Another Major Spammer Busted 487
Iphtashu Fitz writes "25 year old Christopher William Smith, considered one of the worlds biggest spammers by the Spamhaus Project, is now sitting in a jail without bond. Smith allegedly had a doctor issue 72,000 prescriptions in the space of one year in conjunction with orders obtained through spamming. The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people throughout the United States without ever evaluating them, both of which are big no-no's. Federal authorities have already seized over $3 million in cash, luxury cars, and houses."
Real Crime is Organised (Score:5, Interesting)
Smith allegedly had a doctor issue 72,000 prescriptions in the space of one year
Which just goes to prove to be a really big drug dealer you need a computer and connections, not just to hang out in your Accura in McDonald's parking lot late at night.
* Nelson Muntz appears in this posting courtesy Twentieth Century Fox and Matt Groening.
Re:Real Crime is Organised (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Real Crime is Organised (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, and I thought it was just me... the past two days I was wondering if my e-mail server was broken! I run my own domain, and have port 25 blocked from all Chinese and Korean netblocks, but I still get a few a day. Almost none got through the past two days.
Re:Real Crime is Organised (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. What I alluded to was the action of his actual arrest causing a dip in activity of other spammers, rather like everyone runs onto the beach when a shark attacks, never mind they are well aware that sharks are in the water at all times.
This was clarified in a reply [slashdot.org] to one of the above posts.
72,000!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I freely admit that I don't have a clue about how prescriptions are handled, but isn't 72,000 prescriptions just a little much? Would't someone have gotten a touch suspicious that this guy was writing them out at a rate of 1 prescription every 7 seconds? Or is there not enough infrastructure to be able to tell how many a doctor has written?
It obviously had to be done electronically (Or else he would have had to write an awful lot). How does that work? I've only ever had prescriptions that were hand written out by the doctor.
I guess I'm just amazed that it took them that long to realize something was wrong.
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Usually,the doctor (or his office) can call or fax the pharmacy the prescription.
Although in this case, it seems like a bit of the old illegality....
This case also proves a bit of regulatory ineptness, I mean, doctors and pharmacies are highly regulated, how could they miss this guy writing this many prescriptions for so long?
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:72,000!! (Score:2)
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you going to ask a lot of questions if a new customer comes along and starts providing you with millions of dollars worth of orders? Would you be inclided to view their decision to order all these drugs from your manufacturing plant as "suspicious" or "lucky"?
Re:72,000!! (Score:2)
My doctor regularly prints out prescriptions with his digital signature from his computerized prescription program. It's particularly handy in that it will flag a prescription that might cause problems in view of the other prescriptions the patient is taking.
I would also mention that my doctor is younger than I am and so probably is more technologically savvy than some of the older GPs.
I'd like to call up Dr. Philip Mach and see if he would be so kind as to renew a prescription I have just to hear what he
Re:72,000!! (Score:2)
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Insightful)
But again, how on *earth* did the doctor think he could get away with that?
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Informative)
My wife only has to put her DEA number on narcotic 'scripts. I don't think there's any national tracking of non-scheduled medication prescriptions, although I wouldn't assert that as a fact.
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Insightful)
72,000 people out there actually put pills in their bodies which came from a spammer who spells it "V1Ag ra!!!"
There was an actual doctor writing precriptions for these drugs, not just some sleazy smuggler from bolivia or some nutjob with a lab for making counterfeit placebo replacements.
The bastards are actually got caught at all, and did not turn out to be some distant Russian or Maylaysian hackers far beyond the reach of our law enforcement systems, but rather were a pair of US citizens dumb enough to think they could get away with it.
This is terrific news. Hoist a beer to your friendly neighborhood cyber-cop tonight, folks. It's not often the spooks get to be universally seen as the Good Guys.
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Informative)
According to TFA: "The indictment claims that from March 2004 to May 2005 the operation generated sales of more than $20 million from medications containing a single addictive painkiller, hydrocodone."
Hydrocodone is probably better known as Lortab or Vicodin. It's addictive. The recipients probably weren't that picky about their source.
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Informative)
Your math is wrong. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so 72,000 prescriptions every 7 seconds would have taken less than a week. Admittedly, his hand would be cramped at that rate... but 72,000 in 11 months works out to about 27 per hour (working 8 hours per day), a rate I think most of us could comfortably sustain if someone was paying six or seven figures. Heck, I'd do it for five figures; except I can't because I'm not a physician, and if I were, I'd expect to get thrown in jail right alongside my spammer friend if I did it.
In other words, I think this scum-sucking doctor is at least as due for "due process" as the spammer. The spammer is annoying, the doctor is putting peoples' lives at risk. Well, OK, they both are. Throw the book at them.
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:72,000!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, of course, these prescriptions were all for hydrocodone(Vicodin), which the DEA tracks. 27 scripts an hour when most of them are antibiotics or blood pressure meds might go unnoticed, but 27 a day, every day, of the same sched II controlled substance is just asking to be caught.
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Interesting)
More War on Some Drugs bullshit. How is this doctor putting people's lives at risk? They're willingly buying these drugs, he's not dumping the stuff into the water supply late at night. This doctor is no more putting these people's lives at risk than any bartender, beer company McDonald
Re:72,000!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Funny)
How do you measure, measure a year?
Re:72,000!! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:72,000!! (Score:2)
His son, Mach II, wrote 144,000 during the same time period.
They had nothing on Dr. See. His numbers were relatively unfathomable.
Re:72,000!! (Score:3, Insightful)
NJ (Score:5, Funny)
He was giving out prescriptions without a proper medical exam? That's not a good idea. But...wait...he was practicing medicine in New Jersey? How CRIMINAL!
Re:NJ (Score:4, Informative)
Why don't they know when to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've made 3 million... walk away with what ya have. It's not worth pursuing another 3 million to risk losing it ALL.
Greed.
Ah well, no respect to dumb greedy criminals.
Re:Why don't they know when to stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why don't they know when to stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've made 3 million... walk away with what ya have. It's not worth pursuing another 3 million to risk losing it ALL.
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of criminals out there who DO know when to stop, or at least dial it down. You just never hear about them, because they are also the ones who don't tend to get caught.
I vaguely remember reading about a bank robber who went quite some time (decade or two?) w
Wow... look at the headlines. (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy Not To Blame In Decline of Moviegoers
Another Major Spammer Busted
Who gave those in charge a clue? It seems we're starting to see a paradigm shift... people who really abuse network resources are getting caught!
Re:Wow... look at the headlines. (Score:2)
From the Editorial FAQ:
Deciding the interest level of a story is a very subjective thing, and we have to take into account not only the intrinsic interest of the story itself, but what else is happening that day.
So, no, it's the "editors" picking and choosing articles that will shape the look of Slashdot on any given day/week/month. Just like some days we have Goo
Don't worry (Score:2)
Re:Wow... look at the headlines. (Score:2)
Both big no-no's? (Score:2, Funny)
So, it's against the law to practice medicine in New Jersey? Wow, the things you learn on Slashdot.
Re:Both big no-no's? (Score:2)
Huge difference.
Re:Both big no-no's? (Score:5, Informative)
The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he 1: provided prescriptions to people throughout the United States 2: without ever evaluating them, both of which are big no-no's.
Better?
Re:Both big no-no's? (Score:2)
"So, it's against the law to practice medicine in New Jersey? Wow, the things you learn on Slashdot."
The article states no such thing! It merely says that having a license to practice medicine in New Jersey is a no-no. It's a lot like living in New Jersey, which I also understand is a big "no-no
what I would like to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what I would like to do... (Score:2)
I think it is cruel to the guy who has to do all the smacking! The idea is to punish the dumb people not the hard working person
Re:what I would like to do... (Score:2)
Spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
I was under the impression that most of the spammers were "for hire" by marketing firms, companies, mafias, etc.
Re:Spammers (Score:2, Interesting)
Another no-no (Score:3, Funny)
PUTTING As IN DEFINITELY? Es IN RIDICULOUS? WE CAN HELP!
Oh great (Score:5, Funny)
I feel a disturbance in the SPAM (Score:5, Funny)
It's not butchered, it's creatively adjusted!
Good... (Score:5, Insightful)
Prescription drug abuse/diversion is a major problem... I get hit with drug seekers in my ER every single day. Some of these people have legitimate chronic pain conditions and need to be under the care of a pain specialist, while others are simply using narcotics to treat their psychological pain (or just gathering "party supplies" for the weekend). Some of these people self-medicate and push their vicodin/lortab dose until they get acetaminophen toxic... bad way to end up on the liver transplant list.
And before somebody says it, no, I don't think drug legalization is the answer.
Re:Good... (Score:5, Insightful)
So why the *hell* do the pharma companies use acetaminophen to "denature" their hydrocodone tablets? Wouldn't it be better not to add the acet. and just treat drug addicts who are a danger to themselves/others?
Either that, or add something that has fairly immediate and unpleasant effects when overdosed upon, rather than acet. which has no immediate unpleasant effects, is seen by the public as "safe" (after all, it's in nonprescription Tylenol, and the nanny-state won't allow any truly *scary* drugs to be sold OTC, right?), but which often causes fatal liver/kidney damage a few days after overdosage.
Tylenol is nasty shit - I prefer taking aspirin for my headaches. Apart from the small risk of stomach problems, it's actually a lot less toxic than Tylenol.
-b.
Re:Good... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good... (Score:3, Informative)
Pubmed, [nih.gov] courtesy of the NIH, is your friend.
Re:Good... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good... (Score:3, Interesting)
We used to... until JCAHO decided that it was a violation of confidentiality. Most ERs kept a "frequent flier" list of their drug seekers: a recipe box with index cards was the usual method, complete with name (including aliases), preferred drug, and typical cover stories used. Those boxes were absolutely invaluable for keeping patients from doctor-shopping by surfing from ER to ER, stocking up.
Thanks JCAHO... thanks a lot for leaning forward to help us in our
Re:Good... (Score:3, Informative)
It was my understanding that JCAHO's regulation allowed such lists as long as they were not available to the general hospital staff and was restricted to the treating physicians in the ER. One hospital I worked at fairly recently still kept such a list on a corkboard in the physician break room. We didn't even have to compile the list ourselves since the state Dept of Health sent out a letter to all physicians who had treated pa
Re:Good... (Score:3, Informative)
JCAHO is the Joint Committee on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. They're the guys who determine if your hospital gets "certified" to actually take care of patients. You can check out their website Here. [jcaho.org]
They do some valuable things... but they also can ding your hospital on some truly maddening minutiae. Also, as I noted in my initial post, not all of their "input" is necessarily helpful.
Re:Good... (Score:3, Informative)
Ibuprofen is marketed as an analgesic (largely because it reduces the swelling that causes some pain), but it's not addictive. Analgesics that are CNS depressants are often (always?) addictive, but that's not the only pain relieving mechanism.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Drugs shouldn't be illegal to begin with - that is the very problem here. Who cares what someone wants to put into their own body?
Saying "no no" or giving them punishments for it isn't a logical deterrent, because if you don't give it to them, they'll get it elsewhere.
The ridiculous laws make it harder for people with legitimate pain to get proper treatment. I experienced it firsthand when I had my tonsils taken out a few months back and was in HORRIBLE pain
Re:Good... (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone wants perscription drugs, let em pay for it and get them. Why not? If they abuse it, it's their own problem.
People will retort with things like, "well it hurts their friends and family, and if they cause an accident or OD, yadda yadda".
We already have laws for being under the influence of substances, so that part, which is a big concern on the minds of most people, is taken
The doctor can now look forward to... (Score:5, Funny)
- Crow T. Trollbot
Re:The doctor can now look forward to... (Score:3, Funny)
Expect A Huge Productivity Boost! (Score:2)
What we have here is... (Score:5, Funny)
If he'd just stuck to the marketing side..
He'd still be living large...
NOT BUSTED FOR SPAM! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NOT BUSTED FOR SPAM! (Score:2)
Further, these same editors don't actually check to see if the headline of a story fits with the story itself.
Please keep this in mind and you too can experience the bliss of ignorance.
Re:NOT BUSTED FOR SPAM! (Score:2)
-b.
Re:NOT BUSTED FOR SPAM! (Score:2)
I see this as a good thing on balance. I would have liked the spam to be taken into consideration as a detail somewhere, but what this shows is that the correct approach is to go after the traditional side of the crime - in this case, fraud and drug dealing. There are already laws in place to deal with this, and the judicial system understands
Re:NOT BUSTED FOR SPAM! (Score:3, Interesting)
Spammers aren't the problem (Score:2, Interesting)
We could even just add a bit onto the current email systems. Have clients either sign outgoing messages with a GnuPG key, or encrypt messages with the recipient's public key. All mail that isn't signed by a friend or encrypted to the recipient is trashed.
Spammers wouldn't have an accepted sig, and they sure wouldn't have the time to encrypt each message to each
Re:Spammers aren't the problem (Score:3, Informative)
1) users hate PGP/GPG. They don't understand it, can't get it to work, and it's not worth anything to them. (google for "why johnny can't encrypt" for two good discussions of the subject.)
2) Spammers aren't even using their own machines to send email at this point, why should they care about an extra second or two to sign or encrypt a message? It's someone else's CPU cycles, not theirs.
3) Mailing lists, support addresses, public accounts, sales folks, etc, would all fail in you
Note that spam isn't sending him to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
He sold $20,000,000 of hydrocodone in less than a year. I think the bigger question is how the hell he could sell that much of a tightly controlled narcotic before getting busted.
And yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless he had the prescriptions filled at Pfizer's loading dock, WTF would you expect them to do about it? For all you know, they might have been the anonymous tipsters that got the whole prosecution started, but I know it's a lot more fun to rant and wildly speculate.
Your irrational hatred for the pharmaceutical companies does nothing to help your credibility.
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Informative)
So wrong! The drug companies actually track their success rates with specific doctors to help their marketing. They need to know what kinds of junkets are most effective!
When a perscription is filled, the information goes into a DEA database and a drug company database. I don't know the specifics on the system, but the DEA
Hidden money (Score:2)
I should be a spammer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Another Great Victory (Score:3, Insightful)
In May, a federal judge shut down Xpress Pharmacy and appointed a receiver to take control of the business' assets. Federal authorities seized $1.8 million in luxury cars, two homes and $1.3 million in cash.
Figures, they had to wait till it was profitable.
Now what are all those HydroCodine Junkies gonna do? Head straight to Crack and Crystal Meth. Ahhh, Justice.
The indictment contains various counts of conspiracy to dispense controlled substances, wire fraud, money laundering, distributing controlled substances and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.
I'm all for prison-raping the spammers, but if they don't charge him with any spam offenses, then we're all jumping on the War on Drugs Bandwagon. Count me out.
Make it a crime to repeatedly use my computer equipment for unsolicited Advertisements. Fine them at an advertiser rates. 5 cents a email. Charge him with this crime & let the bunkmates line up.
The doctor faces what charges?
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Mach was represented by Bruce Levy of New Jersey. A call to his office was not immediately returned Wednesday.
Oh.
So spam works? (Score:2)
I'm always amazed (Score:3, Insightful)
People wonder why the spamming never ends, it's because 72,000 perscriptions were bought through an email ad.
Spamming really does work, it's cheap, and highly effective as evidenced by the above numbers.
Spam on the increase recently? (Score:2)
Anybody else seen a massive increase?
DrFeelgood.com (Score:2)
72K Prescriptions! KaD*mn! (Score:2)
Does anyone have his prison address? (Score:3, Funny)
Why are you demonizing this guy? (Score:5, Funny)
25 : ) (Score:3, Funny)
HEY, there's an idea, do you think these people know how to protect THEMSELVES from SPAM???? WOA!! I'm a freakin genius. I'm sure this guy's girlfriend isn't getting Viagra adds, how do they do it? Maybe we can just use their methods against themselves.
I rock so hard.
Bringing Them to the Attention of the DEA (Score:4, Interesting)
A new application of an old way to fight crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Not busted for "spamming" (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, all this does is make "illegal" activities proliferated by spam something that will get you busted....
Hrm... okay so this WILL make a dent in the war on spam. But I would still like to see more people jailed for the activity of spamming rather than for more common reasons.
72,000 More... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why he's in jail (Score:5, Informative)
So Smith went to the Dominican Republic and tried to restart spamming from there. On June 28th, a judge issued an arrest warrant for him. When he returned to the US, he was arrested, but released on bail, with home monitoring.
The prosecution then asked for a six-month criminal contempt sentence for trying to violate the injunction and fleeing prosecution. Smith had a court date for that in July, and lost. So now he's in jail for six months.
This is somebody who just didn't get it when the court ordered him to stop.
This is just the first phase. The felony case is just getting underway.
Make good use of siezed properties (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, great. Now that just means things'll be quiet for a couple months, and then it will be business as normal. If we really want to stop future spam, here's what we can don:
Now you've eliminated the customer base of spam messages. With no customers, spamming won't be profitable ($3 Million?!?!). If it's not profitable, it'll stop.
Tah-dah.
Re:Only in jail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Snail Spam wastes trees, oil, electricity, & time and ultimately only serves to keep the postal service in business and keeping landfills a growth market. I somehow manage to recieve 5 times more physical spam than electronic spam in my personal mailboxes.
I hate both, but if I had to choose which one to erradicate, it would be the physical variety.
Re:Only in jail? (Score:4, Funny)
"Hey, it;s bad enough down here!"
- Satan
Re:Only in jail? (Score:2)
That's your own choice. I hate spammers, too, but I've chosen to do something about it [freesoftwaremagazine.com]; you can, too. Trust me - you can dislike them just as much while getting 2-3 spams per day instead of 2500.
Re:Only in jail? (Score:2)
Re:Only in jail? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a little trick to stop spam that I literally discovered yesterday: take your mail server down for a while. Seriously. (Of course, this assumes that you have your own mail server, but I'm guessing a significant number of /.ers do.) Mine was unreachable yesterday because I forgot to renew my domain (heh, oops). Today I only recieved one piece of spam, and I'm sure that anything meaningful that didn't make it through yesterday got bounced back and will be resent. I dunno if it will last, but hey, its wo
Re:Only in jail? (Score:3, Insightful)
There was an excellent piece on slashdot a while back about spamfiltering... infact here's a link to it: http://acme.com/mail_filtering/ [acme.com] killer stuff there on prevention. He gets a level of spam that would put me outta my mind.
Re:Only in jail? (Score:2)
Re:Only in jail? (Score:2)
I'm not including what goes to other addresses than me at the domains I host.
Re:Drugs w/o a prescription? (Score:2)
I didn't use antibiotics *at all* for like 7 years before this nasty little health episode. But, trust me, when the choice is between having neuro symptoms, joint pains, etc for either the rest of your life or half a decade of so (depending on which Dr. you ask) and taking antibiotics, I'll take the antibiotics hands-down.
Antibiotics aren't addictive, but they are abused.
Can't argue with that one.
Cheers, -b.