Possible top spammer arrested
A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised “zombie” computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails.”He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world,” said Tim Cranton, a Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company’s Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. “He’s a huge problem for our customers. This is a very good day.” He has been living in a ritzy apartment and drives an expensive Mercedes convertible, said prosecutor Kathryn Warma. Prosecutors are seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he made from his business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp.
A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called “zombies” because owners typically have no idea their machines have been infected. He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment, prosecutors said. Let me check box my junk mail folder now, but I guess there will be no change at all…
Source: BusinessWeek
Comments(18)
Death to spammers! =)
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Cool news! Great that the spammers get busted for what they do to millions of e-mail users worldwide.
Even though I personally not get many SPAM mails, I am happy about this news item.
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In a perfect world spammers would get caught, go to jail, and
share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken
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well this is nice news
didnt some high profile russian spammer got beaten to death some months ago?
IT’s great the got him, but isn’t it amazing that he faces a more severe possible penalty than most killers?
maybe so, but this guy has cost businesses millions of dollars over the years and deserves the worst. show me one person who actually likes getting SPAM.
I hope that from now on I’ll stop getting “v1agra c1alisss enh4nce ur manh00d” and the Nigerian scam thing.
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Wow… I noticed the spam decrease right away… not… Come on guys, though we all hate spam, it’s no different from any other commercial. At least most of us have spam filters, on TV they force you to watch commercial every 10 minutes, and if you live in the city, there’s ads literally everywhere
The point, of course, being: one down, thousands to go.
Ive read a article in some IT magazine claiming four – five people where responsible for about 90% of all the spam-mails in the world.
if thats true, and they’ve arrested one of those there should be a decrease in spam-mails. might take a little while though, the zombies might be set to auto-repeat
I say give this asshole the chair… just fry his sorry ass.
It could be an effective lesson for other and future spammers.
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Most spam sells products that DON’T EXIST or is dangerous ie FAKE drugs!.
Hope that fucker rots in jail!.
BTW, if everyone who uses the internet actually bothered to use an upto date anti-virus software we wouldn’t have zombie computers sending out spam!.
Another way to stop a zombie computer is to perforate it with a shotgun. Too bad some bosses have appreciation for such heroic gestures…
Great news!!
DD
Hope they throw him in Oz jail, then his ‘inbox’ will be filled with lots and lots of black ’spam’. Don’t drop the soap nerdo!
great. now where will i get my viagra pills?