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Alleged Spammer Charged

By TChris, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 12:05:00 AM EST
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Welcome news, if the accusation is true:

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web might notice a decrease in junk e-mail.

The charges, however, seem like overkill.

Last week, a federal grand jury returned a 35-count indictment against [Robert Alan] Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

Couldn't he just be charged with being an incredible nuisance? And sentenced to spend the rest of his life deleting spam emails from our mailboxes?

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    Alleged Spammer Charged | 18 comments (18 topical)

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    spammers do prosper. (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by cpinva on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 09:48:57 AM EST
    otherwise, why bother? although, in his case, he seems to not have prospered all that much.

    however, his actions, including flouting court orders, have cost millions of dollars, to other aggrieved parties.

    if the charges can be proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, he should be punished as the law provides.

    Overkill? (none / 0) (#1)
    by FaulknA on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 12:29:57 AM EST
    Surely you jest? If that charges are proven he needs a long vacation at the Greybar Inn.

    Sorry (none / 0) (#2)
    by FaulknA on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 12:31:39 AM EST
    If those charges are proven.

    Parent
    not overkill (none / 0) (#3)
    by s5 on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 01:18:53 AM EST
    This guy has a ten year pattern of giving the middle finger to courts that have issued multimillion dollar judgments against him on behalf of companies like Microsoft, all the while continuing to spam and asserting it as his "legal right". He has truly earned any heavy handed punishment he's about to receive. You don't get to break the law and evade the justice system for years without consequences. (Unless you're a Republican president.)

    Costs of spam (none / 0) (#4)
    by sphealey on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 09:02:18 AM EST
    > Couldn't he just be charged with being
    > an incredible nuisance?

    Having spent way too much of my life dealing with the frickin spam crisis over the last 4 years, I can honestly say that the cost to corporate America of dealing with spam runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.  With the arrival of the new federal court discovery regulations on e-mail archiving, and the resulting need for just about every entity in the US to install full archiving of all e-mail received including the spam, this cost will easily escalate into the billions of dollars per year.  These are not "industry analysts say" billions, these are real billions that I could easily quantify for you with some basic Fermi analysis.  And no, corporate e-mail administrators cannot just "run down to Best Buy and get at 200 GB hard drive"; real e-mails systems don't work that way.

    So this guy has repeatedly violated Washington State law, repeatedly violated court orders, and has imposed an estimated 20% of that excess cost on American e-mail users.  But people who aren't responsible for actually managing large-scale e-mail systems, and who are contemptuous of those who are ("techies" anyone?), think it is a joke.

    Thanks.

    sPh

    Spammers never prosper (none / 0) (#5)
    by peacrevol on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 09:11:35 AM EST
    I dont know if it's too harsh or not. If he's just spamming people and that's it, then why dont we just fine him bookoos of money and take his computer away...(wanna pi$$ off a geek? take his computer away) But if he's stealing people's identities, he surely needs a thrown book upside his head.

    He has ignored every fine (none / 0) (#6)
    by sphealey on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 09:26:11 AM EST
    > then why dont we just fine him bookoos of money
    > and take his computer away...

    He has ignored every fine that has been levied against him.

    > (wanna pi$$ off a geek? take his computer away)

    Ah, here we go.  Post 6 and the contempt gets rolling...

    sPh

    Parent

    sphealy (1.00 / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 10:46:45 AM EST
    You better call Best Buy about their "Geek Squad."

    Parent
    haha... (none / 0) (#17)
    by peacrevol on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 04:30:16 PM EST
    > (wanna pi$$ off a geek? take his computer away)

    Ah, here we go.  Post 6 and the contempt gets rolling...

    it could be worse...we could be talking about lawyers...

    He has ignored every fine that has been levied against him.

    Then why cant they put a per diem price on him and put him in jail until he pays back all the fines either with jail time or with $$$$$$$$?

    Parent

    WHAT? (none / 0) (#8)
    by dead dancer on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 10:34:23 AM EST
    We are truly becoming a prison nation.

    It's email!! Harmless. If corporate America had its way with the internet, no blogs would even exist. If you choose to have an email address: deal.

    There are other communications avenues: mail, phone,  etc...  

    Instead of a mandatory civil service, I propose a mandatory jail time (sarcasm).

    spam is a generic term ... (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Sailor on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 01:19:54 PM EST
    ... for an mass deployed email that can contain anything from illegal scams to viruses to trojans to ...?

    And even if it was harmless, the sheer amount of it (about 36% of all email traffic) costs everyone in terms of bandwidth, connectivity.

    It is also used as a zombie container to take over other computers and use them to send out even more spam.

    If you choose to have an email address: deal.
    There are other communications avenues: mail, phone,  etc...
    If 36% of the phone calls you received were telemarketers that took up the same amount of resources whether you answered or not you might think diffferently.

    Parent
    36%? Try around 80-90% (5.00 / 1) (#19)
    by s5 on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 12:01:48 AM EST
    The 36% number is a few years old. The vast majority of email right now is spam.

    The only reason it appears otherwise is because of the tireless efforts of career spam fighters.

    Parent

    "It's just paper, who cares?" (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by s5 on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 11:59:11 PM EST
    "It's only email" is a poor rationale. Email has quickly become the world's most important tool for communication, and spam threatens email's very existence. Spam killed USENET in the 90s, so we've already seen what happens when spam is allowed to flow unchecked.

    It's like saying "it's only paper, if you choose to read books, that's your problem" in response to the arrest of someone disrupting all book publishing. Humans have a fundamental need to communicate, and someone who hijacks the means of communication threatens the freedom of speech for everyone.

    Parent

    heh (none / 0) (#10)
    by taylormattd on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 11:31:32 AM EST
    And sentenced to spend the rest of his life deleting spam emails from our mailboxes
    Maybe the judge will do this, what with the sentencing guidelines being merely "advisory" and all.

    that's cruel and unusual (none / 0) (#15)
    by Deconstructionist on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 01:27:03 PM EST
    punishment.

    Parent
    if this were the case, (none / 0) (#11)
    by cpinva on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 11:45:30 AM EST
    Couldn't he just be charged with being an incredible nuisance?

    practically everyone on this site could be charged! :)

    a good'un (none / 0) (#12)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 12:27:58 PM EST


    Parent
    Not just a nuisance (none / 0) (#13)
    by scarshapedstar on Fri Jun 01, 2007 at 12:49:47 PM EST
    This was wasn't just selling out viagra. He was a con artist and stole millions from gullible but decent people. A wannabe Ken Lay.

    I don't shed any tears for him.

    Alleged Spammer Charged | 18 comments (18 topical)

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