Posted on 02/19/2005 8:14:16 AM PST by holymoly
A Cheektowaga teenager, a whiz kid on the computer, has been arrested in Los Angeles and accused of bombarding Internet users with more than a million spam e-mails.
Not only is the 18-year-old accused of computer hacking and violating federal spam laws, but he allegedly threatened to wreak more havoc on a California Internet company if it didn't give him exclusive marketing rights to its customers, federal authorities said.
Anthony Greco, a former Erie Community College student, is accused of creating thousands of accounts on MySpace.com, an online meeting place, and using them to send about 1.5 million unsolicited commercial e-mails to the Web site's users.
Greco, who believed he was traveling to California to strike a deal with company officials, was arrested by authorities Wednesday, when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, said Brian Hoffstadt, an assistant U.S. attorney for the central district of California.
"This is a substantial crime," Hoffstadt said. "What Greco did, if convicted, is a felony."
Greco was released on $25,000 bond, after a detention hearing Thursday. He is scheduled for arraignment in Los Angeles on March 21, Hoffstadt said.
Greco's mother, Jane Patterson of West Seneca, couldn't believe the charges. "He's a good kid. I'm shocked," Patterson said.
A few years ago, Greco started his own computer marketing and programming business, TGCashin, Patterson said.
Her son had been attending ECC but dropped out this semester to care for his ailing father, she said. "He's very, very intelligent," Patterson said. "He does know a lot about computers. He started up his own business, working with computers when he was 15."
MySpace.com, whose offices are based in Los Angeles, provides a free forum for members interested in such things as chatting online, meeting others with similar interests, keeping in touch with family members and finding old friends, according to its Web site.
In late October, MySpace.com users started receiving a wave of junk e-mails advertising pornography and mortgage refinancing.
The company spent more than $5,000 deleting spam e-mail from its servers and installing a filter to protect itself from future attacks.
But after sending the spam e-mails, authorities said, Greco contacted MySpace.com.
"I'm pretty sure you recently noticed the start of spam on your server," according to one message included in court papers. "I am contacting you in attempts to propose a deal with you."
The message requested he be given exclusive rights to send commercial e-mail through the site for a fee of $150 a day, according to court papers. As part of the contract, he would help protect the site against other spammers, the message said.
Follow-up messages from the alleged spammer included a proposed contract between MySpace.com and Greco's business, TGCashin, according to court papers. When his request was ignored, authorities said, Greco threatened to get around the Web site's filter and share his spamming techniques with others.
"Unless you contact me in the next 24 hours I have no choice but to just sell off my coding to other people and allow them to pick up the projects from there," according to one message sent to company officials in early December.
An exchange of e-mails led to recorded telephone calls between Greco and officials from MySpace.com. Greco agreed to hop a plane to Los Angeles for a face-to-face meeting and sign a contract with MySpace.com, according to court papers.
Members of the Secret Service and the Los Angeles Police Department were waiting for Greco when he stepped off the plane Wednesday.
Meanwhile, authorities in Buffalo requested search warrants for Greco's Walden Avenue apartment and his mother's house in West Seneca.
"Anytime something like this happens, we handle it fairly aggressively because the backbone of our commerce is so intertwined with the Internet," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin J. Littlefield, who prosecutes Internet crime in the Buffalo area.
Prosecutors, he said, are being given more tools to fight Internet crime.
One of the charges against Greco, for example, is violation of the federal Can-Spam Act, which took effect in 2004. While it doesn't outlaw bulk e-mailing, Can-Spam sets down some guidelines and gives the government the means to shut down the most fraudulent spammers.
Such criminal spam cases still are relatively rare, said Hoffstadt, the government prosecutor from Los Angeles.
And Hoffstadt had never heard of a case where someone spammed an Internet company and then requested a contract with them.
"...the little reprobate decided to try his hand at extortion."
Yep, throw his stupid punk butt in jail. I won't cry. I hate spam and all spammers. They ruin my day every day at work. Let's face it, junk mail is bad enough, but I never got no junk mail pornography, nor nothing with constant references to penises.
They could throw every single one of these people in prison for 20 years and it wouldn't bother me a bit.
I mean it. I hate spammers.
"A Cheektowaga teenager, a whiz kid on the computer, has been arrested in Los Angeles..."
BS, he is an adult at 18. Have fun in the Grey-Bar, bro.
He's brilliant allright.
an 18 year old child? Oh NO! This article is too mean-spirited and that he is after all only somebody's child who didn't know better was underfed and overloved as a baby and suffered from pot(fill in the blank) depression .....
Any bets that we will hear of those excuses from members here!???!
Be he 15 or 18 - he did the crime, have him pay the time.
I hope he spends a long time in an Oz-like facility. He may learn what its like to receive unwanted spam in his normally outgoing box.
Any bets that we will hear of those excuses from members here!???!
Not from me.
PAGING: VLAD THE IMPALER, WHITE COURTESY PHONE!
Another child victim of gun violence. Someone call Sarah Brady.
Another victim of the White Man's treatment of the Indians! /Ward Churchill
If the boy was so smart, how come he couldnt figure out that he would get in trouble! DUH
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