Maliciously creating an email to pose as another person

Graciemight

Got a tough one. I need to know if the following is prosecutable:
A person threatened to forward some personal details about me to all in my contact list. They had previously hacked my gmail account to delete emails they had sent me; mainly to prove that they could get in and out of my account and cause all the upset that results in that sort of activity.
I secured my account (secondary verification is set up) so was VERY upset to receive an email today which at first appeared to be from me from that account.
On closer inspection, it was from firstnameY.*.surname@*** instead of firstname.*.surname@*** so it was a bit of a relief that the account was safe.
BUT they used the bogus account to send sensitive personal info to, yes, everyone on my contact list.
I have texts and emails from the person threatening to do this. And follow up texts bragging about it.
How do I get justice? Do gmail have a system for reporting accounts that are intentionally set up to do harm to someone? It must be difficult to police, I mean I am sure there are people calling themselves madonna53@gmail.com that don't seriously expect to be confused with the real deal!
Any input would be so so welcome.

chin_grin

If by "hacked" you mean that you either left it logged in on a pc or they guessed your password then it wasn't officially "hacked".

I think it was just a childish prank. If you want you could mail everyone back and explain what happened. But I doubt that this could be prosecutable, unless you know for a fact that your account was breached by sinister methods (brute force attack for example).

_AVALANCHE_

chin_grin wrote: »

But I doubt that this could be prosecutable, unless you know for a fact that your account was breached by sinister methods (brute force attack for example).

If it was brute forced, try asking in Legal if it's prosecutable.

What age are you?

chin_grin

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

If it was brute forced, try asking in Legal if it's prosecutable.

What age are you?

Yeah, if access was maliciously gained through unlawful channels (ie proper "hacking" not just guessing a password).

Also, that was aimed at the OP wasn't it?

_AVALANCHE_

chin_grin wrote: »

Yeah, if access was maliciously gained through unlawful channels (ie proper "hacking" not just guessing a password).

Also, that was aimed at the OP wasn't it?

Yup, agreeing with your quoted bit and asking OPs age.

Sorry, should have made it clearer.

Graciemight

I am old enough to know better they gained access to my account initially by using the 'forgot password' trick to send a link to an account they gained access to because of the security question being really slack (what is my nephew's name Duh) and then changed my password, deleted horrible emails they sent me and sent me a text saying 'how do you like me now b***h' which is really funny when I think of it now.
So ok, not 'hacked' but definitely devious.
So the recommendation is to take the thread to Legal?

Jumpy

Its very easy to send an email as another email address. VERY easy.
The only problem with doing so is that any replies to the address will go to the original address and not back to the person pretending.

An open relay and some knowledge of SMTP would be able to do that.

If the person sending that email actually changed the address to simply look like yours, then they dont know their arse from their elbow about mail.

Overheal

It sounds like blackmail in my layman understanding but you need to - one way or the other - contact a solicitor with all the information you have.

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yoyo

Just a reminder folks, do not ask or offer legal advice on Boards. I'll leave this thread open, but any more mentions of legal stuff and it will be locked.

Nick

Graciemight

Jumpy wrote: »

If the person sending that email actually changed the address to simply look like yours, then they dont know their arse from their elbow about mail.

I realised that time they 'got into' my account that they had set up a filter which sent copies of emails in my inbox to them, leaving the original unaffected. I only discovered this as I wanted to set up a filter that put all of their emails to me into trash. So yes they only used the tools supplied to manipulate the data, not smtp. Which means they aren't as smart as they think they are but a smidgeon smarter than me

Thanks to all for the replies x

Graciemight

Just saw the messages about asking for legal advice - sorry about that

_AVALANCHE_

Overheal wrote: »

It sounds like blackmail in my layman understanding but you need to - one way or the other - contact a solicitor with all the information you have.

As a reminder, Boards.ie is not for legal advice.

yoyo wrote: »

Just a reminder folks, do not ask or offer legal advice on Boards. I'll leave this thread open, but any more mentions of legal stuff and it will be locked.

Nick

Stop shouting lads!:p

Ah no, that's fair enough. I understand the reasons for the rule.

I only meant asking it as a general question....as a query about the laws in that particular online area.