications for assistance rejected across various states. A spokeswoman for the Texas HHS Department said that Grimmer hadn’t been rejected, simply denied because she failed to provide all the necessary documentation in a specific time frame.

The motivations are not all that important in the end, as the result left Grimmer dead and both of her children critically wounded. Around midnight Monday, Grimmer fired three shots. Police rushed in and found her dead at the scene.

Her 12-year-old daughter’s use of Facebook during the ordeal serves as a chilling account, from the perspective of a child.

At 7:50 pm, Ramie strangely added “may die 2day” as her work.

At 10:34, well into the standoff, she posted this:

Then, just a few minutes later:

Her last post came just a half hour or so before the shooting started. The person who commented is listed as the children’s grandmother:

After struggling for a couple of days, Ramie Grimmer died from her injuries Wednesday night around 8 pm. The boy, Timothy, is still in critical condition at the University hospital in San Antonio.

This definitely isn’t the first use of Facebook during a police standoff to make the news. Back in June, a Utah man holed up in a hotel room with a girl identified as a hostage. The man took pictures with the girl and posted status updates during the standoff – giving the world a truly odd play-by-play of all the police actions. That also ended poorly as the man shot himself in the chest when police eventually stormed the room.

“Blago” was the top trending topic on Twitter today after the verdict was announced. Here’s what some of the tweets had to say:

Concerning that last tweet: I’m on it.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called it a “massive and sophisticated scheme.”

The fraud was perpetrated by seven individuals, all of whom the U.S. is trying to get extradited. Six of the seven are Estonian nationals and have been taken into custody. The seventh is a Russian national and he remains at large.

Here’s how the scheme worked:

Malware installed to millions of computers allowed the perpetrators to manipulate online searches in order to redirect clicks to certain sites and ads. They used these falsely-acquired clicks to generate ad revenue.

Some examples of this included links to Apple’s iTunes, Netflix, and even the IRS being redirected to unrelated sites.

The malware also interfered with the computers’ anti-virus software, making the intrusion even harder to identify.

As alleged in the Indictment, from 2007 until October 2011, the defendants controlled and operated various companies that masqueraded as legitimate publisher networks (the “Publisher Networks”) in the Internet advertising industry. The Publisher Networks entered into agreements with ad brokers under which they were paid based on the number of times that Internet users clicked on the links for certain websites or advertisements, or based on the number of times that certain advertisements were displayed on certain websites.

Thus, the more traffic to the advertisers’ websites and display ads, the more money the defendants earned under their agreements with the ad brokers. As alleged in the Indictment, the defendants fraudulently increased the traffic to the websites and advertisements that would earn them money. They accomplished this by making it appear to advertisers that the Internet traffic came from legitimate clicks and ad displays on the defendants’ Publisher Networks when, in actuality, it had not.

It’s shocking to see that the scheme apparently went on for more than 4 years.

The schemers also operated ad-replacement fraud, replacing certain ads on websites with their own. For instance, the infected computers that visited the Wall Street Journal site saw ads for “Fashion Girl LA” as opposed to what should have been there – an ad for the American Express “Plum Card.”

More than 500,000 of the computers that were hit came from the U.S. And we’re not just talking about personal systems – but systems from within U.S. government agencies like NASA as well as colleges & universities and non-profits.

The suspects face 27 charges, including wire fraud and computer intrusion.

The FBI wants to hear from you if you think your computer might have been involved in this scheme. They say standard, up-to-date antivirus software should be able to detect the malware.

At the height of the outbursts, triggered by social unrest, Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the possibility of censoring some elements of social media. Speaking on the subject, Cameron said that free flow of information can be good and bad and submitted that the answer might be in stopping communication via social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

That idea received opposition from the social sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as RIM, whose BlackBerry Messenger was vital to the rioter’s communications. In the end, social media communications were not restricted.

Which brings us to Phillip Scott Burgess.

Today, The Telegraph reports that the 22-year-old Manchester resident has been sentenced to three years in jail for his use of Facebook during the riots.

On August 9th, Burgess posted this as his status:

“Message to all – we need to start riot’n we need to put Manchester on the map, first lets riot king street Manchester, haha.”

Later that day, he posted derogatory remarks regarding the race and ethnicity of some of the protestors. Over the course of the next few days, he posted more racially charged statuses and ended by saying “Bring bk the riots.” He was arrested on August 16th.

He plead guilty to three counts of “publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and encouraging or assisting the commission of a riot.” He will now reside in a cell for a maximum of 3 years.

The sentence, according to the judge, was based on the belief that people who had a hand in organizing the riots are just as responsible as those who participated in the looting and vandalism.

John Hepke, part of the police team that sought Burgess after he made the Facebook posts had this to say about the ruling:

“Everyone witnessed the disgraceful scenes of violence, looting and arson and it is clear that social networking sites were used to incite certain elements of this disorder…I hope today’s sentence sends a powerful message to those who choose to follow Burgess’ example and use social networking sites irresponsibly and criminally that they will be dealt with harshly by the courts.”

During the riots, it was clear to those watching online that some of the youth failed to keep their thinking caps on at all times. Not all social-media fails involved inciting the riots – others used Facebook and Twitter to talk about the car they had just smashed or the item they had just stolen.

And this kind of use of social media isn’t limited to those in the UK. Folks were pretty senseless when it came to social media use during the Vancouver hockey riots as well.

How do you feel about this case? Do Burgess’ posts make him just as guilty as those who actively participated in the violence? Let us know what you think.