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First Four People Charged Under CAN-SPAM Act

Posted by michael on from the world's-smallest-violin dept.

friedo writes "Four people in Detroit have been charged with emailing fraudulent sales pitches under the new federal CAN-SPAM Law. 'They were accused of disguising their identities in hundreds of thousands of sales pitches and delivering e-mails by bouncing messages through unprotected relay computers on the Internet.'"

13 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sadly, I doubt this will make any difference - they'll just forge more headers.

    1. Re:Good. by Steve+B · · Score: 5, Informative
      And in a spammer's case, moving over seas doesn't even involve literally moving himself / herself and family over there. Everything can be done remotely.

      Nope. It doesn't matter if he relays his computer crimes through the Spirit Rover commlink -- if he's phyically in the US and the Feds have the evidence, he can be arrested and charged.

      Bottom line: If the Feds are serious about enforcing the law (which is the real rub), a spammer needs to physically get his ass out of the US, unless he doesn't mind having said ass traded back and forth for ciggies.

      --
      /. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
    2. Re:Good. by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The really sad part is that it took 10,000 complaints, before anything was done about the fraud.

      As weak as this law is that is still a little unfair. Do you think the Feds can instantly go and toss someone in jail based on a few complaints? They need to investigate it themselves before they can do anything. That takes time. For all you know the investigation itself started after they received the first complaint about these morons.

      I don't think you want a society where they instantly throw you in jail based on a few complaints submitted over the Internet.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    3. Re:Good. by ista · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The really good part is that this time proxy spammers are being caught by help of a fake proxy network.

      Usually proxy spammers aren't being caught because the open proxies don't have any useful logs at all.

      This time a fake proxy network created the illusion of an open proxy to the spammers, but really captured the incoming traffic with source ip adresses into logfiles, so the federal agents had some ip adresses to investigate into as well as spam samples to use for evidence.

      Together with those logfiles and the spam samples, it's pretty easy to catch the bad guys, but without such information, it's almost impossible to get them.

  2. Four charged... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now we just need four convicted.

  3. And what about... by Tuxedo+Jack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can't they be charged under 18 USC 1030 for illegal access to systems? If they were relaying messages through machines, odds are the machines were trojaned, and that's considered illegal access.

    http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030_ne w. html

    --

    Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
  4. maximum penalty? by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 5, Interesting

    just curious how much they could be potentially sentanced for?

    any chance they would see the inside of a jail cell over this?

    or is it just a monetary fine (i.e. slap on the wrist)

    people who do this should be banned from technology a-la Kevin Mitnick

  5. Why not go after the buyers too? by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I mean we arrest people for soliciting sex right? [Despite the fact that both sex and commerce are legal... :-)].

    So why not make it illegal to buy wares from spammers who don't identify themselves [which keeps the door open for free speech by allowing people who do identify themselves a way out]?

    E.g. buy V1c0din from "HornyToad@hotmail.com" and get a 2000$ fine. Sadly the only way to really enforce this would be to send out spam themselves....

    Or what they could do is when they catch a spam operation keep the website/email live and catch the people trying to buy the stuff.

    Anyways, if you make people who are already leary about buying X.@.n.4.x from people off the net even more leary it hurt their business that much more.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  6. Re:Four little fish.... by idesofmarch · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is the first prosecution, and by the nature of it being first, there are no others, so it seems like an isolated effort. Are you saying there should never be a first? Under that logic, there is never any point in doing anything.

    I am particularly pleased the government is charging the guy for unauthorized relay. As shocked as he may be at the visit from authorities, I am sure his victims were equally shocked when they discovered that hundreds of thousands of emails were being relayed through their servers.

  7. Agreed - Re: Good. by Allen+Zadr · · Score: 5, Informative

    This simply a case for the Federal Trade Commission. The inclusion of CAN-SPAM law into the criminal charges is merely an after thought (as I mentioned before):

    From the Article:

    Investigators said they consulted Dr. Michael D. Jensen, a medical professor at the Mayo Medical School, who confirmed that ingredients in the weight-loss product sold in the disputed e-mails wouldn't work.

    By this, as well as the FTC's involvement (see FTC link above), this is a simple case of fraud. The CAN SPAM sentancing guidelines provide for tacking an extra couple of years to the sentance in such a case.

    The addition to CAN-SPAM in this case will only serve to attract more attention to the problem of E-mail fraud. My previous statement remains, "an extra 1 to 3 years tacked onto a felony conviction is nothing compared to the sentance that is already being faced."

    --
    Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
  8. Re:Four little fish.... by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to Shiksaa, they're Alan Ralsky's little fish. Nail him, and the world's spam load really will drop.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  9. Re:Note this detail: by Havokmon · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So they do act. Everybody, remember to forward a copy of all your spam to uce@ftc.gov as well as the usual post to nanas and LART to abuse@wherever. It seems that if the FTC build enough info on a spammer then they really will do something about it!

    Yep.. I was one of the domain owners who was joe-jobbed by these guys, and contacted by the FTC to provide them with copies of the complaints that I recevied.

    Apparently anti-spam/anti-virus services were the main targets of their joe-jobbing.

    That was a few months ago, February to be exact. It wasn't public because they didn't want to scare these guys off before they were ready.

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
  10. My Neighbor Worked on This Case! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He is a federal prosecutor based in Chicago and they have a wide latitude to pursue cases as they see fit. They set up hundreds of email honeypots and pursue any scams, false claims or in this case bunk medical products that are being peddled in spam. He didn't give me any details but he said - "Wednesday we are nabbing some perps..." and sure enough! Another thing he indicated to me was that they can choose their own path of pursuit... he personally likes to go after the 'Award Notifiation' scam - Send us $25 for your reward up to $10,000. That kind of thing. He is currently closing in on one of these individuals... bank accounts all over the world etc. Cellphone spam is another one of his pet peeves because a lot of carriers charge two cents or something per message received - so I forward all of my spam (10,000 pieces a day at least) into one of his honeypots to help his pursuit. Be warned spammers and scammers, there are very smart people who go to work everyday to catch you and they can subpoena server logs all along the way to find you. [+] sniper scope.