HK court jails cyber-stalker for obscene E-mail

HK court jails cyber-stalker for obscene E-mail
REUTERS

Hong Kong, Feb 20: A Hong Kong court has sentenced a computer hacker to a year in jail for harassing two young women with obscene E-mail, the first time a cyber-stalker has been convicted and jailed in the territory.

The 23-year-old man, surnamed Ko, identified himself as"superhacker" and began sending dirty messages to two Hong Kong university students in September 1998 in which he threatened to rape them, the English-language South China Morning Post reported.

In the following eight months, more lewd electronic mail wassent to the women, with offensive pictures and horror stories about college rape attached.

A district court judge on Monday rejected Defence pleas tosentence the man to community service, saying that the case was one of the most serious of its kind. Ko was convicted of criminal intimidation and damage.

The court heard he had apparently established an emailaccount with U.S.-Based free E-mail service, USA.net, and downloaded hacking programs to monitor the women's activities on the Internet.

He was finally netted by local police with the help ofUSA.net and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which assisted in the investigations, the Post reported.