Dozens Charged in Spam Crackdown 228
JohnnyGTO writes "Federal and state law enforcement agencies have quietly arrested or charged dozens of people with crimes related to junk e-mail, identity theft and other online scams in recent weeks, according to several people involved in the actions."
Quietly Arrested (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Quietly Arrested (Score:5, Insightful)
After the proof, go for it. Don't bother with helmets when you drag them to the moon; the enclosure would restrict their freedom of speech.
Re:Quietly Arrested (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Quietly Arrested (Score:5, Funny)
Is it not obvious? Spammers are all being shipped to a secret government location.
At these secure sites, Chairs, tables, projectors, and Powerpoint presentations are being prepared even as we speak.
Clueless bureaucrats are covertly stepping out of their dreary cubicles to attend these highly classified seminars
Within a year, "W3 R the G0vernment and R H3re 2 hep U" will be flooding the inboxes of the land.
RTFA... (Score:3, Informative)
Per TFA, they're being arrested quietly because they (or their computers) are providing information that's being used to build a case against other spammers. The government don't want to alert other suspects.
Sean
Excellent news (Score:2, Funny)
Now.. who wants to buy some cheap h3rbal vi.agr@?
Oh, and I've got a few million I need to temporarily offload into a bank account...
Well (Score:3, Informative)
I am so sick of them.
Re:Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:3, Informative)
It's a marketing thing. You have to sign up and complete a sponsered offer, then get 5 friends to sign up under you as referrals. (They neeed to complete an offer as well.) Then after they verify that everything's completed properly you can order a free iPod or iPod mini. They're apparently legit though, the company running it is Gratis Networks who also does a lo
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
It's an pyramid scheme, and I'm surprised they're still running, being as such operations are illegal in the US, and most other first world nations. They must be running offshore somewhere.
Re:Well (Score:2)
A if this was a true scam scheme, it automatically colapses because at some point down the line the royalties due to all of the people up the chain start to approach 100% of the sale, meaning there's no money left over for an actual product. This is able
That still makes it a scam... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you should take the quiz they have here:
http://www.pyramidschemealert.org/ [pyramidschemealert.org]
Next thing you know, someone will be telling us that those penis enhancement pills are legit, too, just because they advertise on TV...
What does that one commercial say?
"We said it on TV, so it must be true!"
I seem to remember a few very... interesting... statements televised by the Iraqi Information Minister, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton & Richard Nixon, too, and that's off the top of my head.
Re:Well (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
If you get into the pyramid early on you win them easily. But after everyone and their brother recieves emails and harrasments on livejournal for them it wont work and they get burned.
What I do not like is to sign someone else up for the offer you give them spamming and identity theft information. Then its up to him/her to accept it?
Its a massive pyramid scheme and a spam harvesting ring all in one. Yuck.
Worse I have been flamed for daring to speak up agaisnt it and to tell them that users participating in this are fradualant and no different than the owners of this scame. Unfortunately the few people who did win them make the others envious so they sign up for it and flame me back.
Sigh.
Its been mentioned as legit on wired.com so people assumed there is zero risk.
Re:Well (Score:3, Informative)
So here is the way they actually work.
They require that you sign up your for all thoses services(AOL for a year, a credit card, a CD club puchase X cds, a DVD club purchase X dvds, and others). They get a kick back each from thoses companies with each
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
i don't mind if someone wants to advertise that they're gullible in their sig tho... the whole point is that they want you to get your friends to buy expensive services or products, and actually they want you to fail after you've gained 2-3 friends who've done it. the point is that you could just ask each of your friends for 40-50$ or screw 'em over in arranged poker game(but nobody really gets 5 of his friends to do the stuff so you need to find willing people online).
funny how people defend the program how it works _BEFORE_ they get their ipods too.
Re:Well (Score:2, Funny)
------
Get a free ipod today [freeipods.com]
This Just In: Online Advertisers Change Name (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This Just In: Online Advertisers Change Name (Score:2)
Re:This Just In: Online Advertisers Change Name (Score:2)
Laugh all you want, but spam at a BBQ might have some use.
There was this time, when a few friends and I tried to do a BBQ at the beach and NO ONE was able to light that damn charcoal. We could have used to spam that day. We ended up eating bread and ketchup and some tuna fish we bought.
Dozens? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dozens? (Score:2)
Re:Dozens? (Score:2, Offtopic)
but the US doesn't really care about that anyway, after all they still have the death penalty which is certainly unusual in today's world.
and if I remember correctly there's just the U.S. and one other country who will execute mentally disabled people.
Re:Dozens? (Score:2, Interesting)
I normally receive 20+ porn and viagra spams a day, but they are all the same style so I have always thought it was only one spammer with my address. [I never posted the address anywhere, I think they just guessed it - it is in the format commonfirstnamelastname@majorisp.com]
Anyway, since Friday I haven't had a single message. Or maybe it is just because the spammer is away on vacation....
Re:Dozens? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dozens? (Score:2, Funny)
er, I think that's part of the definition of SPAM
Re:Dozens? (Score:2)
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does ANYONE think that this will reduce spam in the near future? I'm still getting flooded, and I'll bet anything that my spam filters won't get any kind of a breather just because of a few arrests.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
isn't that a great defeatist attitude. Spam is not like an inevitable problem. It can be dealt with. A email system with authentication, A tougher stance from the law, it all helps.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
My account has dropped from 100-150/day down to ~20/day over the span of the last few months. I can't say why, but I like it. Many many more viral messages spoofed to look like they come from my domain, though. (It's my domain...and I didn't send those messages to myself!)
Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
they'll need money (Score:5, Funny)
Re:they'll need money (Score:2)
Re:they'll need money (Score:2, Funny)
"Quietly?" (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote Dr. Strangelove:
"Of course, the whole point
Re:"Quietly?" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good thing, phishing & identity theft is evil and the scumbags doing it have assumed that they can get away with brazen theft. It's about time some serious attempt to jail these a*holes was made.
Re:"Quietly?" (Score:2)
They're trying to avoid alerting Jeb Bush to the fact that his campaign contributors are being arrested.
Re:"Quietly?" (Score:2)
So they failed on point 2 (at least in the view of a scandinavian european).
Re:"Quietly?" (Score:3, Interesting)
New science has pointed out that the effect of for example punishing others is grossly overrated especially by the public. Most experts within criminology agree that the deterrent of very long sentences is non existant in many fields.
Most people still belive in the popular myth that "if we just punish/sentence enough people to life then they will stop doing those evil things". Well it turns out that the world is a bit more complex. People still
Re:"Quietly?" (Score:3, Informative)
That demonstrates the effect on individuals, not on outsiders observing the individuals, so perhaps the effect doesn't scale. Perhaps criminals are those people who assume that they won't be caught, or if they are that the sentence isn't so bad compared with the costs of not committing crimes.
Som
Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of them had the FBI break down their doors and seize their computers? Or was it more like "Mr Spammer, after you've called your attorney, we'd like you to come down to the station for a few hours..."
I mean, it's not like they're hackers....
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
So: spammers do fit the popular definition of hackers as people who do bad things to other people's computers without their permission. Even leaving aside how sending spam to someone could be construed to be damaging, they almost certainly use zombie hosts to send emails - this is definitely "evil hacking". So for once I hope the FBI and Secret Service go in and take all their computer stuff, then lock them in a room with a large lonely man named bubba.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2)
Also phishers use spam to net victims, at least some the spamming mentioned is the worst kind, hacked servers forged headers, identity theft and fraud all rolled into one, probably with several hundred counts on more than a few indictments. They're gonna do some serious Federal time, with no discount tickets.
At least they won't spam again, when they get out they won't recognize the voice activated holographic Linux desktop that everyone will be using.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2)
Ashcroft is now good? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever Mr. Ashcroft is in private life, the Attorney General of the United States is not your friend or your enemy; he has a job to do and we expect that he is doing it. One day that will work for you; another day it will work against you. You may agree or disagree with the way that he does it, but it shouldn't be anything personal, on his part or yours.
Business is not about friends and enemies. Business is about achieving objectives.
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, what I know about him personally isn't much, but what there is of it I don't like (e.g. the 'covering up' of the justice statue because of (heaven forfend) a breast).
The way he has carried out his job, however, I find abhorrent. Pushing the "PATRIOT Act", all by itself, would warrant my condemnation. But looking into how much torture U.S. interrogators could get away with, and refusing to own up to it [post-gazette.com], is beneath contempt.
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't say that I agree with this assessment. Mr. Ashcroft was appointed to his position -- similar to Michael Powell in the FCC. Why can't an appointed official be a friend or enemy? They certainly make friends and enemies, and Ashcroft has certainly done that.
Your parent poster didn't make any quips about Ashcroft's persoanal life, but I'm inferring that his comment was with regar
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm trying to disentangle the person from the role. A person can be a friend or an enemy, but when he puts on the role he should put off personal considerations and carry out the role impartially. (You may believe that someone is not doing this, and that's good reason to seek his dismissal.) Likewise we who hire people to fill roles in our government should judge them on their performance in the role, not because we lik
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:2)
Government != Business
(Except of course in the US of A by the looks of things...)
-Nano.
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, from your reasoning, SCO's litigious antics would be perfectly fine, well and good.
Fuck that shit.
Corporations had best adopt a sense of morals and ethics, and quickly lest they find themselves slowly slaughtered. It's happening. Look at SCO's close today. Look at Microsoft. Look at Enron and Worldcom. Same with spammers. Adopt a clean business plan, one that doesn't promote immoral, illegal acts, and you'll do
Ashcroft will always be an enemy of liberty (Score:3, Interesting)
So long as he seeks unbridled power for the government, resists any legal constraints placed upon his power, and uses millenialism to justify his policies, he will never be a friend.
The only proper place for John Ashcroft is hanging from a tree.
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:4, Insightful)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend - old Arab saying.
The wonderful think about the world is that it isn't entirely in black and white. You can still hate John Ashcroft while applauding his Justice Department efforts to crack down on spam. You can even be thankful that Bill Gates licensed and "integrated" Minesweeper into Windows for Workgroups 3.11 while still disliking him and most of what you perceive Microsoft stands for.
John Ashcroft doesn't wear a black hat. He wears a grey one, just like the rest of us, and some of the things he's responsible for are good and should be acknowledged as such.
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't believe that. It is easier to believe in God than to believe that someone thinks that people hate Ashcroft because he is a believer.
Do you think people hate Clinton because he believes in God? Do you believe that people hated Reagan because he believed in God? Do you think people hate Osama Bin Laden because he believes in God? Do you think that people hated Will Rogers? He believed in God, and was beloved.
I don't think I
Re:Ashcroft is now good? (Score:3, Insightful)
Both figures were hated before they came to office, based on their past records. Both profess a believe in God. Both go to church, and have committed grevious sins, as humans do. Both give a lot of money to charity - well, oops, you got me there, Ashcroft does not.
It's all about his actions. Lots of beloved figures believe in God. Lots of hated figures don't. It ain't God. It's actions.
Public executions for spammers. (Score:5, Funny)
Sell "execution privs" on a ebay to the highest bidder.
Use licensed Marshals and bounty hunters to capture them.
Put a bounty on their heads.
Re:Public executions for spammers. (Score:5, Funny)
"chmod +x *", hardly used, $500 OBO
Moving Overseas (Score:2)
Still, Mr. Linford added that spam activity had been increasing overseas and that spammers in other countries, especially Russia, were expected to move quickly to fill any gaps left if spammers in the United States are shut down or scared off.
Presumably these overseas spammers will often be acting on behalf of, um, 'legitimate business ventures' in the US - I can't really see, for example, the volume of Russian-language-specific spam increasing too much, as they must be running out of R
Re:Moving Overseas (Score:2, Insightful)
Why didn't I think of that! Practically speaking the advertised product has to come from within the States. They can move the spam servers to Russia if they want but the actual revenue generating stuff is still where the feds can get at it. Bloody brilliant! Shut down the money part and the spam stops. Or am I be
The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (Score:3, Informative)
You can read more about the organization here [ncfta.net].
(Disclaimer - I was one of the early members of the organization.)
And in other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And in other news... (Score:2)
They're number one! They're number one! Woo-yay!
Ahem.
Re:And in other news... (Score:2)
Re:And in other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, the US is the orgins of "42 percent of spam", but what does that mean? That 42 percent of an email comes from a spammer in the US, possibly through a 3rd party server? 42 of businesses advertised are US businesses? Or what everyone seems to imply, that 42% come from zombie servers in the US.
Lets not forget that "42% of all spam" is a bad statistic
Re:And in other news... (Score:2, Informative)
You can find the methodologht at Sophos's Spam Site [sophos.com]. Its determined by physical location of the last relay (the only thing trustworthy in a spam header), so yes, a large number of those are probably trojaned zombie machines. The rest are the known "pink slip" ISPs in league with Floridian spammers The data set is from a "global network of honeypots". They do no filtering.
PS : "It's all from trojaned machines" is *not* an acceptable
Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
JMR
About time (Score:5, Interesting)
I've long advocated RICO-style investigations (if not actual RICO prosecutions) of the entire world of spam. This doesn't just mean the bulk mailing operations, but the people behind the actual spamvertised businesses and their legitimate-world suppliers.
Broad-based prosecutions promising long prison time not only for spammers, and spam businesses but for people who knowingly make money off of spammers (banks, ISPs, list vendors, etc) will go a long way towards demotivating people in the legitimate business world from working with spammers/spam businesses.
Spammers and spam businesses need a certain cooperation and acceptance in the legitimate business world to make money. Without that, they'll be far less effective.
Re:About time (Score:3, Informative)
Given the merchantability of many spam products (penis enlargement pills, cable descramblers, etc), there HAVE to be lots of complaints about these people's merchant accounts -- the bank likely MUST be running interference for them or at least playing willfull ignorance when opening
Missed the most interesting part (Score:5, Interesting)
The submitter missed the most interesting part of the entire article: the fact that this crackdown is financed mainly by spammers (the direct marketing assoc)! They probably are just trying to get rid of the most blatant illegal stuff so they can further their goal of legitamizing spam. Or they could just be cracking down on competitors with the Fed's help.
Much of the financing for the efforts, known as Operation Slam Spam, comes from the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group that wants to promote what it sees as the legitimate use of e-mail marketing.
Re:Missed the most interesting part (Score:2)
It's one way to boost the membership fees overnight. I wonder if my offer of 1.2 million addresses will come with indemnification from now on?
Re:Missed the most interesting part (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the spam issue aside, when did law enforcement start getting funded by non-governmental, private organizations? Does this mean they are less likely to investigate and prosecute spam sent by DMA members?
Re:Missed the most interesting part (Score:3, Insightful)
They're just trying to create a gap between evil nasty spam which they do not do, and their wholesome friendly nu'n'improoved targeted direct marketing. *Sniff-sniff* Still smells the same.
Re:Missed the most interesting part (Score:3, Insightful)
I say more power to the DMA. They are annoying, but they are not the problem. If they are willing to spend their money helping combat the spammers that are the p
The DMA just wants to kill the competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The DMA just wants to kill the competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The DMA just wants to kill the competition (Score:2)
Don't forget to blame the idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Any company willing to spam others needs to have its practices reexamined. How can the justice department go after spammers and not even blink at the advertising firms that PAY to have it all done? It's like putting the hitman in jail and ignoring the mobster that hired him.
And let's not forget that sending out mass emails has to be worth it to companies, otherwise one would think they wouldn't do it. There's a reason that you keep getting reminders to have your penis enlarged, and it's not because they found your email address on slashdot. People are buying this crap, and these morons need to be stopped now.
I'd call for more education on the subject ("How not to click on that popup" or "How to ignore or filter your spam email"), but due to the fact that it is much more gratifying and probably cheaper overall to just throw the emailers into jail, as well as the fact that I'm a nobody, my calls would proabably go unheeded.
Re:Don't forget to blame the idiots (Score:2)
Re:Don't forget to blame the idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to do what, now?
Re: (Score:2)
Which specific spammers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Canning Spam (Score:2, Informative)
Spam consequences (Score:4, Informative)
As a public service, the following domains have been banished, as well as 95% of Megs of spam a week:
@2243.ewsifh398.com
@mx31.blindu89.biz
@
Before I banned them, I got at least 1 meg spam/3 days. That'll kill my inbox, and my provider was kind enough to remove all my old, dust covered emails I was saving so they could provide me this bright, shiny new spam! AGH! Wanted to KILL!
If servers would route this junk to an universal delete before it got to destination, the spammers would be out of business. There would have to be a distributed system for qualifying what was spam, and just not allowing the system to send it. Attatchments are another peeve of mine, with 30k virus attatched(Would you like to open this?). If I have never sent to the email in question, then I sould never see a Re: coming from them, filter! It would save gigs for provider alone!
Just my thoughts, and you are entitled to them >:{
Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
Most spam is illegal to start with... (Score:3, Interesting)
An online form is not enough of a relationship for which a doctor can write you a perscription pill. State boards of health are in charge of stopping that.
Hot stock tip! Buy [stock you never heard of] today!
Classic pump-and-dump stock scam. The FTC and other stock market regulators are in charge of stopping that.
Cable TV filter lets you watch digital Pay Per View for free!
Nice try. What the filter does is block the upbound transmission from a digital cable box so that when a purchase is authorized by the user it can't communicate back to the cable company billing system while still letting the inbound signals through so the box appears to be working fine. There's only one catch, after a couple months your box will it hasn't been able send anything to home base, and completely shut down. Connecting it to the system without the filter will allow all the PPVs to show up on your next bill, and turning your box in for a replacement will allow the cable company to discover what's still in the box's memory. If you claim the box is lost forever, you'll have to pay for losing it. There is no free lunch.
Get [brand name software] for [insane low price]!
Pirated software, of course... if there is actually anything behind this offer at all. Try buying from a more trustworthy channel while the Microsoft/Symantec/etc. attack lawyers get ready to pounce on these guys.
Get Rich Quick!
Clasic ponzi scheme translated to e-mail... FTC will be arresting the guy at the top long before you get your millions.
[Your Bank] needs your account information back
When does a bank ever have an IT system without backing it up? Besides, if the username/password/account data table is lost, they'll build another by creating a new logon, not by asking you for the old one! These e-mails are simple wire fraud phishing.
Deposed leader [name you never heard of] needs your help to get [large sum of money out] of [someplace]. Please let him borrow your bank account.
Scam from the start. Even more dangerous because your home country law can't really stop scammers in third world nations.
In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
As the United States Department of Justice attempts to extradite an Australian indicted as head of an international email spamming ring, the battle against spam has been spurred by unsubstantiated claims it funds terrorism.
The Department of Justice made the claims before a United States congressional hearing earlier this month but could not provide evidence.
Organised criminal syndicates profit from spam, according to Jack G. Michael, a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division at the Department of Justice. He was addressing the US House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Direct Marketing Association oversight hearing, titled "International Email Spam Links to Organised Crime and Terrorism".
Making the link to terrorism Malcolm said, "Organised crime syndicates are frequently engaged in many types of criminal enterprises, including supporting terrorist activities".
Malcolm could not cite an actual case where spam was linked to terrorism, but said, "it would surprise me greatly if the number were not large".
The Direct Marketing Association head James Valentine continued the terrorism theme in his written submission to the hearing.
"September 11 changed the way Americans look at the world. It also changed the way American law enforcement looks at spamming crimes," wrote Valentine - borrowing from a November 2002 article in the Customs Service newsletter US Customs Today.
The Department of Justice's war on spam was boosted recently by the indictment of 40-year-old Ray Hugh Griffin, of South Wales, as co-leader of the worldwide spamming group SpendToSave.
The extradition of Griffin - known by the online alias "SanNiBel" - will be sought "in the coming weeks," according to US Attorney Peter J McCarthy.
Griffin's indictment is the latest action arising from "Operation Mountaineer" - a joint US Customs and Department of Justice investigation which has seen 20 people convicted.
Operation Mountaineer has seen spammers put behind bars for several years. Similar penalties should apply to college students sending unsolicited messages using chat applications such as Gaim and MSN, Congressman John Carter - a Texas Republican - told the congressional hearing.
"I think it'd be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids," said Carter.
"If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody's got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for sending unsolicited emails."
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Spam is a covert communication channel that is completely immune to traffic analysis on the receiving end (since it's broadcast to so many people, and there's no way of telling if one of them is reading another message steganographically hidden in the p3n!s pill ad). Spam offers the Internet equivalent of a numbers station [spynumbers.com] broadcast.
Maybe the Feds have gotten a clue (in either sense of the phrase), and are anal-probing some spammers (using fraud, cracking, etc as probable cause and leverage) to investigate this possibility.
Redundant yet necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
Please bear in mind, this is not a victory of honest folk over spammers, but a victory of spammers who are members of the DMA over their competitors. The DMA got a law passed which allows them to keep spamming but can be used to make business harder for non-DMA members. That's good business and I think the DMA have done _very_ well for a lobby with no initial political clout or connections.
Just don't interpret this as some new ideological initiative. It's simply an investment by the DMA which favors the DMA and hurts their competitors
.
Re:Redundant yet necessary (Score:3, Informative)
Read as: "Dozens cracked in spam slamdown" (Score:2)
On a totally unrelated note, does anyone have an alloy baseball bat?
Love the excuses for avoiding prosecution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:T-Minus Five Minutes & Counting... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:choral delight (Score:2, Funny)