All Hail King Spam!

[Che Guava]

Annoy enough people, and you could end up with a life sentence!

US arrests internet 'spam king'


A man nicknamed the "spam king" for allegedly sending out millions of junk e-mails has been arrested in the US.

Robert Soloway, 27, was arrested in Seattle, Washington, after being indicted on charges of mail fraud, identity theft and money laundering.

Mr Soloway has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Prosecutors say Mr Soloway became one of the world's biggest spammers, using computers secretly infected with orders to send out millions of his e-mails.

Such computers are known as "zombies" because their owners often have no idea they have been hijacked for another purpose.

Identity theft laws

According to prosecutors, Mr Soloway was responsible for tens of millions of unsolicited e-mails promoting his own company between November 2003 and May 2007.

He is said to have frequently changed the web address of his internet marketing business to avoid being caught.

A US lawyer said Mr Soloway was the first person to be prosecuted for sending out spam e-mails using federal laws against identity theft.

Prosecutors want to seize the sum of $773,000 (£391,000) that Mr Soloway is said to have made from his firm.

If convicted of all the charges, he also faces a fine of $250,000 (£126,500) and a maximum prison term of 65 years

link (not spam!)

A scourge of the internet brought to justice...on a sadder note, I might have to look harder for penis enlargement deals now...

 

[Rambuchan]

Can someone please expand (no penis enlargement pun intended) on how folk like this actually make their money? Is it simply through there being enough idiots in the world that fall for their spam email offers?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Can someone please expand (no penis enlargement pun intended) on how folk like this actually make their money? Is it simply through there being enough idiots in the world that fall for their spam email offers?

I am sure he was able to erect some sales, after all, too many men think solely with their head.

 

[Rambuchan]

I am sure he was able to erect some sales, after all, too many men think solely with their head.

Evidently it is indeed an easy market to penetrate, and his company experienced strong growth, before the whole thing exploded that is.

note to self: must do better next time.

 

[LordRahl]

Can someone please expand (no penis enlargement pun intended) on how folk like this actually make their money? Is it simply through there being enough idiots in the world that fall for their spam email offers?

It's all about cost vs. return. How much does it cost to send an e-mail? Even if only 1 ouf of 100,000 spam emails gets a response you're ahead of the game. And we can safely assume there are more than 1 ******s in a 100,000 sample...

 

[Abaddon]

Its all about scale, the bigger you are, the less you have to do.

 

[JonnyB]

All he wanted was his piece of the pie.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Evidently it is indeed an easy market to penetrate, and his company experienced strong growth, before the whole thing exploded that is.

note to self: must do better next time.

He should have had some kind of protection against such a thing.

 

[dutchfire]

And here I was thinking this was about Perfection

65 years in prison seems to be a bit overdone though

 

[Urederra]

Just think how many accounts has he impregnated with his junk. I hope he'll do some time behind bars.

 

[Fifty]

Can someone please expand (no penis enlargement pun intended) on how folk like this actually make their money? Is it simply through there being enough idiots in the world that fall for their spam email offers?

I bet that once the last generations of people who didn't grow up on the internet die out, spam will make less and less sense.

At least all the people I know who fall for that crap are 40+yrs old.

One lady I know is the most gullible moron I've ever met. She believed her 10th grade daughter (who is far from the brightest bulb in the closet) got accepted to Princeton University because she got an email from a scam honor society with a P.O. Box in Princeton, New Jersey. Sent $100 to them. Gave away all her bank info and social security number and everything else because she was prompted to after signing up to "get thousands of dollars a week spending 5 minutes a day filling out surveys" via a spam email. She also frequently freaks out over those popup ads that are like "warning: your computer may be infected. download someprogram now to prevent system failure", and has applied for "you are the 1,000,000th visitor" prizes on many occasions.

 

[Masquerouge]

I bet that once the last generations of people who didn't grow up on the internet die out, spam will make less and less sense.

Definitely. But by then a new technology will have popped up, and we will be old enough to be its victims...

 

[Godwynn]

65 years? That's it? I would push for the death penalty.

 

[Che Guava]

65 years? That's it? I would push for the death penalty.

You might get your wish, in a roundabout way...

"Me? I'm serving life for murder and aggravated assault. you?"
"Uhhhhh....life for internet spam..."
/shivved in the back/

 

[Sparta]

Nice, Che Guava.

Only time will tell if spammers will manage to displace pedophiles as the absolute bottom rung of the prisoner hierarchy, but if anyone could pull it off, they should be able to.

Some creative prison guard should photocopy a ton of sheets of paper with random crap like "S1ze Matt3rs!!1! Click h3re!!!one!" and then throw crumpled up ones at him every time he tries to get some sleep. Guards could even have paper airplane contests with them to see who could hit the jerk from the furthest distance away, or with the most artistic flight path. Preferably, this could be done in shifts for the entirety of the maximum 65-year sentence.