Florida Man jailed for 4 years after raking in a million bucks from spam

Re: My $0.02

On the other hand, when you "steel" money by robbing a 7/11, usually that involves walking in and threatening an attendant with bodily harm, sometimes with a weapon. You're also taking someone else's property (the cash in the register) directly, instead of being paid for work you actually performed, though in this case that work was performed in illegal and unethical ways.

I don't approve at all of what this guy did (and especially not of how he did it), and it's unfortunate that he pocketed a lot of money doing it, but in terms of effort to dissuade criminals I'm on board with in-person, physical robbery being penalized more harshly than using compromised servers as botnets for spam, even if there is a huge disparity in the gains.

If there's any aspect of this that I think might warrant a harsher penalty its the alleged material support of illegal narcotics sales. It's not clear that the authorities could pin that on him, though, since that's not something he ended up found guilty of.

Re: My $0.02

Just what unnecessary load does email place on the web? On the internet yes, but the web? Use a bloody email client, not a web browser for email.

Re: My $0.02

Here's what I think: The global disaster that is spam e-mail, and the loss, dysfunction, heart-ache, and unnecessary load that it places on the Web, should be targeted with -far- more serious penalties that "48 months" in prison

Apologies for throwing in some cynicism, but you're forgetting this is America.

Actually SOLVING the spam problem means that they (a) don't get to frequently confiscate a rather serious sum and (b) don't sponsor the nearest prison with tax money for 48 months (as they are privatised and need to maintain an occupancy rate).

Let me translate that: leaving the problem as it is, and only catching miscreants when they have made a lot of money represents a fat source of income. There is no chance anyone is going to mess that up.

Re: My $0.02

Every person who has every received one of his email should be allowed to punch him square on in the face.

Now that would be appropriate justice.

@Phil Endecott

Spam?

Where were you when Siegel and Cantor spammed USENET with their green card adverts?

(Do you even know what USENET is/was?)

The point is that its not that easy to catch and shut down.

It used to be that you would go after the ISP and shut down the pink contracts. SAVVIS was a big time offender.

But when they use a botnet and malware... you have to check out who is behind it and that takes time and a bit of luck. Its not that easy. (It also depends on how the botnet is controlled.) The only way to track them down is to contact a legitimate business and see who they signed on with and go after them. Until of course it leads to people off shore.

I do think that it would be nice that these guys get longer prison sentences. However... that will never happen. And of course they will always try to find another scam.

Ideally, I'd get one spam email and forward it to the authorities who would act immediately to shut down whoever sent it. In practice, the reaction to such reports is "you probably signed up for their spam but forgot".

You live in a different universe. Decades ago I would report e-mail based fraud to the RCMP address for that. What I heard back: silence. What I heard elsewhere: lots of reports of people being scammed, no reports of anybody in Canada going to jail for scamming them. Ditto for phishing e-mails spoofing a bank at which I actually held an account.

Mere spam. Well. I occasionally help a small number (3 ?) of individuals with computer problems. One of them was complaining about a particular spam stream. She swore up and down that she never signed up for it. As she never erased e-mails, the forensic trail was easy to uncover. There was a first spam, and it was from the purveyor, thanking her for signing up. It transpired that yes she did sign up for the spam, thinking to receive messages only about subject A, but in fact getting messages about subjects B, C, D, E, and F in addition. And lots of them. Another helpee doesn't sign up for anything, and if she receives spam, it is filtered for her by [ubiquitous free email purveyor].

In brief, if they actually do something about fraud attempts, I happily forgive their inaction on mere spam.

Sometimes when I look at these reports, I begin to think that they are fake news. Maybe not 100% fake, but at least doctored. For example, in this item, the bad guy did a plea bargain by agreeing to give back the money. So who receives the money? The people whose computers he botnetted? The spam recipients? I doubt it. There's something too trite about the story, so trite that I smell trout.

Ideally, I'd get one spam email and forward it to the authorities who would act immediately to shut down whoever sent it.

I admire your charming belief in the authorities, but I have already illustrated why I think that belief is misplaced, not to mention that a million forwarded emails will amount to a DDoS on such an authority. From a simple technical perspective, few people are capable of forwarding an email in a manner that preserves the original headers (not to mention that few email clients make this easy), and that's without referring to the tiny problem that such spam floods are typically proxied through compromised systems of others.

Personally I'd like to lock up spammers and force them to eat every email printed on sharp edged cardboard before they're let out, but I fear it's a problem we can only fix when we stop the average person from having their equipment subverted, and that's an effort that hasn't even started properly - it's still FAR too hard to do for the average Joe.

Re: moral panic

Otc codine in the uk has paracetamol mixed in. You can't take a narcotic dose of the former without simultaneously ingesting a fatal dose of the latter.

Prescription versions don't have the paracetamol on board.

Re: "He will have to forfeit all of that ..."

"Good!"

Agreed. Nevertheless I have a sneaking suspicion that he'll have pocketed a good deal more than was accounted for and will end up with a good rate of pay for his 4 years.

I've spent many years dealing with spammers and their victims - both the advertisers and the spammees.

Most advertisers are blissfully unaware that sending bulk email is mostly illegal unless "done right" and are happy to sign up for a glossy brochure and a smooth talker - it's worth noting that the vast majority of signups of otherwise reputable businesses happen via spammers treading the boards at tradeshows, introducing themselves as marketing experts and usiing the usual snake oil high pressure selling techniques we all know and hate.

Responsible businesses generally learn pretty fast thanks to the tsunami of complaints they get and general business losses resulting from the spam campaign - which can be substantial and most spammers demand payment in advance. (Then there are Joe Jobs... spam sent by someone purporting to be from a 3rd party in order to deliberately damage the 3rd party)

Unfortunately there are some who decide the pain is worth it, the ones who do it twice are of the same ilk as the spammers - entitled sociopaths who usually cry "free speech" when confronted and "victim" when the tables get turned (see: Alan Ralksy, or Donald Trump)

The long-term way of eliminating spam is to punish the companies which hire spammers - even for a first offence, but with increasing fines if they continue. That way only criminals will hire spammers and spammers knowingly involved in a criminal enterprise are usually part of organised crime groups that the smaller players will steer clear of. (The mafia hates competition, etc)

4 years isn't long enough. But it's a start. I just hope that his activities are tagged when released so that if there is any other source of money found, it can be confiscated too.

Re: Small potatoes

25 years with only $40,000 per year tax free. Bummer.

"Forget it Jake, it's Boca Raton."

Florida is home to many scammers due to the large population of retirees (easy targets) and laws which prevent losing your home if convicted or bankrupted

He used other people's computers without permission

Depending on how that was done, it may be fraud in the truthiest sense.

One could also argue that taking money for bulk-emailing services that were done by stealing computing time and resources from 3rd parties is defrauding the customer buying those services.

Thiugh that is rather hard to justify as a concept when payment is by conversion rate, rather than per email per recipient.

That implies a knowledge on the part of the customer that said bulk emailer is not entirely legitimate...

Re: Joint enterprise

So then you can put some competitor/enemy out of business by spamming pretending to be him?

This is not even unheard of now (there's even a word for it - 'joe job'), as there are already lots of other downsides to being spamvertised.

Besides, very little spam, percentage wise, is for any sort of legitimate business. At most it's "legitimate" in that you actually get the pills you ordered, or something resembling them, but it's gonna be from Nortern Farawayistan and not Canada despite the name of the pharmacy...

According to Chambers Dictionary pled is an alternative to pleaded ("Spenser, Scot, US and dialect").

It is commonly used in reports of Scottish court cases so presumably is the term used in court.