Tech consultant warns of “Sextortion” scam asking for Bitcoin

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Local Tech consultant Dax Gulje wasn't surprised to learn Santa Barbara Police were getting calls about a scam demanding Bitcoin.

"Believe it or not, this has been going around for a couple of months, now," said Gulje, "It is kind of trickling throughout California."

Gulje said the Electronic Frontier Foundation (https://www.efff.org) put out a warning bulletin.

"This is utilizing, essentially publicly available imagery of your home, so if you go to, like, Google Maps, or Apple Maps you can actually see photographs of your home, type in your address and there it is."

He said scammers crop those photographs and send them to potential victims, as though they are outside their homes, to indicate they have compromised devices such as phones, laptops and desk tops.

When asked what people should do?, Gulje chuckled.

"The bottom line, up front, is that there is nothing you can do, there are preventative steps that you can take to make yourself feel better that your information hasn't been leaked or compromised in some way."

He believes the problem shouldn't be solved by the consumer.

"All of these data brokers, websites, companies that we give our logins, our information, our date of birth, our social security numbers, our email addresses, they have been storing too much data for too long so what is really needed, the way to fix this, is a comprehensive Federal privacy law."

Until then, he wants people to be aware that the scam messages always revolve around data being compromised.

He said they will say thing such as, "We have access to your intimate photographs, we have access to your pornographic website browsing,"

Gulje said these days that should not worry people.

" I suppose the question folks should ask themselves in 2024 is that if that leaks, okay, so what."

He recommends reporting the Bitcoin wallet address.

"Part of the push for bitcoin or decentralized finance is that there is really not easy way to track this stuff."

Officers don't know where the scam is coming from.

He said you can ask Google to remove imagery of your house, but it is a final decision.

And he has another big tip ,until there are regulations he recommends not downloading or using apps.

"If you need to work with your bank for example, your bank has a website address you can log into the website and do any transaction you need to do."

When you install and app on our phone or laptop or Ipad what you are doing is giving certain permissions to different apps and they can see all sorts of data.

"We haven't taken this very seriously, right, the last 25 years it has always been new technology something shiny in the corner, neat,"

Your News Channel will have more on the scam tonight on the news.

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