Federal investigators say they’ve linked internet threats back to a Loveland man and a device owned by the Mason business he worked at.
The Associated Press reports:
An Ohio man was arrested Wednesday on federal charges that he posted an anonymous YouTube video and a follow-up comment claiming to have stolen computer records from the University of Pittsburgh and threatening to release them unless the school’s chancellor made a public apology.
Alexander Waterland, 24, a Loveland man who worked as a computer specialist for an online prescription drug service (in Mason), was released on bond by a federal magistrate in Cincinnati, with the understanding that he will appear before a magistrate in western Pennsylvania next week, according to U.S. Attorney David Hickton’s office in Pittsburgh, which is prosecuting the case.
Hickton said he could not answer questions because the investigation was continuing into Waterland’s alleged activities, as well as bomb threats — some emailed and others written in bathroom stalls of campus buildings — that disrupted classes and dorm life for weeks this year.
Waterland is not charged with making the bomb threats. He faces one count each of interstate threats and extortion and Internet extortion involving a protected computer. The Pitt computers are considered “protected” under federal law because they contain the personal information of students, faculty and staff.
Pitt officials did not immediately return requests for comment on Waterland’s arrest, but have previously said the computer records now being linked to the charges against Waterland were never actually hacked.
