(VA) Internet spammers indicted

[jimpeel]

Internet spammers indicted

Why stop at Campaign Finance to limit free speech? Now its a felony to send unsolicited e-mail and the state that enacted the law has over 1,300 providers headquartered there.

Those who would celebrate this should remember this: They will eventually come for you. This is no more than an attack on the Internet by the government and they will make new inroads as the opportunities present themselves. Make book on that.

SOURCE

Computer Crimes Unit Makes First Arrests in Va.
Updated: Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 - 6:40 PM

By DERRILL HOLLY
Associated Press Writer

STERLING, Va. - Two North Carolina men face up to 20 years in prison for allegedly operating one of the most prolific spamming operations in the world.

Jeremy Jaynes - who uses the aliases of Jeremy James and Gaven Stubberfield - and Richard Rutowski each face "four felony counts of transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic mail," Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said Thursday.

The indictments, returned Monday by a grand jury in Loudoun County, Va., were based on Virginia's antispam law which took effect July 1. Kilgore's office launched its investigation into what he described as a massive spamming operation that used the America Online computer network which is headquartered in the county.

"This was a very profitable business for these two individuals and I don't know of any legitimate business that they had," said Kilgore. Although investigators declined to say how much income they believe the spam scheme generated, they said both men were supporting affluent lifestyles.

"Gaven Stubberfield is number eight on the top 10 worldwide spammer list," said Kilgore, citing complaints reported to Internet service providers and tabulated by spamhaus.org. Between July 11 and Aug. 11, more than 100,000 complaints on spam messages linked to the two men were reported, Kilgore said. On at least three days, more than 10,000 messages were transmitted.

"The defendants falsified or forged electronic mail transmission information, or other routing information," said Kilgore. The volume of messages and efforts to conceal their true identities have elevated prosecution of the case to felony level.

The spam included "penny-picker stock schemes, mortgage interest rate ads and an Internet history eraser," said Lisa Hicks-Thomas, director of Virginia's computer crime unit in Kilgore's office.

More than 50 percent of all Internet traffic across the world passes through Virginia because AOL and 1,300 service providers or technology companies are located in northern Virginia, just outside of Washington.

There are "1.5 billion e-mails blocked a day through AOL's spam filters and other technical measures we take," said Curtis P. Lu, deputy general counsel for the company. The indictments were announced at AOL headquarters.

"The filters that have been created to block out spam are such that it's catching lots and lots of legitimate businesses now," said Bobbie Green Kilberg, president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

Jaynes, 29, of Raleigh, N.C., is being held pending a request for extradition. Rutowski, of Cary, N.C., is expected to surrender to authorities under terms being worked out through his attorney.

According to Kilgore, Virginia has the strongest anti-spam law in the country. While other states can take civil actions, Virginia is the only one that can prosecute spammers for violating specific criminal charges related to the activity.

Federal legislation allowing for the criminal prosecution of spammers has been passed by Congress and is awaiting President Bush's signature, but Kilgore intends to continue pursuing such cases.

The Virginia case will be the first felony prosecution for violation of antispam statutes in the nation. Howard Carmack, 36, of Buffalo, N.Y., was indicted in May for allegedly using stolen identities to create Internet accounts from which he sent more than 825 million junk e-mail messages, but he was charged with identity theft.

Atlanta-based ISP Earthlink was awarded $16.4 million after suing Carmack for using 343 false identities to establish e-mail accounts.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

 

[Andrew Rothman]

I vehemently disagree. Although this new federal law is a joke (that's another topic), unsolicited commercial email is the same as a telemarketing call -- A COLLECT CALL -- that you cannot refuse.

That's right. WE pay for Spam. We pay our ISP for fatter pipes, bigger hard drives, longer dialup times... all results of having to accomodate the spam that is approaching HALF of all Internet mail volume.

WE PAY With our time, trying to find the legit mail in between the ads for pornography, herbal Viagra and other "perscriptions" (sic). We (and out ISPs) pay for spam-blocking software. We pay salaries of our employees who have to wade through the crap too. And the cost to businesses is estimated to be in the BILLIONS per year, and rising.

Spammers never expect greater than 1/10 of 1% response. THEY DON'T CARE, because WE PAY THE POSTAGE for their ads.

Spam is theft. The spammer steals my Internet service, my time, and my money.

As I said, THIS bill is not good enough, but I have no problem with any convictions that result from it.

 

[Sergeant Bob]

Mpayne, though you are correct in that spammers cause untold costs to us, businesses, and the economy (and I would sometimes like to catch them and rip their lungs out), I just hate to see the government get it's dirty little, money grubbing, control freaking hands into the internet. They are just looking for a reason, and once they do, there will be no stopping them.
I HATE SPAMMERS!!!! I HOPE THEY ALL GET LEPROSY!!!! .
I don't know what the answer is, but I just know it's not the government.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"attack on the internet by government..."

In response to many, many, many repeated requests from computer users for some form of remedial action.

Remember about 10 to 15 years ago when FAX spamming was all the rage?

You'd come into the office only to find several hundred pages of unsolicited bull that ate up YOUR toner, YOUR paper, and YOUR fax line, and YOUR money?

Much the same.

I have a Yahoo account for my regular e-mail, and they do a pretty good job of filtering out the spam without impacting the e-mail that I want. Their filter catches upwards THREE HUNDRED spams a day.

Just how big can I make my penis with their secrete miracle enlargements before it's big enough?

Can I really get Oxycontin without a prescription to feed my raging drug addiction?

How many nasty teen barnyard sluts are there in this world?

Even if it's from a legitimate bussiness offering legitimate services, I don't want it unless I initiate the contact.

 

[mtnbkr]

How many nasty teen barnyard sluts are there in this world?

Not nearly enough

The only people that don't hate spam and spammers are the spammers themselves and people who've never had to deal with bandwidth and server capacity issues. A single spammer can send out millions of emails at a time, emails which can overload servers, therefore denying access to legitimate users. IMO, spam is a veiled form of DOS attack. It's sole purpose is to drown out the communication you want and force you to see their noise masquerading as "legitimate advertising".

Chris

 

[Andrew Rothman]

I just hate to see the government get it's dirty little, money grubbing, control freaking hands into the internet.

Whoops. Too late.

First, the federal government funded its creation.
They regulate its carriers.
They invade our privacy with Carnivore.
They reserve the right to tax it (and they will).

While this law won't do much to make the situation better, and may make it worse, the jerks they DO get deserve every bit of sentence they receive.

 

[Guyon]

Available as a printable .pdf:

http://www.theonion.com/3948/infograph.html

 

[jimpeel]

It all has to do with the fact that our ox has yet to be gored. Those who approve of government actions that are only harming persons external to their sphere of influence rarely change their minds until they are affected by what they once eagerly approved of. Then they squeal like a pig and make protestations like "Why didn't anyone do something?"

I have found that the best, and surest, way to lose my own rights and freedoms is to gleefully celebrate the abrogation of the rights and freedoms of others.

Noone here is protesting the filling of their mailbox on a daily basis with flyers for credit cards and the latest sale at Penney's. You say "But they are paying postage for that." yet you ignore that they get to fill your mailbox at reduced prices, from those you would have to pay, just because they do "bulk mailings". You won't find a stamp for sale at the post office for 15.8 cents so you can send a Christmas card to Aunt Marge.

 

[Jim March]

There is NO "freedom to spam".

Death to spammers. ARG!!!!!

 

[jimpeel]

There is NO "freedom to spam".

Sure there is; at least until the government curtails it.

There is no more right to spam than there is to the individual ownership of firearms. The courts have told us so, so it must be true.

 

[mtnbkr]

Noone here is protesting the filling of their mailbox on a daily basis with flyers for credit cards and the latest sale at Penney's.

Unfortunately, we lost that battle long ago. Whining about it now would do little.

As far as spam goes, the reason people are up in arms about it is due to the fact that many know of it's true costs. Unlike the postal system, where the additional costs of junk mail were hidden to the masses (unless you were a postal employee), there are lots of folks involved in the Internet biz and see firsthand the server and circuit overloads caused by spammers exercising their "freedom".

Plus, I imagine spam became a problem must faster than junk mail. My own experience is that spam went from non-issue to a critical one in less than 5 years. I doubt junk (mass) mailings took off that quickly.

I'm not crazy about govt intervention, but spammers are costing an entire industry money and are unashamed about it. If they would be honest in their work instead of forging return addresses and subject headers, bypassing spam blocking systems, not using or adhering to "do not email" lists, outright fraud, etc, people would be more accepting.

Replying to an email saying you are not interested or "take me off your mailing list" will get your even more email. Many spammers have admitted to using that as a way to determine a live address.

Besides, why should we care about an industry that uses the subject "B.igger p.en.is n.ow" to bypass a spam filter that blocks "Bigger Penis Now". The industry tried to work with these fools, then tried to block their mail based on content. Spammers keep finding workarounds. They are not interested in ethical business practices. If it were up to them, the entire Internet would be a mass emailing system and you would be forced to accept it all.

As far as I'm concerned, spam is a veiled denial of service attack and should be treated as such.

Chris

 

[mussi]

Not only spammers annoy the heck out of people, they're turning to outright criminal means to ply their trade. If you're tech-savvy, read http://www.securityfocus.com/guest/24043 - something like this happened to a machine I admin for a small computer club.

I know where the perps come from, I pressed charges with the authorities, but not a whole lot has happened.

 

[Jim March]

"Postal spam" has a fundamental difference: the advertizers pay for every piece of paper sent out.

Computer spammers rely on OTHERS to pay for their data transmission. In the case Mussi links to and apparantly happened to him too, these people literally invade other people's computers and "subvert them" as spam boxes.

It's madness.

Anybody *responding* to spam is an idiot. Spammers themselves are flat-out evil.

 

[Pendragon]

Spammers are the lowest of the low.

One thing I find interesting is looking for the structural evolution of spam - it always changes to try and avoid the latest blocking techniques.

The most resent one I found interesting was several paragraphs of extremely mundane, boring english sentences - talking about greek food and iron ore and all kinds of stuff - its "plain language" trying to get past filters that recognize language patterns. Clever.

There are some who would like to see people pay a very slight amount for each email sent - maybe a few cents - into some kind of escrow. When the recipient accepts the mail, the money is refunded to the sender.

That way, spammers would have to front money for the spam - so would we, but when your friend gets your email, his acceptance means you get yoru money back. Spam would be rejected and the postage would not be refunded.

LOTS of stuff in the works and after IPv6 is up in a few more years, look to the uber geeks to come up with a really nasty (for spammers) email system that is hard to circumvent - keys and certificates and all kinds of stuff.

 

[Mikul]

Every spammer who is convicted should be tied up naked at the nearest Radio Shack for a period of one week. Whatever happens, happens.

 

[cordex]

Yup, I hate spam too. Takes time out of my day. Ticks me off somethin' royal.

But don't see it as something the gov should get its fingers in.

A spammer who hijacks a computer should be treated like any other harmful hacker. Many email worms are starting to contain small email servers that send spam. Again, a crime that should be harshly dealt with.

My guess is that if spam is made illegal, black-hats will probably start hijacking home computers more and more, and actual computer crimes will become more common as we'll have given the entire spam market to the people who use illegal and really harmful tactics to spread their filth. Prosecuting people who own the computer will no longer be possible.

Then what? Any company whose products are advertised via spam gets fined? So your competitor pays a black-hat to advertise your product and you get pasted with fines or at least have to defend yourself in court.

Anyone for federalizing internet logs and email? Should we require every email to be sent through government servers to check for spam and so that there's an easy way to track who is sending out spam? Then of course, we'd have to federalize all ISP server logs to track spammers who send out instructions to unsuspecting, infected computers. No? That's the only way you're going to stop spam. These laws are just going to change who does the spamming and how they do it. And it isn't going to change for the better, I fear.

Plus, I can think of quite a few ways that you could get around federalized transfer logs.

I'd rather deal with spam and consider that to be the cost of a relatively free internet than let the gov develop a taste for meddling with it any more than it already does.

Just my opinion.

PS. The spam filter built in to Opera 7 is pretty decent.

 

[standingbear]

I HATE SPAM!!!some of that spam...contained viruses and luckily my antivirus caught them before they did too much damage.Ive lost 2 hard drives from spam before i got a decent antivirus program.

 

[harpethriver]

Your right to free speech stops at my property. You do not have the right to utilize that which I individually own and maintain as a venue for self-expression. My property is not a public forum. I am not required to provide a venue for expression of your 1st Amnd. rights. By infinging on my property rights under the guise of freedom of expression you are taking that which is legally mine-including something much more valuable-my hard earned TIME! That is not replaceable and can't be compensated for. Spammers belong in jail-after I've had my turn with the scum-bags.

 

[Balog]

Spam isn't an example of free speech because it infringes on others. It would be like putting big, garish political posters in SOMEONE ELSE'S frontyard. To repeat the tired libertarian cliche "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." I would be happy to see the government actually try to prevent this Mala en se crime.

 

[sturmruger]

I have had the same email address for 5 years. That amount of SPAM I get was getting really frustrating. I started using a software called Cloudmark. It is the best SPAM filtering software I have ever seen. The members of Cloudmark basicyly vote which email they believe is SPAM. I was getting 150 SPAM per day now I have maybe 5 leak through. I have never had one single false positive with Cloudmark. IT is just too powerful to mes up. I LOVE ITl, costs me $3.95 per month but seaves me several hours per week.