Because the Internet is so vast and uncharted, the full scope of its dark side has never been fully explored, and the amount of bad stuff out there is truly staggering. Cases of cyberstalking, adoption fraud, credit card theft, child solicitation and Internet addiction are discussed.

Copyright U.S. News and World Report Aug 28, 2000

It's the ultimate killer app. Not only has the Internet revolutionized the way we communicate, entertain, and learn, it has forever changed the way we shop, socialize, and conduct business. An estimated 144 million Americans are plugged into cyberspace, and thousands more enter the online world every day. Even if you're not wired, you've heard the buzz--billions of dollars in E-commerce, E- books changing the way we read, fabulous music libraries acquired for nothing thanks to Napster and its clones.

But wait. The popular image of the Web is one of earnest geeks and capitalist kids gulping a Starbucks as they sling code. That masks something that until recently could only be called the online world's dirty little secret. Pornographers and pedophiles on the Web, sadly, are nothing new. But because the Internet is so vast and uncharted, the full scope of its dark side has never been fully explored. And the amount of bad stuff out there is truly staggering. Rigged auctions. Viruses. Adoption scams. In June, police arrested the first Internet serial killer: John Edward Robinson, aka "Slavemaster," was charged with murdering five women in two states and stuffing their bodies into metal drums. CyberAngels, an organization that assists victims of Internet crimes, receives 650 online stalking complaints every day. Credit card theft is as old as the credit card--and certainly a lot easier since the rise of the Internet. But identity theft? Fixing that is a lot more complicated than ordering a new Gold Card from American Express.

What's happening on the Internet is worrisome enough, but what has really gotten the attention of cybercops is the rate at which such problems are increasing. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 18,000 Internet-related complaints. That's more than double the previous year's volume. For the first six months of this year, it received 11,000 complaints. The FBI opened 1,500 online child sex cases last year, up from 700 a year before. Businesses, too, are feeling the pinch. According to a recent survey by the Computer Security Institute and the FBI, 70 percent of companies experienced cyberattacks in the past year, up from 42 percent in 1996. Nearly 300 companies reported losses of more than $265 million. To get a better sense of the perils and problems of the Internet, U.S. News sent a team of reporters and photographers across the nation during the week of June 25. What they found is sobering. Some incidents reveal the naivete of Internet users. Others astonish with the sheer simplicity of predators' ploys. All illustrate the tremendous power of the Internet in perpetrating a whole range of crimes and misdemeanors and suggest that, for all its marvels, the online world is a place one must navigate with abundant caution.

CYBERSTALKING

Lost innocence

It's the first full week of summer vacation, and Timothy McGillicuddy, principal of Hawthorne Brook Middle School in Townsend, Mass., typically uses this time to reflect on another class of eighth graders. This year, he's trying to forget. He'd rather not remember a police officer meeting him at the schoolhouse door and handing him a copy of a Web page. He'd prefer never having seen the defaced picture of his school set in the crosshairs of a rifle. He'd rather not think about the snapshot of him personally, with blood pouring from simulated bullet holes in his head and chest.

Halfway across the country, a judge in Clay County, Mo., is mulling a request by a defense attorney to suppress statements by 20- year-old Christian Hunold, who will stand trial next month on charges he terrorized McGillicuddy and his school for three days last fall. From his home computer in Smithville, Mo., Hunold allegedly stalked the town of Townsend, directing kids to child pornography sites and placing "hit" lists of teachers and students on the Net.

Hunold was just 15--not much older than the kids at McGillicuddy's school--when he was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident. He and a buddy had gone "hill-hopping": They had sped to the top of a hill, hoping their car would become airborne. But Hunold's friend lost control and hit a tree. Hunold, an Eagle Scout who played saxophone in his school band, underwent extensive physical therapy and ultimately regained some use of his arms. But something went wrong along the way.

Kim Landi, 14, thinks she saw him first. Like many kids at Hawthorne Brook, authorities say, Hunold frequented a chat room for the rock group Limp Bizkit. It was his screen name, a boast about raping girls, that Kim noticed. She thought it was disgusting, but, being a typical teenager, she told all her friends. Hunold allegedly used more aliases to glean information from the kids. And before long, Kim Landi says, he knew what they were wearing at Friday night's football game and who was mad at whom. He knew Kim's sister's name, even though she insists she never told him. More curious than afraid, the students kept E-mailing Hunold even after he started making threats. In all, authorities say, Hunold corresponded with 40 of the town's 215 eighth graders.

Hunold's lawyer, Steven Wolcott, is preparing a technical defense. Laws on the books at the time of the offense are vague, he says, and they don't cover crimes committed with a computer. In the meantime, Townsend is preparing for a new school year having learned a hard lesson. Not monitoring kids' use of the Internet, says the Rev. Kevin Patterson of the First Baptist Church of West Townsend, "is like dropping them off in the worst part of the city in the middle of a gang war and saying, `I'll pick you up later.' "

ADOPTION FRAUD

The cruelest con

On Sunday, June 25, John and Terri Nakai gave thankful prayers in their Littleton, Colo., church. The woman who had broken their hearts had pleaded guilty that week. That left one last painful task: telling the sentencing judge how badly Sonya Furlow had, as John put it, "messed up our lives."

The Nakais, who had two biological children, had been waiting a year with a local adoption agency when a fellow subscriber to America Online E-mailed them. A self-styled Philadelphia-based adoption facilitator named Sonya Furlow had a baby they could adopt quickly, the E-mailer said. They E-mailed Furlow. And within a few weeks, Furlow was faxing them medical documents about a pregnant woman named "Dakota." She E-mailed the Nakais and assured them that Dakota especially wanted them to have her baby. Thrilled, the Nakais sent Furlow $4,500, the first installment of her $8,500 fee. Then Furlow essentially dropped out of communication. There never was any Dakota. Furlow had duped the Nakais and at least 43 other families from California to Maine.

As devastated as the Nakais were, they got off comparatively lightly. Furlow had conned $9,500 from another family. She told yet another couple to fly from their home in Nebraska to Philadelphia to pick up a baby. She met them at their hotel dressed in hospital scrubs, pretending to have just come from a birth. And she let them wait in the hotel for days before telling them the mother had changed her mind.

Furlow, who will be sentenced September 8, didn't hold a patent on using the Internet to sell fictitious babies. The Internet has made the complex business of adoption vastly easier, but it has also spawned virulent and heartbreaking new strains of adoption fraud. "People are getting burned on the Internet at a rate that is inconceivable," says Bill Pierce, a founder of the National Council for Adoption. Electronic chat rooms are trolled by scammers promising babies if only the adopters will send money. Less-than-honest adoption agencies post pictures of cute babies who are, in fact, not available for adoption.

Jill and Steven Hopster of Redmond, Wash., thought they were about to adopt a healthy biracial baby. Then they saw Internet postings offering the very same baby to others. They soon discovered that the birth mother had lied about the baby's race and legal status. They lost not only the baby they had thought of as theirs but $7,200 and, Jill says, "their joy."

As of last week, Sonya Furlow's Web site was still up. Because of her guilty plea, she is not likely to spend more than two years in prison.

STOCK SHENANIGANS

The cybersmear

`What's not to love about this stock?" A message from connie - x - francis opines that an anticipated merger of New Jersey-based Biomatrix with Genzyme Corp. will ramp up sales of Biomatrix's main product, an arthritis pain reliever called Synvisc. Every time she posts a message, Connie is barraged by naysayers. A few messages back, someone known as meddra 2k calls Connie a Biomatrix "pusher," equivalent to a mobster and a criminal. Meanwhile, the poster called cd - 43eighttt predicts a collapse of the merger and Biomatrix's bankruptcy.

A spirited expression of opinion? Perhaps. Or maybe a scheme to manipulate stock prices, engineered by a few interested parties, acting under aliases and in cahoots--possibly at the behest of a shortseller, a trader who stands to gain if Biomatrix's stock heads south.

On this last week in June, Massachusetts securities regulators are painstakingly tracing the identity of the suspicious Biomatrix posters. They are removing, layer by layer, subpoena by subpoena, the mask of anonymity that is the essence of the Net.

Biomatrix says it's the victim of a classic "cybersmear," in which message board posters trash a company, its products, or stock. Sometimes the culprits are disgruntled workers. Sometimes they're "shorts," hoping to profit on the stock price falling. In the case of Biomatrix, regulators suspect, they're both.

The Biomatrix case began more than a year ago, when disparaging messages began appearing on the Yahoo board. Some of them accused Biomatrix CEO Endre Balazs of being a Nazi war criminal. Others accused a female executive of lewd sexual acts. Still others alleged that patients died from using Synvisc. "Have I lost investors because of the noise and blather of these people? Absolutely," says company President Rory Riggs. John Lewis, a money manager in Chadds Ford, Pa., who owns a million shares, thinks the stock is selling for half what it ought to.

Determined to protect the credibility of their company, Biomatrix and its officers filed a civil lawsuit against seven "John Does"-- three of them later identified as former employees and an employee's relative--charging them with using the Internet to defame Biomatrix. On July 25, a New Jersey judge ruled that the postings were indeed libelous.

The bashers have referred to their writings as "spoof," "satire," and "humor." And in recent weeks, a host of class-action suits have been filed alleging that the company exaggerated prospects for Synvisc and inflated its sales, artificially boosting stock prices. Nonetheless, the Massachusetts securities regulators expect to file a stock manipulation complaint. That could result in a cease-and- desist order.

Such penalties are about as threatening as shaking a finger at the playground bully, cynics say. But, says Securities Division chief Matthew Nestor, "It's a red flag. We're building a book."

CREDIT CARD THEFT

Trading virgin ccdz

Saturday afternoon is not prime time for the nocturnal hackers who trade stolen credit card numbers online. But in the Beaver, Pa., offices of Internet security firm AntiOnline, some of the nation's most successful cybercops are already catching some action.

AntiOnline's 21-year-old founder, John Vranesevich, is monitoring a popular chat room where "carders" are trading filched account numbers. A message pops up from a carder using the online pseudonym-- or handle--ELGOD: "Wanna trade USA ccdz? I got 5 Visas, 1 MC, 1 Virgin Visas [sic]." "Ccdz" are credit cards, "MC" means MasterCard, and "virgin" denotes a stolen number that has yet to be used illegally. Carders often seek equal exchanges of stolen numbers, Vranesevich says, but other acceptable trades include pirated software or password access to violated computers. CoolGuy brags that he has a "big list" of 7,000 working numbers. Billy wants two numbers--or one virgin account--in exchange for access to the California State University-Los Angeles computer system. Misha writes: "I need USA cards and full info." Now that many firms require a billing address along with a card number, carders prize accounts with such detail.

Carders often bluff their way through deals, Vranesevich says. Some trade with phony numbers from online credit card generators-- sites that come up with seemingly valid numbers by using the same algorithms banks do. Anyone trying to use the numbers online will probably be denied access. Such treachery does not go unnoticed. A carder announces that "ccman=RIPPER"--someone who disappears without completing the trade. "Now ccman is ruined," grins Vranesevich.

A carder named MaStEr - P announces he has a virgin Visa to trade. Using the handle h4cker, Vranesevich introduces himself: "Sup yo. You got cc to trade? I got an AmEx gold." He's faking; his is a bogus number from a generator site. But MaStEr - P bites, and Vranesevich shoots over the number. The carder quickly asks, "where's name address email?" Vranesevich, bluffing again, says he'll provide more info after MaStEr - P delivers a number: Within minutes, a Visa number and expiration date, plus the mailing and E-mail addresses of its owner, one Jeanine Bohan, appear. Vranesevich deduces from MaStEr - P's ISP location that the carder is in Bulgaria and fires an E- mail to Bohan. The subject line reads: "Your Credit Card Number Was Stolen."

CHILD SOLICITATION

A fall from grace

During his 10 years as pastor of Faith United Church of Christ in State College, Pa., William Cabell built a reputation as an engaging preacher whose amiability, humility, and generosity captivated most churchgoers even as his nitpicking about church business annoyed others.

But William Cabell, graduate of Yale Divinity School and the Princeton Theological Seminary, had a secret.

Sitting in his office one quiet evening last October and using the church's America Online account, Cabell allegedly logged into an Internet chat room. He called himself BillSC635. He was greeted in turn by a chat room participant called Addam1984, who described himself as a 14-year-old boy from New Jersey. "Hi Addam," Bill allegedly wrote. "im older gay guy luv teen boys ad sex, can we chat?" Addam responded with the familiar online symbol for a smile.

The E-mails allegedly progressed over the next several months. Bill: "Have you ever done anything with a guy for real?" Addam: "Only in mydreems [sic]. im 14 is that k?" Bill: "perfect, I'm 48, is that okay?" Addam: "yeh . . . " Bill: "Would you like to try out what you dream about?" . . . Addam: "you'd be my first time." Bill: "I'm super gentle, have been the first time for teen boys . . . 15 and 16."

In an instant message exchange on June 26, BillSC635 allegedly agreed to meet Addam1984 at a fast-food restaurant in Piscataway, N.J. He said he would be wearing glasses, a maroon polo shirt, and khaki slacks. Addam said he would be wearing a New York Yankees jersey. On June 28, at about 12:15 p.m., William Cabell arrived at the restaurant. But instead of the teenager he was expecting, he was confronted by an undercover FBI agent.

Cabell was arrested for crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. He was released on $100,000 bond, placed under house arrest, and prohibited from using a computer. In a letter of apology to his flock, Cabell said that for many years he had "struggled with an illness which I have managed to control for the most part." His friends, stunned, now minister to him. Says church member Harry Weller: "They've tried to help him to realize that he is still a child of God who needs help and love."

INTERNET ADDICTION

Base instincts

Theirs is a modern love drama: They met on the Internet and fell head over heels. They shared secrets, memories, emotions--even though they had never laid eyes on each other. And now, the very technology that had brought them together was tearing them apart.

"Kevin" is a likable guy--quick with a smile, trustworthy. A security guard for a hospital in northern Idaho, he keeps emergency room patients company and walks nurses to their cars at night. He remembers the first day he logged on to the Internet. It was August 1995, and the computer was in the hospital library. It wasn't long before he was spending most of his free time in front of the screen.

It was purely by accident, Kevin says, that he discovered online pornography. First he looked out of curiosity. "Each time I thought I had seen it all," he says, "some new sexual practice popped up. Eventually, the online sexual world came to take the place of any real-world contact with women. "I can be a little bit shy," he says, "and this was a substitute that kept me from feeling lonely."

Then came a message from "Marie," a young mother of three looking for companionship on an Internet singles site. Kevin fired off an immediate response, and the two began a dialogue that would last two months before he made the 50-mile drive to meet her. A few months later, they were married.

What Marie loved about Kevin was his kindness, his interest in her kids. What she didn't know was that every time she was reading one of Kevin's love E-mails, he was at the other end of the connection peering at lewd pornography sites. "I knew he was always online," Marie says. "But I thought that it was just because he was interested in meeting new people."

Whenever Kevin was home, he was online, with the door closed. A few times, he called her in to look at an especially "wild" site. She was disgusted but didn't worry--until he turned away from her in bed. "Have you been looking again?" she would cry.

By January, Kevin knew he had a serious problem. He promised to go cold turkey, never even logging on to the computer at home. But there was still the machine at the hospital. Every night, he would use his master key to get into the closed library and indulge his addiction as never before. Sometimes, for his entire eight-hour shift, he would sit transfixed in front of the screen's glowing sex world. When his bosses asked him to look in on the library, where some "unusual" computer activity had been noticed, he laid low for a month, then headed straight back to the same spot.

This time, though, he walked into a trap. Earlier this summer, the hospital installed cameras and software that recorded Kevin's every mouse click. On June 27, the administrators confronted him. Because he had a stellar work record, they suspended him for only three days and ordered him into counseling. Kevin now lives under the constant monitoring of his wife and his boss. "I think I can make it," he says. "But if [Marie] goes, I know I'll head straight back to that computer."

TRADEMARK WARS

Dissing the Dead

Three Grateful Dead "stealies"--skulls with 13-point lightning bolts--appear below a fiery "Welcome" and a beating heart on Joe Propst's serial killers Web site. The band's lawyer, Eric Doney, clicks on the familiar icons and turns up more than he ever cared to know about Ted Bundy's pornography addiction, Jeffrey Dahmer's homosexual cannibalism, and a Hillside Strangler's faking of multiple personality disorder. Deadheads have appropriated "stealies" for all kinds of uses--baseball team emblems, gay pride symbols, drug legalization marches--but Doney finds this particular trademark violation to be galling. "He's not going to do it using our marks," he says. The "Grateful Dead are about the beauty and pleasure of life and not about these sick characters." After Doney fires off a cease- and-desist letter, Propst agrees to shelve the "stealies." He replaces them with three screaming skulls. Doney and his investigators spend their days navigating a vast online bazaar where traditional intellectual property rights are not generally respected. Fans are allowed to trade MP3s, just as they were once permitted to bootleg concerts. But the Dead still budgets $5,000 to $7,000 extra each month to pursue Internet pirates who steal concert videos, sell knockoff Dancing Bear T-shirts, and purloin studio albums. The week of June 25, the lawyers took down 19 illegal auctions of Grateful Dead music. "You don't see howitzers or murders for hire" on auction sites, Doney says. "They're just not willing to filter it out for us."

The Dead's MP3 trading policy results from a legal confrontation last year with the owners of an upstart site called "Deadabase," which offered free downloads of Dead concerts. Doney cracked down because the operation was earning money from banner ads. Deadabase's cofounder, Joshua Kerr, contends the Grateful Dead gave up its copyright when it allowed Deadheads to tape live concerts. He also says his site opened the Dead experience to new listeners around the world. "The guy's a real a- -hole," Kerr says of Doney, who effectively forced him to shut down. Doney shoots back: "This is not a garage band. We don't need gratuitous publicity." Internet users can trade Dead songs only if they do not generate any revenue. Eric Boyer, for one, never got the message. On June 20, the 44-year-old father of two decided to sell 1,500 hours of live concert tapes for a minimum of $1,500 on eBay. "THEY ALL SOUND GRATE!" he advertised. A day later, he received an E-mail from Doney's team warning that he could face fines of up to $150,000 for each copyrighted tape he auctioned. Boyer sent the lawyers a contrite E-mail: "I was trying to make some room for the kids, and the wife was saying, `Get the tapes out of here!' " But in a postscript, he did not conceal his bitterness. Boyer claimed that he had spent "well over $50,000" at Dead shows. "In fact, I'm thinking [Jerry Garcia] may owe me money," Boyer wrote. ". . . He was too high to play, and it sounded like crap."

HACKING

`Ain't no joke'

Ikenna Iffih sat impassively as a federal judge ran through a list of charges to which he would plead guilty. The 20-year-old Nigerian immigrant had unleashed "a trail of cybercrime from coast to coast," prosecutors said, penetrating NASA and Defense Department computers and crippling a commercial Internet service. Now perched behind a defendant's table in a Boston courtroom, he listened as Judge Robert Keeton read the facts of his case and asked if he understood them. "Yes," Iffih replied in a near whisper.

Iffih had been a quiet student at Northeastern University's College of Computer Science. He was, in fact, a classic hacker. In person, he was introverted, polite. On the Internet, he adopted an entirely new persona: profane, crude, even threatening. Under the name DigiAlmty, he allegedly sprayed cybergraffiti calling for the release of fellow hackers from jail and for war against the FBI. "When one of us goes down, we must annihilate the person[s] responsible," DigiAlmty wrote over one company's Web page. On a Canadian Embassy Web site, he was equally explicit: "FBI, read my lips. . . . STOP the raids!!! . . . STOP before we take down the INTERNET!!! This ain't no joke, this is for real." Iffih's trouble began in April last year, when from his home computer he stole access to a corporate E-mail account and logged on to a computer called ramses.dla.hp.mil in Columbus, Ohio. Ramses belongs to the Defense Logistics Agency, which provides supplies for U.S. troops worldwide. Using a service known as a telnet proxy, Iffih made it seem as if he was based out of the DLA computer.

One of Iffih's next stops was the NASA server at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where he effectively seized control of the entire system. A "sniffer" program allowed him to capture login names and passwords and save them for later use. He even hacked into his own university's computers, and before long, held the names, birth dates, addresses, and Social Security numbers of some 9,135 people tied to Northeastern.

When IIffih hacked into the Web site of Zebra Marketing Online Services, which builds and hosts business Web pages, ZMOS soon heard from clients that they could no longer access their accounts. Iffih had renamed the password file, and then wreaked havoc on programs, client data, and more. Foolishly, however, he left clues behind, including a message: "FBI--Catch me if you can." They did.

For his mischief, Iffih faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. At a minimum, he will serve six months behind bars. Said his prosecutor, Allison Burroughs, "I just don't believe these kids think about what they're doing."

IDENTITY THEFT

A bad name

Thomas Seitz blames the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. After all, says the 23-year-old computer buff from Old Bridge, N.J., if the agency hadn't posted those names and Social Security numbers on its Web site for all the world to see, he would not have applied for car loans in 14 of the individuals' names. And he would not be sitting here in a Jacksonville, Fla., courtroom awaiting sentencing for bank fraud. "It was a crime of opportunity," he says.

Seitz's weapon was the publicly available computer at the Old Bridge Public Library. Surfing around the Internet one day, he stumbled across a database of disclosure forms that public companies and their officials file with the SEC. It was too tempting. Seitz assumed one of the names and applied for a car loan online through NationsBank (now Bank of America). It was rejected, along with his subsequent 11 applications under different aliases. But on his next try, Seitz scored a $15,000 check. He tried to buy a car at a local Buick dealer but backed out, in part because he lacked car insurance. Still, he forged ahead. "It became something like `Let's see if I can do it,' " says Seitz.

He assumed his 14th identity, that of Richard Clasen, a 57-year- old former official of EFI Electronics in Salt Lake City. Within days, Seitz had a $44,000 loan check from NationsBank that he could present to a car dealership. He got a free online quote for car insurance with Clasen's data, and, through an online chat room, a couple of stolen MasterCard numbers to pay for the policy.

Now all Seitz needed was evidence that he was Clasen. As luck would have it, the Internet has at least 300 Web sites that offer counterfeit driver's licenses, law enforcement credentials, passports, Social Security cards, and military IDs. "All they have to do is log in and type `fake ID' and hit the search key," says David Myers, ID fraud coordinator for the state of Florida. Seitz soon had a fake birth certificate and a W-2 in Clasen's name.

At a local Honda dealership, Seitz opted for a black Prelude-- loaded. "I had to dicker a little," he says. In fact, thanks to Clasen's good credit history, Seitz was able to negotiate even better financing than what he got from NationsBank. "I knew I did something illegal," he says. "But I always come out of a situation pretty much better than I anticipated."

Not this time. When the dealer tried to register the car, the state caught on to the bogus driver's license. "I had no defense," says Seitz. At the same time, NationsBank and the FBI were piecing together the scam. Says Tom Kneir, special agent in charge of the FBI's Jacksonville office: "I don't think you have to be an absolute genius to do what he did."

[Picture captions]

STOLEN IDENTITY

Thomas Seitz sits in the Baker County, Fla., detention center the day after his June 28 court appearance.

A TOWN TERRORIZED

From left, defendant Christian Hunold in rehabilitation in 1998; the center of Townsend, Mass.; Kim Landi with her mother, Mary, at home. Bill Pothier, a Hawthorne Brook science teacher allegedly threatened by Hunold.

BROKEN HEARTS

Terri and John Nakai at a park near their Colorado home. At left, Sonya Furlow promised them a baby that didn't exist.

CYBERSLEUTH

John Vranesevich at the offices of his investigative firm, AntiOnline, in Beaver, Pa. He and his young colleagues monitor popular chat rooms on the Internet and pose as credit card thieves to catch the real thing.

SECRET LIFE

William Cabell in front of his church in State College, Pa., in 1991. He was arrested June 26 for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with a teenage boy he met online.

DEADHEADS

Vendors hawk merchandise inspired by the Grateful Dead "stealie" at a concert by Phil Lesh, a former Dead member.

BUSTED

Ikenna Iffih (right), with his lawyer, arrives at U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty to hacking into government computers.

Seven Days

A typical week online for mischief makers of all stripes.

June 25

An Indiana man installs firewalls in his home computer to prevent another mysterious hacker attack.

Jacksonville sheriff's office rebuts an E-mail hoax that says 17 people have been stuck by HIV-infected needles planted on area gas pumps.

E-mails tout an "amazing" product that ups sexual potency, strength, and energy while reducing fat and wrinkles.

An Arizona woman begins a five-year jail term for using stolen credit card numbers to buy $100,000 worth of goods on the Internet.

June 26

A Massachusetts grand jury indicts a Pennsylvania man for sending pornographic photos and videos to teenage girls.

EWEEK, an information technology magazine, launches a hacking contest: Crack into a special site and win cash.

Three South Carolina teens are penalized for detonating bombs they learned how to make on the Internet.

Business Software Alliance gets $2.4 million from 20 companies caught pirating software from Adobe, Corel, and Microsoft.

An Idaho regulator issues cease-and-desist orders against Florida and California companies advertising illegal credit repair via E- mail.

June 27

A rogue hacker displaces the Web site of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Maryland--and leaves bizarre clues.

America Online rolls out an official E-mail to alert members to scam missives, like those asking for users' passwords.

New Jersey prepares a lawsuit against a landlord

who advertised apartment rentals for "whites only" on the Net.

A Texas Better Business Bureau receives its third complaint about an online seller of puppies infected with canine parvovirus.

Lithuanian officials deny that one of their spies worked for the U.S. and hacked into the computers of a top Russian security agency.

June 28

New York detectives arrest a Floridian suspected of illegally selling ecstasy tablets via the Web. The pills were mailed in CD cases.

The Comptroller of the Currency says Allied Boston Bank is soliciting deposits via a Web site and operates without a license.

Wichita, Kan., police arrest two 15-year-olds on charges of tricking Internet users into disclosing credit card numbers, then using them.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers Jr. asks the Justice Department to investigate the hijacking of the Violence Policy Center's Web site.

The FBI arrests a Maryland man who is suspected of selling stolen computers, beauty products, and other goods on eBay.

June 29

Despite consumers' fear of cybercrime, an industry survey reveals that only 20 percent use firewalls on personal computers.

An Internet peddler agrees with the Federal Trade Commission to stop exaggerating the health benefits of shark cartilage.

A Mississippi man pleads guilty to crossing state lines to have sex with the 13-year-old girl (an undercover police officer) he met online.

The Better Business Bureau task force on job fraud surfs the Net to identify online perpetrators of work-at-home scams.

Philippine police refer to prosecutors charges against the creator of the "I Love You" virus. It crippled E-mail systems.

June 30

New York banking regulators yank the license of an online mortgage lender for stopping payment on closing checks.

A Poulsbo, Wash., man pays $146 to a seller on the Yahoo auction site for two hard drives, which he never receives.

Federal regulators clamp down on a scheme that promised online investors returns of 215 percent.

The Texas attorney general's office investigates a Texan who allegedly ran a bogus "Dominican celebrity divorce" service.

Sega hunts the hackers who placed Dreamcast games on the Web with the software code that unlocks the security wall.

July 1

Rahal-Schmitz Toyota in Alabama discovers that its Web site has vanished, having been uprooted by a hacker working late at night.

A Maine man serves an 11-month prison sentence for selling computer equipment online but never shipping it to buyers.

The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center investigates the "Stages" worm virus, which disrupts E-mail systems.

An Arizonan who allegedly sold nitrous oxide and inhalation devices via a Web site could face a 15- year prison term.

A South Carolina man who was ripped off for $525 by an online seller tries to figure out who can help him get his money back.