threatening myspace messages

the story below is about someone that hacked into myspace and sent threatening messages to a group of students at petaluma high school. the messages said things like "im sick of all your shit..im going to school strapped..im beating the high score of 33." the person is obviously referencing the virgina tech shootings with that statement. this furthers my fears of how scary the internet can be. its scary how some computer genius somewhere knows how to hack into myspace. i dont know that much about all the hidden tricks of the internet but i know they exist...and its sometimes makes me nervous that people have that ability to hack into some high school kids myspace and send them threats. its just not okay! its annoying how things that start as just some fun, a way to communicate to friends, turns into a scary place where you have to really watch who you let be your friend and watch who your talking to online. i also feel like they will be able to track the messages to some degree, i know that police have ways of viewing myspace and actually keep track of certain people they are watching. i haven't found any updates to this story online, maybe someone else did? either way this was probably just some lonely kid asking for attention and using myspace to do it--which to me doesn't seem very smart because myspace can be tracked.

MySpace hacker posts menacing statements to Petaluma High students

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

(05-09) 09:18 PDT PETALUMA -- Someone hacked into the MySpace pages of several Petaluma High School students Tuesday night and posted statements on the networking Web site threatening to bring a gun to school today and kill people.

Police are asking parents, students and officials at Petaluma High School to help them identify the suspect today. Education officials said school remains in session, and there is extra police presence on campus.

The threats referenced April's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, and warned students to stay home from school today.

Petaluma Police Sgt. Marty Frye said police sent out a "school alert" to employees and parents detailing the threats and stating that investigators do not know if it is valid.

According to the alert, the suspect wrote, "Listen up you people, I'm sick of all your s -- . Tomorrow I'm going to school strapped and none of you can do anything to stop me. I'm beating the high score of 33 thanks to you f -- ."

The person also went on to make additional statements in which they threatened to bring a gun to school and repeatedly referenced the Virginia Tech shootings, which left 33 people, including the shooter, dead.

Frye said it appears the suspect gained access to several Petaluma High School students' MySpace pages by hacking into the accounts and sent the messages without those people's knowledge.

Internet providers are cooperating with detectives and working to track down the origin of the messages, he added.

Petaluma City Schools deputy superintendent Steve Bolman said classes are continuing as normal.

"School is in session," he said. "We do have officers on campus, and students are being encouraged to stay in class."