SINGAPORE — When Shaun Sinclair Lau Wei Kit saw a fellow Singapore Management University (SMU) student with her boyfriend on campus, he felt that the other man was taking advantage of her.
In a bid to "protect her", Lau hacked into the woman's boyfriend’s email account and then sent some of his personal documents to her, which led to the couple falling out.
Lau then tried to ask her out, but she rejected him. He then hacked into her accounts as well.
Apart from that, he used a now-defunct website to get leaked passwords, gained access to other people’s personal accounts and sold their sex videos for S$3,500.
Lau, now aged 30, returned to court on Friday (Dec 10) for what was meant to be a sentencing hearing, but his lawyer Wee Pan Lee sought an adjournment to have more time to look at the prosecution’s submissions.
Lau pleaded guilty on Oct 25 to six counts of unauthorised access to computer material, one count of distributing obscene videos under the Films Act, and one count of unlawful stalking.
Eleven other similar charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing, which is slated for Feb 15 next year.
All of his victims cannot be named due to gag orders to protect their identities.
PIECED TOGETHER PASSWORD
Lau stalked his SMU classmate in the second half of 2016 when he was still studying there, the court earlier heard.
In September 2016, he found her boyfriend's email address through a Google search.
Lau then guessed his password, which was a combination of his name and birth date. Lau had figured out the man's birthday by putting together the year from his SMU alumni email address with the day and month from his Facebook account.
After logging into the boyfriend’s email at least 12 times in the span of a week, Lau found a photo of him with a woman, documents from his divorce, and a video of him and a woman lying on a bed, Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Kumaresan Gohulabalan and Benjamin Samynathan told the court.
Lau downloaded the files and sent them to the man’s girlfriend. That same day, the couple broke up.
Lau then asked the woman out but she rejected “at least some of his requests”, said the DPPs.
He also approached her at the SMU library and asked her to forget her boyfriend. By then, she had intended to lodge a police report against him.
He stalked her till Nov 18, 2016 and also hacked her email account. He found her negative peer appraisal of a former project groupmate, whom she had also previously dated, and sent a screenshot of this to the group mate.
Lau then found her grades for that academic year and sent this to the group mate along with a comment of her “shitty grades”.
EARNED S$3,500 FROM SELLING SEX VIDEOS
Separately, Lau targeted a 25-year-old man in 2017 after coming across his Instagram profile.
Lau found the victim’s email address and password on a website that hosted leaked account passwords, which has since been taken down by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He logged into the email account several times and saw emails from an application called Keepsafe. He then gained access to the victim’s Keepsafe account and found several sexual photos and videos there.
Among this material were 109 sex videos the victim had taken with four others, including a 22-year-old woman.
Lau proceeded to download the videos to his iPhone. In August 2017, he transferred the videos to an individual on Skype using an online file upload service, receiving S$3,500 for them.
He also sent the videos to other users. The clips were eventually uploaded on various pornographic sites which caused the five victims “significant suffering”, the DPPs told the court.
After watching the videos, Lau decided to look through the accounts of the 22-year-old woman to look for more material.
He used the website again to find her leaked password and managed to log into her email and Snapchat accounts, but did not find anything of interest.
Lau also came across a 20-year-old student’s Instagram profile, despite not knowing her personally. He got hold of her email address and password, then logged into her Dropbox account in March 2018.
He found at least four sex videos of her with her ex-boyfriend, downloading them for his personal consumption.
Court documents did not state how all of his offences came to light or when he was arrested.
Lau has been held on remand since he pleaded guilty in October.
Those convicted of stalking can be jailed up to a year or fined up to S$5,000, or punished with both.
For distributing obscene videos, Lau could be jailed up to two years or fined up to S$80,000, or both. And for illegally accessing computer material, he could be jailed up to two years or fined up to S$5,000, or both.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...ccount-and-used-info-drive-them-apart-1767741
