I just finished reading a fascinating article on the Cyb3rcrime3 blog on a case that was recently heard in Ohio. Ms. Brenner describes how the threat of posting someone’s personal information on-line for some form of compensation could be considered a form of extortion.

Ms. Brenner also described a US Statute where by it is an offence to use information obtained from a computer to extort someone. I have only read the post on Ms. Brenner’s blog so I may be missing something here but in the case of State v. Soboroff it does not appear that the defendant obtained information from the victim’s computer, but rather that he was going to use the Internet (a network of computers) to post information that was potentially harmful. In other words the post did not stipulate whether or not the personal information was obtained from the victim’s computer or whether or not it was obtained through other means such as personal contact with the victim. I’m not sure if all of the elements of 18 US Code 1030(a)(7) offence were met.

What I think is the most interesting part of the article is that the Court of Appeals of Ohio found that the potential fallout of someone posting personal information on line for the purposes of obtaining compensation from them is close enough to the threat of physical harm to be considered extortion. It adds an interesting dimension to the value of personal information and privacy.