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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."
... or is that no longer necessary?
If you're the government, yeah.
Dumbass.
you got pink slip
you got fired
you got millions of pissed of aol'ers looking to hunt you down
you got ripped of ($25,000 for that many verified emails hahahaha)
you got sold out
you got jail time
you got your mom
you got no job
you got no unemployment for being fired for gross misconduct
etc...
reason not to use AOL.
As a computer, I am amused by the faith you have in technology.
www.thesmathers.com
Get it all here.
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
smoking gun has more info
superman runs linux
From The Smoking Gun:
Pair Nailed In AOL Spam Scheme Arrested in theft of firm's 30 million subscriber list
JUNE 23--An AOL software engineer was arrested today for stealing the company's entire subscriber list--totaling 92 million screen names--and selling it to a 21-year-old Las Vegas spammer. According to the below federal criminal complaint, Jason Smathers, 24, last year illegally accessed the highly confidential AOL list by using another employee's identification codes. Smathers, who worked in AOL's Dulles, Virginia office, then allegedly sold the list to Sean Dunaway, who used the AOL database to promote his own online gambling business and who also sold the list for $52,000 to fellow spammers, one of whom used the names "for purposes of marketing herbal penile enlargement pills," according to the complaint. AOL's subscriber base is about 30 million individual customers, who account for 92 million different screen names. Prosecutors also contend that Smathers subsequently sold Hathaway an updated AOL customer list--this one with approximately 18 million names--for $100,000. Both men have been charged with conspiracy, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. The Secret Service probe was aided by a spammer who purchased the two lists from Dunaway and is now seeking "leniency concerning his/her participation" in the AOL conspiracy, notes the complaint. (13 pages)