14 DAY TRIAL // There are several prerequisites for being a good cyber-criminal, you need to have a computer, Internet access, malware (in some cases) and the most important - you need to have a brain! You can guess which one of these, wannabe cyber-crook David Scali lacked, after reading the story.
Most of today's web-crooks use proxies, viruses, bots, botnets, spam and all sorts of devious hackware just to accomplish their plans. Some of them even start thinking up great social engineering tactics, but not this guy. His scheme was so simple it is no wonder he got caught.
Let's take a look at what he did. First thing, he pretended to be some great lawyer. Then he went and e-mailed site owners that if they do not change their domain's name, they will be sued for $100.000 because of copyright infringement. But wait, it's not like we went to somebody who had the domain "xxx dot ro" because there also exists a "xxx dot com" or a "xxx dot fr"; he, instead, took a shot at people whose "xxc dot com" resembled a "xxx dot com" domain. Perhaps you've noticed those domains do exist. There are some people that make a profit out of creating a domain with a similar name to a high-profile one. Such examples are "devianart dot com" / "sofpedia dot com" / "donload dot com". Whenever someone makes a typing error, they end up on those sites, but these guys aren't infringing any rights because their domain name is not identical to the other.
So, when you're not breaking any law but some guy threatens to sue you, it's clear it's a scam. Come on, even I would have figured it out, and I'm no law expert. It's one thing to fool someone to donate money for a cause that doesn't exist, but this scam is just outrageous! He could get probation or six months jail time for this, and to be honest, he doesn't deserve more, since his scams are so obvious you can't possibly fall for them.