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SEC Lifts Ax For Minnesota Stock-Price Spammer
thejuggler writes "A call to Samuel Meltzer's St. Paul home is greeted with the message that he doesn't want to be bothered by solicitations. But, this story in a Minneapolis newspaper tells how the Feds and SEC claim he is a huge spammer. They claim he sends out spam spreading false and misleading information about various penny stocks. So far he has made at least $159,600 in stock and cash from 1998-2001 for spreading this false information. In a brief interview Tuesday, Meltzer (The evil spammer), 37, said he hadn't seen the complaint. "This is a surprise," he added."
So a spammer doesn't want to be bothered by solicitations. You won't need to take your iron supplements today, folks! There's irony a-plenty here.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We could rid ourselves of all these spammers if we just brought back the Spanish Inquisition.... although it seems as if the feds and SEC might already be getting their help....
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they are when you kill them.
Just wait until he tries to take a shower in prison.
This guy may well be mistaken identity, but if the allegations are true, he is surely in for a surprise. I don't know his state's laws, but let's hope they get in on the works.
I have given up communicating on stock boards mainly because of the nature of these kinds of posts - hype. But then again, I'm not sure what I was looking for in reading those boards anyway.
but if he only made that much money in the time said, that's not much better than a decently paid programmer. Is this guy really the big fish? how much money do the penis enlargers and 2 week MBA guys make?
I seem to remember a TV show about a 16 year old that made a lot of money this way, i.e. buy a lot of cheap stock in some company, send out thousands of email tipping people off: "Watch this stock, it'll really roof in a week". Thousands of other buy the stock and the price on it goes up.
I think he got to keep 500k or something, the rest was taken away (by who I don't remember).
Alleged evil spammer
Let's not commit libel here. He may be innocent.
Of course if he IS a Spammer, I'd saw we draw and quarter him.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Perhaps the lower and lower profit margains on this type of activity will eventually put an end to sonafabitches like this.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
(1) You (and I) get too much spam.
(2) Your e-mail system administrator (and mine) need to keep beefing up the servers because the sheer volume of e-mail is growing so quickly.
To a first approximations, filters solve (1) but not (2), and black hole lists solve (2).
whirlycott summarizes the problem with (2) in two words: "collateral damage." How much of the e-mail network do we need to destroy in order to save it?
We need to move past first approximations. We need systems that work at the server level, but that somehow address the problems of collateral damage and false positives.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Any network messaging medium is vulnerable to abuse by spammers. The problem started with Netnews, it continued with e-mail, it's happening now with instant messaging. We need at least high level solution that helps solve the problem regardless of prototcol.
I wish I had one.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
being spanish i can finally claim my very own cultural activity! hey the irish have their parades and drinking...! i want an inquisition, and i want it now!
Now, is the SEC gonna come and get me? What if I'm selling short?
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
While it's nice to see the "don't bug us, we're woefully underpaid and overworked" SEC finally going after one of these parasites, it's too bad they have to get geeked out about the whole spam bit to do so. That's only the tip of the iceberg on these pink sheet company abuses.
I got taken by a pink sheet bulletin board stock deal in the mid-90s. We put a good company and $15 million of local investor capital into what's called a dormant shell - a publically trading company that perhaps didn't make it in a former life, got kicked off of NASDAQ (or never made it), is probably late on SEC filings, and is operationally dormant. You can buy these things for a quarter million or so in Nevada, apparently.
The whole pitch is "you can go public for much less than an IPO, and get a publically trading stock which is much more liquid for your investors and allows you to get more investing money for less equity." The reality is that the shell's broker gets a credible asset in the shell to use for pump & dump.
The only problem is that every single one of them I've come across has had a controlling parasite "broker" in the middle - as was the one we encountered. The broker broke all the merger terms by refusing to hand over control of the company. He illegally siezed the company and the millions invested and looted it all. Ficticious board resolutions were used to change who could sign on the company bank accounts, etc. Offshore Bermuda accounts were used to funnel things to Swiss accounts - sounds hollywood, but it was very effective.
By the time the courts caught up with it all, the company was absent any cash or assets. The SEC's response? "Sorry - We have too many people doing this to be able to help you. Call your congressperson and ask them to increase our funding." Seriously.
Two years ago, I thought I found a company that had this background that wasn't a scam. WaveRider, a manufacturer of near-line of sight 900 MHz proprietary fixed wireless gear. Then I found the parasite, the Bermuda angle and the Swiss angle. It has since gone from $1/share to around $0.12. Like the best of these deals, the parasite retains competent management that really truly believes it has a chance. But they never do - not when legal control of the company is closely held by the parasite.
So... before you invest in a bulletin board stock, look for the parasite. Late on SEC filings? Run. See a Bermuda/Swiss connection? Run. Nevada corporation? Be very nervous. Read that 10K and 10Qs very, very closely.
Oh, and what ever happened to our parasite? He's still pushing his stocks and has avoided SEC and IRS enforcement for years. He's grown rather confident that he's untouchable and is probably right...
*scoove*
If you bring any moral charges against him, it will be like talking to a brick wall. He's already rationalized it all away in his own mind. Even though he will often bring the very same moral charges against other people, he will defend (or deny) his own actions down to the last detail.
It's called "hypocrisy". We all do it. However, when this guy does it, it's just a little more annoying.
...just my 2 gil.
They claim he sends out spam spreading false and misleading information about various penny stocks.
You mean to tell me that somebody's sending out spam with false and misleading information? Oh, come on now! Surely you're not serious! Next you'll be telling me that people are sending out spam with faked return addresses.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Can we settle on "evil alleged evil spammer"?
Here is the record of nanae discussions involving him. Here he is on ROKSO, the spamhaus.org register of known spam operations. The long-running pump-n-dump spammer. He finally got nailed, eh? Good! And we've already done Ralsky. Now for the diploma guy...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
They might also want to take a look at Britney_caught_xXx_HOTHOTHOT@hotmail.com as well. This young woman has cunningly persuaded me ( weilding the lure of false information and promises) to spend at least $8,550 on internnet "entertainment" between 1999 and the present. I demand that action be taken.
You forgot "fhqwhgads".
Shouldn't that be the alleged evil spammer? Come on, even spammers are innocent until proven guilty.
No, we called him evil, so that makes it OK. You should pay more attention to GW Bush.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
if someone were to link to documents that have his address in them.
r Re lief.pdf
http://www.wa.gov/ago/pubs/ChippynetComplaintfo
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with spammers? ...because they're... Videogames?
... A spammer!
Peasant 1: quarter them!
Sir Bedevere: And what do you quarter, apart from spammers?
Peasant 1: More spammers!
Peasant 2: Videogames!
Sir Bedevere: Correct. Now, why do spammers quarter?
Peasant 3:
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether he is a Videogame?
Peasant 1: Dominate Japan with him!
Sir Bedevere: But don't we also dominate Japan with excessively cute rodentia iconography?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Now, do videogames withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: No, no... Throw him to the Trolls!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else does not withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: Apples!
Peasant 2: IIS!
Peasant 3: Very small rocks!
Peasant 2: Debian! KDE Mirrors for minor upgrades!
Peasant 1: Mindstorms Segway Scooters!
Peasant 2: Beers cooled by Jet Engine exhaust!
Peasant 3: Matrix Movies!
Peasant 2: The RIAA!
Peasant 3: Churches! Churches!
King Taco: Atari 800s!
All Peasants: Ooooooooo....
Sir Bedevere: Exactly! So logically...
Peasant 1: If... he... computes as fast as... an Atari 800... he's a videogame.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore?
Peasant 1:
Peasant 2: A Spammer!
crowd: A Spammer! A Spammer!
Bedevere: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of mob logic?
King Taco: I am CmdrTaco, King of the Geekins.
Bedevere: My liege!
The ______ Agenda
I've been on the more pleasant side (if there is one) of SEC investigations, and one thing they do which is kind of cool is investigate everyone around the person first - particularly in insider trading.....then when they've compiled the data, they contact the potential guilty party - for example, I work in Mergers & Acquisitions and we represented a public company in a sale. SEC investigated some trades right around the announcement - and first asked for a list of people at my company that knew about the deal...they then sent us lists of people - ie, do you know any of these people...without any other info.
So maybe this guy will still get it. These guys piss me off - primarily because they are capitalizing on ignornace - it's no different then a cheap con.
That there are mail servers bouncing mail from *.cn and *.br is a start, but think of it, what if the 'net at large just said that these people don't exist? It's true that it blocks the innocent users as well, but think of the domino effect: innocent users on foobar.com.br can't read google, bitches at sysadmin, threatens attrition (or just simply votes with his feet and moves to foobaz.com.br). Management sees bottom line, asks why, sysadmins say people are moving off because they can't talk to the 'net through them. Management *theoretically* investigates why and determines the reason they are no longer on the 'net is because they let a spammer sign a pink contract with them and people gave him the Internet Death Penalty.
So yeah, it's a nasty way to go, but it closes another door and tells the rogue admins that we ain't gonna take it no more.
This sig no verb.
jonathan lebed
;-P
anyone remember this kid?
read the new york times magazine article i linked to if you aren't familiar with his story. it absolutely floored me. great story.
15 years old, made at least $250,000 in six months
the amazing thing about this kid is he settled with the SEC... they BACKED OFF prosecuting him because at the time, shortly before the stock bubble burst a few years ago, his lawyer was ready to make an issue of the illegality of what he was doing... inflating stock prices through hype.
the problem? think about it: what was going on at the time via PROFESSIONAL stock info outlets?
same damn thing
makes you think, doesn't it?
made the SEC think at least, they backed off, so the kid actually cleared some profit (a small percentage of whatever he actually made... no one knows for sure, but not bad for a 15 year old)
amazing!
jonathan lebed: if you're at some university today, lurking on slashdot, my hats off to you for staring down the whole damn SEC
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think you accurately measure the damage this guy has done. He made $160k. Not much on the Enron/Worldcom Pimping Scale (TM), I agree. But in order for him to make a buck, a certain stock has to be pumped up with the hard-won cash of countless small investors. These people collectively lost much more than $160k when the bastard dumped the stocks.
It's not a zero-sum game. Like most other criminal activity, each dollar of illicit profit is actually creating tens of dollars of damage. So we're talking millions of destroyed wealth here.
Also, don't forget that countless other shitbags would be thinking twice before attempting pump-and-dump schemes now thanks to this deterring case.
Be thankful to the SEC that they finally condescend to catch the kind of miserable bastards that defraud the small people, instead of devoting all its time licking the wounds of multi-billion investors.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Any network messaging medium is vulnerable to abuse by spammers. The problem started with Netnews, it continued with e-mail, it's happening now with instant messaging. We need at least high level solution that helps solve the problem regardless of prototcol.
...and most of all...
So, how do you get the word to motivate people to act on this mushrooming problem? One way that I can think of is by giving them a new way to think about it. Relate it to something that they understand...
Spam is not junk mail.
Spam is litter on the information superhighway.
Its trash. Pure and simple trash that gets in the way of people communicating with each other. And pretty soon this garbage will be everywhere. On the sides of roads, in the streets, in our driveways. We won't be able to go anywhere because of this TRASH.
Besides...your POSTAL MAILBOX isn't about communication anymore. The only kinds of mail you get in your postal mailbox are BILLS and your MAGAZINES and NEWSLETTERS and CATALOGS. Come on, does anyone send US mail now except for at the holidays? Or to grandma? Except, heck, Grannie's on AOL now, too.
That's what the word SPAM was coined for. (The history of the word is a different topic for a different (overly rehashed) post.) But the fact was, a new word was needed and SPAM arrived to fill the need: To let people know that this wasn't regular junk mail. Pretty much ALL postal mail (besides checks) is junk mail, anyway...
But SPAM is too soft. Too cuddly. SPAM doesn't convey the sense of urgency that is needed...
I think it would be effective if people started calling it for what it is: Trash, Garbage
Pollution!
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.