A London court has found a man named Andrew Meldrum guilty of "unauthorised access to computer material" and "voyeurism." Meldrum "helped" young women fix their computers and covertly installed snoopware on them, and subsequently spied on them via their webcams. He is to be sentenced in April. A forensics expert claims that this sort of thing is "very common."
One of the victims, aged 21, contacted police in November 2012 after she found software on her computer that allowed for her webcam to be accessed remotely. She suspected it had been placed there by Meldrum since he had recently helped her with some computer trouble.
Police started to investigate the case and Meldrum was arrested on 13 November 2012, only to be bailed while further forensic examinations of the computer were carried out.
The victim mentioned the issue to another woman, who was then 23, and she checked her computer — which had also been meddled with by Meldrum — and found the same software. This second victim mentioned it to another friend, who — surprise, surprise — found the program; it had most likely been installed on her computer for 15 months.
Man 'fixes' women's computers, watches them through webcams [Olivia Solon/Wired]
(Image: eyeball, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from budslife's photostream and The Webcam Close Look, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from bfishadow's photostream)
