stories filed under: "spam"
Top Spammer Pleads Guilty, But Spam Still Going Strong
from the significant-blows... dept
Last May, we noted that spammer Robert Alan Soloway had been arrested and the book was being thrown at him: mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, tax fraud and money laundering were included in the charges. On Friday he pleaded guilty to three of the charges: mail fraud, wire fraud and failure to file a tax return. The rest of the charges were dropped, and he now faces up to 26 years in jail. It's not like he didn't know everyone was on to him. He had previously lost civil lawsuits from Microsoft and some others. Still, when he was arrested last May federal authorities actually claimed that the arrest might lead to a decrease in spam. How did that work out?Filed Under: guilty, robert alan soloway, spam
Virginia Supreme Court Says Anti-Spamming Law Not A Free Speech Violation
from the speak-freely,-just-don't-spam dept
Jeremy Jaynes, considered one of the biggest spammers in the US was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating a Virginia anti-spam law. As part of his appeal, Jaynes claimed that the anti-spam law itself was unconstitutional, as it violated his right to free speech. It would appear that argument hasn't worked out, as a somewhat divided Virginia Supreme Court has ruled against him, upholding the conviction. It does raise some interesting first amendment questions -- but most spamming activity involves so many other things that could be considered illegal (such as computer trespass, identity fraud, false advertising, etc., etc., etc.) that you would think spammers could be convicted on charges that have little to do with free speech issues.Filed Under: free speech, jeremy jaynes, spam
Spammer Alan Ralsky Finally Indicted
from the and-not-just-for-spamming dept
If you've followed the spam world at all over the years, you know the name Alan Ralsky. He was considered a top spammer for many, many years, and was sued by Verizon at one point back in 2001. However, many in the tech world know him best for an incident in 2002. The Detroit Free Press did a story on Ralsky, where reporter Mike Wendland interviewed him, and had him show off "the house that spam built," an 8,000 square-foot house in a Detroit suburb. That story made its way to Slashdot -- where some commenters decided to publish the address of "the house that spam built," leading many, many, many Slashdotters to sign Ralsky up for all kinds of physical junk mail. Ralsky did not see the irony. Three years later, Ralsky's house was raided by the FBI during an investigation, but nothing more was heard about that case, until now. It took over two years, but Ralsky and a bunch of others have been indicted -- and the spam part should be the least of his concerns. The charges include: "conspiracy, fraud in connection with electronic mail, computer fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud." That's because Ralsky wasn't just spamming products for sale, he was using a botnet to run a pump-and-dump scam on Chinese penny stocks. It's unclear why it took over two years for the indictment to finally show up, but there are likely to be quite a few folks in the anti-spam community who are thrilled that something finally happened to Ralsky.Filed Under: alan ralsky, pump and dump, spam, stock fraud, wire fraud
Can Someone Channel Ron Paul Supporter Energy For Good Instead Of Annoyance?
from the note:-this-doesn't-make-you-look-good dept
Are you familiar with the horror movie Candyman? In it, naive victims-to-be summon the titular character by repeating his name five times while staring into a mirror. Unpleasantness ensues.Strangely enough, the exact same phenomenon applies to Republican presidential contender Ron Paul. But you'll need a web browser instead of a mirror, and you only need to say his name once.
The online omnipresence of Paul's supporters is impressive to the point of being terror-inducing. Virtually any online poll in which Paul appears can be counted on to swing wildly in his favor — in the wake of one such incident, the National Journal begged Paul's supporters "please stop emailing us." Stories involving Dr. Paul make it to the front page of Digg on a daily basis, and any blog post that triggers a Google Alert for his name is sure to see a flood of comments arrive shortly thereafter.
Now some of his supporters have been caught promoting their preferred candidate using decidedly unsavory means. SecureWorks has released a report detailing the mechanisms behind a four day pro-Paul spam flood (one that we noted back on November 1). Apparently a botnet was employed to send unsolicited emails via infected computers, in much the same illegal style that's used to hawk pirated software and disc0unt v1agra.
Dirty pool, to be sure — and foolish on the part of the Paul fans behind it. The spam and rigged online polls aren't fooling anyone, and only make it easier to dismiss the campaign's online prominence as a the work of a handful of talented geeks. But there's no CPAN module that lets you create a blimp via Perl script; most of the pro-Paul comments left around the net contain enough context that they appear to have been written by actual humans; and incidents like the one that occurred at the San Francisco Republican Straw Poll make it clear that Paul's campaign has some real grassroots support behind it. I'm not buying Ron Paul contracts on Intrade just yet, but it would be nice to see his online armies knock off the transparent internet antics and start channeling their energy toward more productive — or at least dignified — ends. Unfortunately, as my fellow Techdirt Insight Community member and blogger Tim Lee has discussed elsewhere, the odds of this happening don't seem to be very good.
Once Again, Hormel's Trademark On Spam Does Not Apply To Email
from the meat-like-substance dept
I thought we had gone through this a few years ago when Hormel lost a trademark lawsuit against an anti-spam company. Hormel, of course, is the maker of SPAM, the meat-like substance. It's had something of a love-hate affair with the use of the word "spam" for email, originally hating it, but later growing to kind of accept it. However, every once in a while it throws up a random trademark lawsuit. Once again, though, a judge has ruled that Hormel's trademark "does not extend to computer software for filtering spam." One would have thought that was obvious from way back when, and especially after it started losing cases on that point -- but, apparently it just couldn't resist the salty taste of yet another failed lawsuit.Filed Under: spam, trademarks
Companies: hormel, spam arrest
Mobile Advertisers Can't Resist Thinking That A Single Call To Action Means Universal Rights To Bug People
from the pull,-not-push dept
For years, we've been trying to convince advertisers that mobile advertising needs to be about "pull" rather than "push" advertising. Since mobile users are "on the go" and often busy with something else, interrupting them with their mobile phone is going to be seen as a tremendous intrusion, often pissing off most recipients. Instead, the focus should be on setting up situations where the ads are effectively "called" by the user who is specifically looking for something (think Google ads, rather than pop up ads). For example, having a billboard that offers someone something if they punch in a code on their phone. Or, perhaps, making it easy for someone to proactively check if there are discounts at nearby coffee shops -- rather than simply bombarding them with offers as they pass-by coffee shops.Unfortunately, it looks like some advertisers are only getting half of the message. While they understand the importance of there being some kind of "call to action" by the user to initiate any kind of advertising relationship, many seem to think that after that initial call to action, users are more open to receiving ongoing communications. That's unlikely to be true -- as many users may want a particular type of communication at one time, but will not be in the mood to get something similar the next day when they're in a rush to get somewhere. The companies pay lip service to not bothering people by saying things like: "If there is no response after several times, the phone will stop sending alerts." However, by that point, you've already annoyed the person "several times" after they only opted-in to hear what you had to say once. It's hard to see how that's beneficial at all.
Filed Under: mobile ads, pull, push, spam
Companies: clear channel
More Spammers Getting More Long Term Sentences; But Does It Help?
from the rot-in-jail dept
While there are still plenty of people out there who think that there can be no punishment that is too cruel for spammers, it still seems like incredibly long sentences are a bit out of proportion with the crime. Two more spammers have now been sentenced to over five years each for sending out pornographic spam emails in violation of CAN SPAM. There is an argument to be made that such high penalties act as a deterrent to other spammers, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that that's true. Considering that the amount of spam being sent has continued to grow over time (despite some other high profile sentences) it's unclear whether these long sentences really do much good.France Making It Super Easy To Report Spammers
from the click-here dept
We tend to be skeptical of most government involvement in technology matters, but the French government is trying an interesting experiment that could be worth following. In an effort to stop the flow of spam, it's funded an open-source spam reporting toolbar for both Outlook and Thunderbird that makes reporting spam exceptionally easy. There are already commercial products that do this for the sake of building filters and such -- but this is the first time we're aware of one (though it certainly could be true of others) that automatically forwards the spam to the government. In this case, the system does a few other interesting things. One of the problems with these types of easy-report tools is that people start using it to report emails they don't like -- even if they signed up for it. However, if someone does that with this French service, it will automatically send you back info on how to unsubscribe (assuming the marketer in question has registered). Of course, on the downside, this service will only work for spam that originates in France. If it originates outside the country (meaning: most spam), the system will simply ignore it. It will be worth watching to see how well this works. Certainly, over the last few years, private efforts at filters have gotten much better -- but many still believe that gov't intervention is needed in tracking down the worst spam offenders.SEC Suspending Trades On Spam Scam Stocks
from the about-time dept
Pump and dump spam scams have been quite successful for scammers, but the SEC is apparently increasingly successful in stopping the practice. It's now suspending trading on certain stocks that appear susceptible to pump and dump scams -- and that's more than cut in half the number of complaints its received in the last few months. What still isn't clear, however, is why it's so difficult to track down those responsible for pump and dump scams. You just need to follow the money and look at who bought the stock right before the scam started and who sold out immediately afterwards and you probably have a pretty short list of suspects.Filed Under: pump and dump, scams, spam
Companies: sec
