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AOL Employee Arrested in Spam Scheme
LostCluster writes "The AP, Reuters, and AOL's own CNN/Money are all reporting that AOL employee Jason Smathers has been arrested and accused of taking a list of 92 million screennames from the internal AOL system, and selling it to another man, who allegedly used it 'to promote his own Internet gambling business and also sold the list to other spammers for $52,000'. Not surprisingly, Smathers has been fired."
"You've Got Spam!"
That they didn't pay more for the list. I mean, the names of 92 million really clueless people who think AOL is "that thar interweb" would probably buy V1@GR@ by the case. Jesus, it would be a spammer's wet dream!
You've Got Jail!
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
I say make him answer AOL tech support phone calls. He'll beg for jail time after about a week.
... each one of those 92 million victims should be allowed to kick him in the nuts.
News just in :
In response to this 99% of AOL members surveyed who recieved the e-mail clicked on the link and frittered many dollars away at the casino making spam profitable and so continuing the downward spiral of e-mail.
One user replied saying : "I trust AOL so much when it comes to spam, they always send me the top dollar stuff like penis enlargement pills and always ask me to change my password on non secure sites and ask for my credit card as my account has been hacked. They care so much"
Is that it will be quickly followed by.
Welcome!
"You've got Bail!"
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
> rmgdrduckk5arp@hotmail.com
Thanks alot, buddy. And it was spam free until you posted it here.
Cellmate named Gerome who has been working out in the yard for the past half of his 20 year sentence and he's looking mighty hard at your well-fed, sedentary, badonka-donk behind.
You have the list with 92 million screennames? Ex----cellent, Smathers.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Damn Cruel and Unusual clause will stop it. I mean somethings are just too inhumane. He's ONLY a spammer....
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Smathers! Bring me the list of AOL subscribers!
*taps fingers expectantly*
Excellent...
no big deal, your submition will show up as a dup tomorrow
They're AOL users. If that list made it to the outside world, then they deserve what's coming to them.
a company that can't fire people at will is a company that will be burdened by excessive, redundant and unnecessary employees, and will cease to be efficient or make money
hey, leave those poor public servants alone!
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Ah! You've discerned that the common word for unsolicited bulk email is the same as the name of a spiced ham product, and have constructed a pun based on this overlap. How amusing. How refreshingly novel.
Mr. Burns ...
...
...
...
...
Hmmmmm, mmmmm! "SMATHERS!!!! YOU FIRED!"
Smithers
Emmm, "That's Smithers, Mr. Burns"
Mr. Burns
Hmmm. "Smithers - Smathers, whatever your reeaaaal name is, hmmmm - GET OUT."
Smithers
"But Mr. Burns!"
Mr. Burns
"OUT, OUT, OUT, I say - and no dilly-dallying, scoot, scoot."
~hylas
The complaint further charges that Dunaway later paid Smathers $100,000 for an updated version of AOL's customer list.
Huh!!
've been thinking all these days that only OS updates cost big money
What spam do you want to get today !?
I can kill cats with a microwave?!?!?
Only if can aim well, and have a strong arm.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
it seems to really only happen on new accounts though. old hotmail accounts dont seem to get spam, if you dont publish them anywhere.
I wonder if there could be a market for these.
Ebay auction #5723895739
one hotmail account. Fewer than 2 spams per month. starting bid $100.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
smather (verb) To have personal information sold to advertisers without your consent or knowledge.
"Man, I just got this new Hotmail account, but in less than an hour, it's been smathered!"
[DISCLAIMER: This post is a work of satire and should not be misconstrued as a holy text upon which to base a religion.]
That is not that hard.
All AOL has to do is give the list to a spammer and ask him to mass-mail the required information.
Privacy is terrorism.
It's a lot like goatse. You click on goatse and go "Oh, my eyes!!" I click on goatse and get an erection. We just see things differently.
Most people are
[X] evil.
Of all the ills you could accuse AOL of -- lowering the signal-to-noise ratio of the Internet, filling our landfills with CDs -- there is absolutely no evidence that AOL use causes erectile dysfunction ... ... you insensitive clod!
Haha. Nooo...AOL doesn't throw these CDs out. They just mail them to everybody!
Let's see: 92 million users get f**ked out of 10 minutes of their lives dumping the spam these fools send out...
.
I call for parity: 920 million minutes of community service for AOL's management and the two idiots. .
AS AN ARTIFICIAL REEF off the Florida (or New Jersey) coast.
It's clear from reading them that this guy was not one of the brighter people at AOL.
I'm talking about what that might have been not necessarily how they pinned the culprit down afterwards.
As for ground to a halt, I suggest otherwise. There is not a database on earth than could do a join on several tables (in this case screen IDs to account holders) without incurring a significant hit that could be detected. All it takes is for database responsiveness to be inexplicably twice as worse (although still responsive) for a few hours to attract the attention of admins. Every large company does metrics as a matter of course and it would stand out like a sore thumb. Attention means looking at audits etc. to see who is doing what. Attention begets alarm when it becomes obvious who is doing what. Alarm begets FBI. FBI begets arrests.
I mean, come on, how random is that?
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!