Latest news with #blackmail
Malay Mail
15 hours ago
- General
- Malay Mail
Eight youths, including woman dubbed ‘Bella', flip plea to not guilty in viral Johor honeypot assault case
JOHOR BARU, June 3 — A group of eight youths, including a woman, who had previously pleaded guilty to making death threats, causing injury, and blackmailing a 22-year-old male victim last April, changed their pleas at the Magistrate's Court here today. The 22-year-old woman, Nuredrianna Balqqisyh Anabella Norazman — popularly known as Bella — along with seven male youths, pleaded not guilty after the three charges were read out before Magistrate A. Shaarmini. The other seven accused were identified as Muhammad Aqmal Hafifi Mustafa Kamal, 25; Ahmad Rushdi Jumadi, 23; Muhammad Nur Shafiq Abdullah, 25; Muhammad Haikal Zulkarnain, 19; Mohamad Amierul Hakim Shamsuri, 23; Mohamad Danish Hakim Kamaruddin, 20; and Syamsul Hamiziey Saiful Razali, 19. For the first charge, all eight accused — including Nuredrianna — along with two others still at large, allegedly committed extortion by intentionally causing fear in Muhammad Faris Syahmi Mohd Ridzwan, 22, by threatening not to stop beating him unless he agreed to pay them RM3,000. The threats had prompted the victim to hand over RM650 and the keys to a Yamaha Y16 motorcycle to accused Mohammad Amierul Hakim. For the second charge, the seven male accused were charged with intentionally causing injury to Muhammad Faris Syahmi, along with one other person who is still at large. However, Nuredrianna was not included in the second amended charge. For the third charge, all the accused — including Nuredrianna and two others still at large — pleaded not guilty to jointly confining the victim against his will. In separate proceedings before Magistrate Nur Fatin Mohamad Farid, the eight accused also changed their pleas to not guilty on a fourth charge — jointly intimidating Muhammad Faris Syahmi with threats to cause his death. All of the offences were allegedly committed at an apartment in Plentong, Masai, between 10pm on April 18 and 4am on April 19. For the first to third charges, all the accused were charged under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation, Section 384 for extortion, and Section 342 for illegal confinement. The fourth charge was framed under Section 323 of the Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, or a fine, or both, if convicted. The case was prosecuted by Deputy Public Prosecutors, Nur Fatihah Mohd Nizam and Nik Noraini Nik Azman. The seventh accused Syamsul Hamiziey, was represented by counsel Nurul Nadia Yunos and the fifth accused Mohamad Amierul Hakim, was represented by counsel T. Haressh. The first and second accused, Muhammad Aqmal Hafifi and Ahmad Rushdi Jumadi, were represented by counsels Khairulazwad Sariman and Syahmi Nawawi. Nuredrianna, along with Muhammad Nur Shafiq, Muhammad Haikal, Mohamad Danish Hakim, and Syamsul Hamiziey, were not represented. All eight accused and the four cases were ordered to be tried together today. The Deputy Public Prosecutors requested that the court set a date for the submission of documents and the appointment of lawyers for the unrepresented accused. Magistrate Nur Fatin granted the application and set July 18 for the submission of documents and appointment of lawyers. The court also ordered that bail for the accused continue under the previous proceeding's ruling. On April 25, Nuredrianna and seven male youths reportedly pleaded guilty in the Magistrate's Court here to four charges, including making criminal threats by issuing death threats, gang assault, and wrongful confinement of a man. It was reported that all suspects were arrested at 2.30am on April 21 while trying to flee from the Plentong Baru Masai Apartment in Pasir Gudang, near here. Previously, several videos showing the assault of a young man were widely circulated on social media. Shared on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, the footage also showed the victim lying motionless after being attacked by a group of men in an apartment unit.
Malay Mail
15 hours ago
- General
- Malay Mail
Eight youths, including ‘Bella', flip plea to not guilty in viral Johor assault case
JOHOR BARU, June 3 — A group of eight youths, including a woman, who had previously pleaded guilty to making death threats, causing injury, and blackmailing a 22-year-old male victim last April, changed their pleas at the Magistrate's Court here today. The 22-year-old woman, Nuredrianna Balqqisyh Anabella Norazman — popularly known as Bella — along with seven male youths, pleaded not guilty after the three charges were read out before Magistrate A. Shaarmini. The other seven accused were identified as Muhammad Aqmal Hafifi Mustafa Kamal, 25; Ahmad Rushdi Jumadi, 23; Muhammad Nur Shafiq Abdullah, 25; Muhammad Haikal Zulkarnain, 19; Mohamad Amierul Hakim Shamsuri, 23; Mohamad Danish Hakim Kamaruddin, 20; and Syamsul Hamiziey Saiful Razali, 19. For the first charge, all eight accused — including Nuredrianna — along with two others still at large, allegedly committed extortion by intentionally causing fear in Muhammad Faris Syahmi Mohd Ridzwan, 22, by threatening not to stop beating him unless he agreed to pay them RM3,000. The threats had prompted the victim to hand over RM650 and the keys to a Yamaha Y16 motorcycle to accused Mohammad Amierul Hakim. For the second charge, the seven male accused were charged with intentionally causing injury to Muhammad Faris Syahmi, along with one other person who is still at large. However, Nuredrianna was not included in the second amended charge. For the third charge, all the accused — including Nuredrianna and two others still at large — pleaded not guilty to jointly confining the victim against his will. In separate proceedings before Magistrate Nur Fatin Mohamad Farid, the eight accused also changed their pleas to not guilty on a fourth charge — jointly intimidating Muhammad Faris Syahmi with threats to cause his death. All of the offences were allegedly committed at an apartment in Plentong, Masai, between 10pm on April 18 and 4am on April 19. For the first to third charges, all the accused were charged under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation, Section 384 for extortion, and Section 342 for illegal confinement. The fourth charge was framed under Section 323 of the Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, or a fine, or both, if convicted. The case was prosecuted by Deputy Public Prosecutors, Nur Fatihah Mohd Nizam and Nik Noraini Nik Azman. The seventh accused Syamsul Hamiziey, was represented by counsel Nurul Nadia Yunos and the fifth accused Mohamad Amierul Hakim, was represented by counsel T. Haressh. The first and second accused, Muhammad Aqmal Hafifi and Ahmad Rushdi Jumadi, were represented by counsels Khairulazwad Sariman and Syahmi Nawawi. Nuredrianna, along with Muhammad Nur Shafiq, Muhammad Haikal, Mohamad Danish Hakim, and Syamsul Hamiziey, were not represented. All eight accused and the four cases were ordered to be tried together today. The Deputy Public Prosecutors requested that the court set a date for the submission of documents and the appointment of lawyers for the unrepresented accused. Magistrate Nur Fatin granted the application and set July 18 for the submission of documents and appointment of lawyers. The court also ordered that bail for the accused continue under the previous proceeding's ruling. On April 25, Nuredrianna and seven male youths reportedly pleaded guilty in the Magistrate's Court here to four charges, including making criminal threats by issuing death threats, gang assault, and wrongful confinement of a man. It was reported that all suspects were arrested at 2.30am on April 21 while trying to flee from the Plentong Baru Masai Apartment in Pasir Gudang, near here. Previously, several videos showing the assault of a young man were widely circulated on social media. Shared on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, the footage also showed the victim lying motionless after being attacked by a group of men in an apartment unit.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
No one is safe online – blame these depraved teenage hackers
In October 2020, tens of thousands of people across Finland received an email telling them that some of their most intimate secrets were about to be made public. A hacker had infiltrated the computer files of Vastaamo, Finland's largest commercial therapy provider, and was now blackmailing patients, including children, saying their therapy notes would be published online if they didn't pay a ransom of €500 each. The breach was so shocking that when the hacker, who went by the alias 'ransom_man', posted about the accomplishment on Ylilauta, a Finnish version of the notorious online forum 4chan, he was bombarded with messages from fellow users telling him that this time he'd gone too far. Ransom_man was used to making enemies. His real name was Julius Kivimӓki, and he also went by the aliases 'Zeekill', 'Ryan' and 'The Untouchable Hacker God'. He was a 23-year-old from Finland who, both individually and as part of cyber gangs, had been causing havoc online for companies and innocent people around the world since he was 13. In Joe Tidy's Ctrl+Alt+Chaos, an illuminating and often scary book about teenage hackers, Kivimӓki is cast as the talisman of various groups of young men – and they're almost exclusively men – who delighted in causing damage and cruelty on the internet in the 2010s, sometimes for money but mostly just because they could. The trope of teenage 'hackers in hoodies' sitting in their parents' homes and breaking into companies' online systems is now a little outdated. Businesses and organisations these days are more concerned about ransomware gangs and state-sanctioned hackers. Nonetheless, Tidy writes, from around 2010 to 2015, the world saw 'probably the most active period in history for youth cybercrime gangs' – and Kivimӓki was 'one of the chief architects'. Tidy, the BBC's first ever 'cyber correspondent', aims to use Kivimӓki's career to chronicle the rise of a 'sadistic' culture in which being an 'edgelord' – acting as provocatively and outrageously as possible – took precedence over anything else, including how many victims might be hurt, or how badly. The structure doesn't always work: Kivimӓki, who was sentenced in 2022 for the Vastaamo hack and is in prison until 2026, couldn't be interviewed by Tidy, meaning he remains a somewhat shadowy figure despite being the nominal centrepiece. But as an insight into how very young teenage boys can get lured into a world of cybercrime – and, crucially, seem not to care about the pain they're causing – it's fascinating. Until roughly the early 2000s, most amateur hacking groups cast themselves as ethical: they would, for instance, breach online systems to embarrass greedy corporations. But around 2010, Tidy says, something 'went horribly wrong'. Suddenly gangs weren't hacking for any particular reason beyond causing mischief and receiving their peers' recognition. 'If there was any strategy to our attacks,' one former teenage hacker recalls, 'it was mayhem.' Tidy puts much of the blame on Twitter, which 'gave birth to a new generation of fame-hungry hackers' who could boast about their work to win followers and clout. Groups such as Lulzsec, HTP (Hack the Planet), UG Nazi and Lizard Squad – with all of whom Kivimӓki had some involvement or connection – would engage in 'deliberately cruel' acts just to show how irreverent they were. Sometimes these hacks involved a level of sophistication: one group took down both the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, used by a combined 158 million people, over Christmas 2014. But often the tactics were so simple as to not be considered hacking at all. Among cybersecurity criminals and experts, these young men were derided as 'script kiddies' – the lowest tier of hackers. One favoured technique of these teenagers, for example, particularly in America, was 'swatting': police would be contacted about a bogus 'emergency' at someone's home, so that an armed Swat team was sent to the victim's door. A particularly distressing case, related by Tidy, is that of a 17-year-old boy from Illinois named Blair Strater, who became the focus of Kivimaki's ire: on more than one occasion, armed police appeared in the night at Strater's and his parents' home. The email and social media accounts of Strater's mother were also hacked by Kivimӓki and HTP, who then wrote anti-Semitic and racist tirades under her name. The adult Straters' marriage fell apart, Strater's mother lost her job during the ordeal. At this point, some other teenage hackers begin to distance themselves from Kivimӓki. 'We started to realise the type of person he was. The way he treated Blair was wrong,' one former hacker recalls. Yet the Straters were comparatively lucky. Another incident led to an innocent father-of-two being shot dead on his doorstep by armed police. Meanwhile, another young wannabe hacker who mouthed off about Lizard Squad – with whom Kivimӓki was also involved – was forced to cut himself dozens of times along his forearm and take a picture of it while holding a card saying 'LizardSquad made me do it', in order to get his online accounts back. 'It was pure sadism,' one participant admits. When caught, because most of the perpetrators were under 18, they often received extremely light sentences. For some, this was enough to set them straight, but for others it just made them feel invincible. One former member recounts how 'making global headlines made him feel like a god'. Tidy does a good job of tracking down and talking to such ex-hackers. Unsurprisingly, what comes out is that, in many cases, these boys were extremely lonely, bullied at school or had a hard home life; they desperately wanted the camaraderie of friendship. Most had found their way into these gangs through obsessively playing computer games and coming across forums that listed cheat codes – then matters spiralled. The first parents knew about it was when the police appeared at their door. They'd thought their son was just playing computer games. While there was no hierarchy within these gangs, Tidy says they were usually led by whoever was most outrageous or most sophisticated at hacking. Kivimӓki sounds like he was a dangerous combination of both. When Finnish police raided his bedroom in 2013, he was just 16, but there was so much illegal activity on his computer that they had to limit their investigations to just the bigger cybercrimes. Antti Kurittu, a Finnish cybersecurity expert and former police detective, says that Kivimӓki hacked a therapy company simply because it would cause distress: 'I don't think he was ever interested in cybersecurity that much. He was just interested in causing mayhem to people's lives… he is uncaring to a degree which is difficult to understand.' The spate of 'edgelord' teenage hackers had appeared to have died away; but at the end of his book, Tidy mentions new groups such as Scattered Spider, who appear to be made up of teenage boys, some as young as 16, who work with notorious Russian ransomware groups and are willing to use offline violence as part of their threats. Scattered Spider is alleged to be linked to the recent hacks of Marks and Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods. Authorities believe that gangs will emerge in new digital spaces such as the metaverse, and that the best way to avoid that will be education: teaching children 'where the lines are' online. If we fail to do that, Tidy writes, we're 'enabling the cyber criminals of the future'.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Blackmailed by a computer that you can't switch off... THIS is the shocking new threat to humanity - and the fallout will be more devastating than a nuclear war: CONNOR AXIOTES
Imagine this: a powerful and capable artificial intelligence is required by its creators to shut itself down. Worryingly, the model decides to not just reject the request, but to blackmail the human to stop it being manually turned off. All without being trained or told to do so. This is no longer the stuff of science fiction. When engineers at Anthropic – a pioneering artificial intelligence company – tried to switch off their new Claude Opus 4 model, prior to its launch this month, they discovered a chilling bug in the system.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
At Diddy Trial, Cassie's Stylist Testifies About Decade of Bloody Abuse and Alleged Blackmail
The Bad Boy Records' longtime staff celebrity stylist who worked with and befriended Cassie Ventura Fine during the decade the R&B singer was in a tumultuous relationship with Sean 'Diddy' Combs delivered stark testimony on Wednesday at the rap mogul's federal trial, detailing to the jury the years of alleged abuse and blackmailing that he said he watched her endure. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to an indictment alleging he abused Ventura Fine, his longtime girlfriend, and others. If convicted, he could face 15 years to life in prison. More from The Hollywood Reporter Sass to Sobs, Diddy's Ex-Assistant Testifies About Gunpoint Kidnapping But Changes Some Details Ex-Aide to Sean "Diddy" Combs Testifies He Kidnapped Her in Plot to Kill Kid Cudi This Week in Sean "Diddy" Combs' Trial: Freezer Meat, DNA Evidence and Kompromat Deonte Nash brought some levity to very serious testimony as he told the court of a complex relationship with Combs over a decade of employment, which he began as an intern in 2008 at Combs' Bad Boy label and from there, immediately moved into a celebrity stylist role. Specifically, Nash worked for Ventura Fine, aka Cassie, who he said he introduced himself to early on and befriended as she was launching a seemingly promising 10-album deal at the label. But as Nash told the jury over several hours of testimony, Combs would threaten her career prospects, dangle sex tapes of her with other men that he said he'd release as a form of blackmail, and on two occasions he described from the witness stand, violently attack her—and at times, him. One of these instances occurred in 2013 or 2014, Nash said, and involved Combs storming into Ventura Fine's L.A. apartment while Nash and an assistant, being referred to as 'Mia' during the trial, were there helping the singer pack for a trip. Ventura Fine was asleep when Combs arrived, shouting about her not picking up her phone, Nash told the court. Combs then began hitting and kicking Ventura Fine, he said; during the attack, he testified, Nash and 'Mia' jumped on Combs' back to stop him but he threw them off and continued beating her; eventually, she hit her head on a bed frame and began bleeding. 'When he noticed the blood, he just panicked,' Nash said, telling the jury that Combs then said to 'Mia' and him, 'Look what y'all made me do.' Nash testified that at that point, he called 911 but was told by someone in the room to hang up, which he did. Combs then said that Ventura Fine would be sent to a plastic surgeon with a member of his security team. At a video shoot the following day, Nash said, he saw that his friend and client had a stitched-up gash on her forehead, near her eyebrow. Earlier in the day-long testimony and cross-examination by Combs' defense lawyer, Nash described how this impacted Ventura Fine. 'She would cry, sometimes she would just stay in the house for days and go in a cocoon,' he said. Nash told the court how Combs would use his vast empire and staff to control Ventura Fine — a key element that the prosecution must prove to the trial's jury for a racketeering conspiracy charge to stick. Combs frequently would tell Ventura Fine he would not release the music she made and he controlled, Nash said, and threatened to see her parents fired from their jobs. From the witness stand, Nash also confirmed Ventura Fine's testimony from the beginning of the trial that Combs would threaten to release sexually explicit videos of Ventura; this would happen 'anytime she did something he didn't like,' Nash testified. From the stand, he recalled the moment that he learned the nature of the 'freak-off' videos that Combs is accused of dangling to maintain control of Ventura Fine. It was following an instance of violence he said he witnessed, also around 2013 or 2014, at Ventura Fine's apartment. After arriving angry and speaking with Ventura Fine in the apartment's bedroom, Nash told the court Combs 'grabbed her by her hair and the back of her shirt and started pushing her out.' He then, as Nash has a bald head, was 'popping me in the back of the head' and grabbed him by his shirt to get him out of the room as well, he testified. The two left the apartment but were held back by Combs' security men, then eventually drove away. A call from Combs was received, he said, telling them to pull over. At that point, Combs came up to the car and told Ventura Fine he'd upload videos of her to the internet, Nash told the court, saying he'd 'release them on schedule' starting with her parents' employers. Before walking off, Nash said Combs told her he is 'the only one that protected her.' Nash then told the court that she was sobbing as they continued driving off, and he told her that she should go ahead and let him release the tapes, since he's in them too. 'She said that he wasn't on the videos, that it was him taping her with other guys,' he testified, saying she told him that she never wanted to have sex with other men at the 'freak offs' but participated in them 'because Puff wanted her to.' That day, Nash said he dropped off Ventura Fine on Sunset Boulevard to get a yellow cab to a hotel. Later, he was informed by his boss, stylist Derek Roche, that he'd handed Combs' security Nash's address. Combs, Roche and the mogul's security arrived to look for Ventura Fine, he testified, telling the court he looked everywhere for her (garnering laughs from the galley when recalling, 'he looked in the oven — I don't know why he looked in the oven.'). When Nash's phone rang with a call from a nearby hotel, Combs, he said, knew where to find her and made Nash wheedle his way up to her room with hotel staff. When Combs' security guard and chief of staff, Toni Fletcher, entered Ventura Fine's hotel room, she said she'd 'go over the balcony' when told to go down and see Combs. In detailing his own relationship with the defendant, Nash testified about multiple times Combs became physically aggressive toward him. In addition to the instance the stylist said that he was 'popping me in the back of the head,' in 2013 while they were on a music video shoot, Combs threw him on a parked car, Nash testified, saying, 'I thought I told y'all about going out y'all wildin''; this referred to an instance when Nash told the court he did not go out because Ventura Fine would want to join him and that would anger Combs. Despite all of the testimony implicating Combs, Nash said he does not hate the fallen mogul. This was told to defense attorney Xavier R. Donaldson, who spent plenty of time Wednesday questioning Nash's career trajectory and implying Combs deserves credit for all that Nash has done professionally, then suggesting that the celebrity stylist who worked for Combs for a decade plans to sue him in civil court, joining dozens of others who have filed complaints. 'This man's sanity was my safety. … It was just what I was used to,' Nash told Donaldson of working with Combs amid alleged harrowing abuse. 'I don't hate him. It's just not in me.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
