Posted on 05/30/2007 6:00:34 PM PDT by HarmlessLovableFuzzball
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - US prosecutors said they captured on Wednesday a nefarious Internet marketer responsible so much junk e-mail they called him "Spam King." ADVERTISEMENT
Robert Soloway, 27, was arrested in Seattle, Washington, a week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and e-mail fraud.
"Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners," said US Attorney for the Western District of Washington Jeffrey Sullivan.
"Our investigators dubbed him the 'Spam King' because he is responsible for millions of spam emails."
Between November of 2003 and May of 2007 Soloway "spammed" tens of millions of e-mail messages to promote websites at which his company, Newport Internet Marketing, sold products and services, according to prosecutors.
Soloway routinely moved his website to different Internet addresses to dodge detection and began registering them through Chinese Internet service providers in 2006 in an apparent ploy to mask his involvement.
Spam messages sent by Soloway used misleading "header" information to dupe people into opening them, according to Sullivan.
Soloway is accused of using "botnets," networks of computers, to disguise where e-mail originated and of forging return addresses of real people or businesses that wound up blamed for unwanted mailings.
If convicted as charged, Soloway will face a maximum sentence of more than 65 years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars.
Prosecutors want to seize approximately 773,000 dollars they say Soloway made from his spamming-related activities.
Requesting to be removed is the surest way of getting more spam. Its how spammers find out which email accounts are real and active.
Thank you for the posting, made my day. The devil in hell awaits his new servant.
Good riddance, I hate spam.
And the British lottery.
Facing 65 years, 250K?
That’s all???
LOL! Yea, that one also.
Occasionally.
Since SirKit installed SpamBayes on my computer, I hardly have any problems with spam anymore. They are simply dumped directly to the Junk folder in my Inbox. It’s freeware, available for download, and he says it’s the best he’s found for the purpose.
I think the government should reduce or wave off sentencing in return he goes to work using his skills aginst foreign enemies.
If he doesn’t do hard time, then I’m all for a hangin’ party.
Confine this SOB for the rest of his life. Let him have email, but the only thing the filter will allow is spam.
Sometimes I get hundreds a day and for the life of me I can't figure out why someone would take the time to do this. Some have attachments that are .gif or .txt Is this a new way to spread virus's
And that have taken advantage of those special enhancement offers.
Sounds like the spammers are using your e-mail address to send out spam—and you get all the failures.
Maybe true, but he could also have a worm in his system, actually sending the email.
Thanks...I know what you are saying but they are addressed directly to my site. alias[at]mysite.com Since I get all the default email, I get tons of it. I have Googled it and they even use my site as an example. Most of it appears to come from the Philipines.
Of course, the actual sentence will be measured in months, not years, but even the maximum penalties are too light.
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