Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Phish spammer convicted under CAN-SPAM
This was on the business page in the Los Angeles Times. "An Azusa man who defrauded users of Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit by sending e-mails requesting credit data became the first defendant found guilty by a jury under a 2003 federal law barring Internet spam." (Link.)
The so-called "CAN-SPAM Act" (aka You Can Spam Now) doesn't actually ban spam, it legalizes it. It specifies a few things spammers must do to be "legitimate." No fake headers, valid "remove" mechanism, physical contact info. Almost all spammers ignore this law, as they ignore other laws. (In 1997 the Direct Marketing Association, fronted by an utterly clueless ACLU, killed the only reasonable spam law ever written in the US Congress.)
According to the story, this was a one-man phishing operation and the guy took in about a million dollars.
Four years to the first conviction. Sentencing in June. My prediction: the criminal positions himself as a "businessman" and gets a pat on the wrist. Fine and probation, and he doesn't even give up all the ill-gotten gains. At worst he goes to one of those "gentlemen's" minimum security places for a month or two.
Well, congratulations to AOL for pushing this through. We know the FBI doesn't move on these cases unless someone does most of the work for them.
The so-called "CAN-SPAM Act" (aka You Can Spam Now) doesn't actually ban spam, it legalizes it. It specifies a few things spammers must do to be "legitimate." No fake headers, valid "remove" mechanism, physical contact info. Almost all spammers ignore this law, as they ignore other laws. (In 1997 the Direct Marketing Association, fronted by an utterly clueless ACLU, killed the only reasonable spam law ever written in the US Congress.)
According to the story, this was a one-man phishing operation and the guy took in about a million dollars.
Four years to the first conviction. Sentencing in June. My prediction: the criminal positions himself as a "businessman" and gets a pat on the wrist. Fine and probation, and he doesn't even give up all the ill-gotten gains. At worst he goes to one of those "gentlemen's" minimum security places for a month or two.
Well, congratulations to AOL for pushing this through. We know the FBI doesn't move on these cases unless someone does most of the work for them.
