SEC Halts Trading on Spam Driven Stocks

goombah99 writes "The SEC has taken action to halt transactions on spam-touted stocks. Presumably this opens an opportunity for denial of service attacks on stocks. However, to be effective spam generally must target penny stocks with historically low volumes and thus the actual capitalized market impact or effect on the companies for a temporary shutdown can be expected to be negligible and transient. One example was given of a touted apparel stock jumping from 6 cents to 45 cents over a period of days before settling down to ten cents a share and near 65,000 or about $6500 in transactions (an eighth of the peak share volume, and a 50th of the peak transaction value). In other words, the market distortion of a brief shutdown, even if it were a DOS attack, would be massively less than the integrated spam surge. The thing I found surprising was that for this to be an effective measure with human oversight then the number of such events must be relatively small in number. From the amount of spam I get I'd have guessed it was a tidal wave."

Comments

Readability?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

One example was given of a touted apparel stock jumping from 6 cents to 45 cents over a period of days before settling down to ten cents a share and near 65,000 or about $6500 in transactions (an eighth of the peak share volume, and a 50th of the peak transaction value).

Can someone please lend cowboyneal some punctuation marks?

Check out how this summary scored on the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level:

The text you entered has been checked, and scored as follows:

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 38

Ideally, web page text should be around the 60 to 80 mark on this scale. The higher the score, the more readable the text.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 14

Ideally, web page text should be around the 6 to 7 mark on this scale. The lower the score, the more readable the text.

Gunning-Fog Index: 22

Ideally, web page text should be between 11 and 15 on this scale. The lower the score, the more readable the text. (Anything over 22 should be considered the equivalent of post-graduate level text).

Notes:

Average syllables per word: 1.69

Average words per sentence: 26

Re:Readability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your IQ index: 80

Ideally, you should have an IQ in the triple digits to understand ./. The higher the score, the easier it'll be for you.

Re:Readability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it never be said that you are a little bit anal about spelling and grammar...

Re:Readability?

[afaik_ianal]

But if you paste their own introductory text into their tool, they score 49, 11, and 18. All of these scores are worse than "ideal".

I had no problems with the sentence you had troubles with. I also fail to see why making it hard for all the 12 year olds (and adults with similar language skills) is such a bad thing for Slashdot.

Re:Readability?

[MarkChovain]

It looks like Reagan is going to say? Ummm... Oh yes, I was looking for. I'm so glad I remembered it. Yeah, what I have wondered if I had committed a crime. Don't eat with your assessment of Reagon and Mondale. Up your nose with a guy from a firm that specifically researches the teen-age market. As a friend of mine would say, "It really doesn't matter"... It looks like Reagan is holding back the arms of the American eating public have changed dramatically, and it got pretty boring after about 300 games.

        People, having a much larger number of varieties, and are very different from what one can find in Chinatowns across the country (things like pork buns, steamed dumplings, etc.) They can be cheap, being sold for around 30 to 75 cents apiece (depending on size), are generally not greasy, can be adequately explained by stupidity. Singles have felt insecure since we came down from the Conservative world at large. But Chuqui is the way it happened and the prices are VERY reasonable.

        Can anyone think of myself as a third sex. Yes, I am expected to have. People often get used to me knowing these things and then a cover is placed over all of them. Along the side of the $$ are spent by (or at least for ) the girls. You can't settle the issue. It seems I've forgotten what it is, but I don't. I know about violence against women, and I really doubt they will ever join together into a large number of jokes. It showed Adam, just after being created. He has a modem and an autodial routine. He calls my number 1440 times a day. So I will conclude by saying that I can well understand that she might soon have the time, it makes sense, again, to get the gist of my argument, I was in that (though it's a Republican administration).

Re:Readability?

[svunt]

I agree that the summary above is utterly horrendous, but I just took a very simple, very readable email and ran it through the same tests, and got almost identical scores. Syllabic intensity and sentence length aren't everything.

Re:Readability?

[Siker]

I second that opinion. This test is just another lowest common denominator search tool. It makes it easier to write text for children, which is good if you're writing for children, but perhaps not so good if you're writing for adults. Remember, to reach the sky you must aim for the stars. If you instead aim for the smallest child you can see, I think you're not doing so well.

And not only because you're aiming at innocent children. :)

Re:Readability?

[SEWilco]

I get "simple, very readable email" all the time. "This stock will really move soon!"

Re:Readability?

[hotdiggitydawg]

Can someone please lend cowboyneal some punctuation marks?

Check out how this summary scored on the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level:

The text you entered has been checked, and scored as follows: Funny you should mention that. Your post scores even worse:

The text you entered has been checked, and scored as follows:

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: -3
Ideally, web page text should be around the 60 to 80 mark on this scale. The higher the score, the more readable the text.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 15
Ideally, web page text should be around the 6 to 7 mark on this scale. The lower the score, the more readable the text.

Gunning-Fog Index: 22
Ideally, web page text should be between 11 and 15 on this scale. The lower the score, the more readable the text. (Anything over 22 should be considered the equivalent of post-graduate level text).

Notes:
Average syllables per word: 2.4
Average words per sentence: 6.33

Re:Readability?

[mandelbr0t]

Pedantry is only funny when it's painfully correct. Slash ('/') dot ('.') is correctly abbreviated as '/.'. Luckily there's lots of smart dyslexics, so I won't speculate on your intelligence, just nitpick your nitpick. :)

Re:Readability?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain you meant "... there are lots of smart ...". :-)

Re:Readability?

[pipingguy]

Definition of "anal" (not relating to "bumriding" or "butt sex"): "Excessive" attention paid to one specific topic; pedantry. Usually used as an insult towards those who explore deeper into a subject than the whiner can comprehend. Origin: likely from early years of toilet-training where removal of feces is taught.

What spam?

[Seumas]

I don't understand what "spam" the SEC is discussing, here. Didn't we eliminate spam a few years ago when congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act?

And if we're going to halt transactions during periods of heavy spam for a particular stock, why not halt transactions during periods in which pundits in print, radio and television are promoting or demoting particular stocks? Or, even better, how about we just not worry about it in the first place because anyone that is stupid enough to base their investment decisions on email campaigns should suffer their own stupidity.

Re:What spam?

[zappepcs]

As annoying as spam is, I agree with you. It doesn't matter how the stock info is spread about the community, there should be no reaction to it, especially because it is deemed bad because someone is sending emails about it.

If traders wanted to setup technological means, they could entice investors to play a part in what would amount to a botnet interacting with the stock exchange, except that it would be perfectly legal. Just one text message and 500Million in trades is made in the next 20 minutes. Spam is not the kind of problem that the stock exchange needs to be worrying about. period.

Re:What spam?

[shird]

Because those 'stupid' enough to go out and buy those stocks give the spammers incentive to continue. Spamming people like you and I who don't buy the crap.

Re:What spam?

[UbuntuDupe]

I don't understand what "spam" the SEC is discussing, here. Didn't we eliminate spam a few years ago when congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act?

The CAN-SPAM Act didn't eliminate spam. Most people still get spam.

*please mod informative, please mod informative*

Re:What spam?

[MarkRose]

Because those 'stupid' enough to go out and buy those stocks give the spammers incentive to continue. Spamming people like you and I who don't buy the crap.

Who is to say that others aren't taking advantage of the spammer's work? If you can buy early and sell a day later, I imagine there'd be a lot of profit to be had.

Re:What spam?

[garcia]

Because those 'stupid' enough to go out and buy those stocks give the spammers incentive to continue. Spamming people like you and I who don't buy the crap.

Some people might be playing the penny market and could be oblivious to the fact that one particular stock is being pumped and dumped by the spammers. I know someone that invested several million shares in one of these companies only to find it frozen for the next 10 days while the SEC investigates.

Just because we wouldn't buy the stock after seeing the e-mail doesn't mean other people wouldn't buy it because they are playing in the market.

That said, plenty of people (possibly like Slashdotters) see the spams and buy those stocks knowing that it's going to be used as a pump and dump.

Re:What spam?

[Volante3192]

This, of course, goes against much of the suggestions from /. before on this topic, in that the SEC should get involved in this penny stock spam trading and put a halt to it because spam stock could be traced back to whoever makes the biggest deal on it in the end.

Can we make up our minds here? I'm getting confused what I should be a zealot about...

Re:What spam?

[Volante3192]

If you can buy early and sell a day later, I imagine there'd be a lot of profit to be had.

That involves knowing which stocks are going to be spammed on the next day. Good in theory, but while IANASB (stock broker) I don't think portfolios of penny stocks are very common, so it'd require a lot of guesswork unless you're in the loop

Re:What spam?

[finity]

Actually, if you invest intelligently, knowing that the stock you're investing in is being promoted by spam, you can make money. Buy low, sell a few hours later (or days, or however long these things historically take to reach a peak). It'd be kinda fun to try this method out, but I don't care that much...

Re:What spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this kind of thinking is exactly why it works: people think that they can beat the system and buy fast enough to make money.

By the time you get the email, it's too late. All you're doing is supporting the spammer.

Re:What spam?

[McFadden]

Who is to say that others aren't taking advantage of the spammer's work? If you can buy early and sell a day later, I imagine there'd be a lot of profit to be had.

Unfortunately I'm a little thin on the details, but I distinctly remember reading that at least one of the big investment banks has a team that does exactly that. i.e. monitoring the 'net to try and pick up as quickly as possible on pump'n'dump stocks in order to maximize any remaining value from from the spammers activities.

Re:What spam?

[MarkRose]

I doubt it would be too difficult to get a few thousand email addresses, get them spammed, then scan incoming emails for new stocks. You don't have to get in before the spam hits, just before the wave crests, that's all.

Re:What spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if we're going to halt transactions during periods of heavy spam for a particular stock, why not halt transactions during periods in which pundits in print, radio and television are promoting or demoting particular stocks?

Because one's illegal and the other isn't. Got brain?

Re:What spam?

[hugorxufl]

Crap, so, what am I supposed to do with all of my shares in HRL (Hormel)?

Re:What spam?

[1u3hr]

You don't have to get in before the spam hits, just before the wave crests, that's all.

There was a story on the economics of these scams a few months ago. One conclusion: no, you can't profit riding on the coat-tails. One reason is that penny stocks are very thinly traded, you can't instantly buy shares. By the time your order is processed, it's too late. You're buying from the pumpers as they cash out (of course, they bought in days before). And they only average about 5% gain.

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/21/202 9210

Re:What spam?

[1u3hr]

That said, plenty of people (possibly like Slashdotters) see the spams and buy those stocks knowing that it's going to be used as a pump and dump.

The best scams are those that make the sucker think he's pulling a fast one. It doesn't work. The "smart" people trying to cash in on this lose.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id =920553

"Before brokerage fees, the average investor who buys a stock on the day it is most heavily touted and sells it 2 days after the touting ends will lose approximately 5.5%. For the top half of most thoroughly touted stocks, a spammer who buys at the ask price on the day before unleashing touts and sells at the bid price on the day his or her touting is the heaviest will, on average, earn 5.79%."

You think you can squeeze a profit while the spammer is cashing out and the price is falling, good luck. They know the game, you don't.

Re:What spam?

[larry bagina]

Who is to say that others aren't taking advantage of the spammer's work? If you can buy early and sell a day later, I imagine there'd be a lot of profit to be had.

Congratulations. You're the kind of idiot that loses money chasing these penny stocks and makes the spam profitable. Next time, be sure to suggest short selling to get double retard points.

Re:What spam?

[Seumas]

I'm not really sure that "invest intelligently" and "sell a few hours/days later" belong together unless you manage a hedgefund. For that matter, what serious investor plays in penny stocks?!

Re:What spam?

[bhima]

Shame I can't mod you as "missed sarcasm"

Re:What spam?

[jonbryce]

That's what a lot of the victims think. In reality, it doesn't work like that.

Re:What spam?

[livewire98801]

"-0.5, Sarchasm"

I'd use the hell out of it when I had points, along with a "-1, idiot"

Re:What spam?

[DrHyde]

Don't be silly, spam stopped thanks to the efforts of those wonderful people at Microsoft. You don't honestly think *government* can do anything do you? No, it's all down to the free market!

Re:What spam?

[Mateo_LeFou]

Um... you guys are both going to need a "-.5, Missed Very Dry Humor" to go with that. UbuntuDupe's post was clearly intended to be funny.

Re:What spam?

[bhima]

Oh... I'm sure it was meant to be funny but it failed.

in any event I hadn't heard 'sarchasm' before so it's all worth it.

Re:What spam?

[mrchaotica]

You think you can squeeze a profit while the spammer is cashing out and the price is falling, good luck. They know the game, you don't.

Sure you could, by shorting the stock while the spammer is trying to cash out. Unfortunately (as I learned the last time this was discussed on Slashdot) you're not actually allowed to short-sell penny stocks (or something like that).

Re:What spam?

[um... Lucas]

You are allowed to short any stock you'd like. Problem is, those shares need to be borrowed from somewhere (typically, a hedge fund, mutual fund or pension fund). Since none of those sources are likely to have any holdings in your penny stock, there simply aren't any shares available to be borrowed. And if there were, rest assured, the spammers would have already acquired those lonng before sending out the first email.

Re:What spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh indeed yes you are.

Get yourself a real broker, preferably offshore.

There exists a world beyond US borders, didn't you know America exists more outside its own borders than it does inside it.

Re:What spam?

[fatphil]

"You're the kind of idiot that loses money chasing these penny stocks [...]"

Do you have any evidence for that, or are you just frothing at the mouth and throwing accusations around wildly?
From here, it looks like the latter.

Re:What spam?

[fatphil]

Too late? Then bear rather than bull.

It may be politically correct to say that these horrible nasty illegal spams cannot be exploited, but that doesn't make it true.

Re:What spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

This spam... tracking your loses from investing in spam stock!

Re:What spam?

[dr_dank]

Unfortunately I'm a little thin on the details, but I distinctly remember reading that at least one of the big investment banks has a team that does exactly that. i.e. monitoring the 'net to try and pick up as quickly as possible on pump'n'dump stocks in order to maximize any remaining value from from the spammers activities.

Given how many of the pump n dump boiler room schemes are Mob-backed, I'm surprised that this bank hasn't been visited by goons protecting their turf. Getting between the mafia and their money is about as sensible as punching a baby bear in front of its mother.

Re:What spam?

[maxume]

They are generally stocks that are very difficult to short, as no one will 'loan you the shares'.

Re:What spam?

[maxume]

There shouldn't be participation limits on IPOs either, but low end investors generally don't think in terms of risk exposure and then complain to the government any time they lose any money at all, so it makes sense for the trading companies/industry to protect idiots from themselves, so that they don't have to deal with them later.

Re:What spam?

[mgblst]

Just spend all your money on penny stocks, as many different ones as you can. Wait for the invariable spam to do the rounds, and sell at a high. You can easily treble your money.

Re:What spam?

[1u3hr]

Sure you could, by shorting the stock...Unfortunately (as I learned the last time this was discussed on Slashdot) you're not actually allowed to short-sell penny stocks

So what's your point?

Re:What spam?

[1u3hr]

Too late? Then bear rather than bull. It may be politically correct to say that these horrible nasty illegal spams cannot be exploited, but that doesn't make it true.

Not politically incorrect. Impossible.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/shortsell ing/shortselling1.asp
"There are many restrictions on the size, price and types of stocks you are able to short sell. For example, you can't short sell penny stocks and most short sales need to be done in round lots."

Re:What spam?

[jonbryce]

You need to already own the shares to do that. And the sort of companies they pick on are small caps where it is unlikely that you already own then.

Re:What spam?

[hedwards]

People try, and it rarely works out well. One of the problems is knowing exactly when the spam started circulating. As well as trying to guess when the spammer will stop.

And in any case, if you get too good at it you are liable to have the SEC knocking at your door after a couple of successes.

In short the practice is nearly entirely downside with very little in terms of reward.

Re:What spam?

[Joebert]

You don't have to get in before the spam hits, just before the wave crests, that's all.

Actually, you do have to get in before the spam hits if you want to be sure to get rid of all your shares & cover fees.
If anyone profits from theese things without knowing they will happen beforehand, it's an amazing stroke of luck.

Re:What spam?

[Some_Llama]

"sensible as punching a baby bear in front of its mother."

But what if the baby bear has it coming? It takes a forest to raise a bear, or so they say...

Re:What spam?

[finity]

It seems to me that if you got a stock spam email, the motive of the person sending the email is to temporarily increase the amount a company is worth before selling it. The spammer could buy stock in the company before promoting it, then once it reaches a certain level they could sell. The point at which they sell could also be time based, as in, after 1 day the spammer sells their stock.

It should be feasible to play the market in the same way if you're not the spammer. The trick is to jump in and out at the right moment so that you don't get stuck. I'm no investor, but it seems like information about stocks is available with very frequent updates. It should be possible to determine if you're one of the first people buying into the stock, or if you'd be one of the last. If you're one of the first, you'll purchase the stock at a relatively low point. Then, over the course of a few hours or days, more people will buy on and the stock price will rise, at which point you can be disciplined enough to sell your stock. The tactic works at least moderately well for the spammers (or they wouldn't be doing it), so why not make it work for you? This is most certainly a short term type thing. In fact it's so short term, I'm not even sure it should be called investing. Maybe that was the problem with my original post.

I wonder what the activity of past spam-stock looks like. It might be possible to determine some kind of trend for past performance that would be useful in predicting future spammer behavior.

It's unfortunate that thinking differently than the rest of the Slashdot crowd garners a mod of flamebait. That just sucks. Many people here say that the folks who invest in spam stocks are idiots, but I just want to point out that maybe the smart ones aren't. You might think they're assholes, but they're not idiots. If there is a flaw in my logic, please let me know. Here are a couple of links to studies and information done about this method.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/21/202 9210
http://www.crummy.com/features/StockSpam/

Re:What spam?

[McFadden]

Given how many of the pump n dump boiler room schemes are Mob-backed, I'm surprised that this bank hasn't been visited by goons I think many would consider the investment banking industry and organized crime to be one and the same.

Pro-spam server

[gmuslera]

Would be nice to see at last a mail server that discards all legitimate mail and keeps just the spam, because could be the fastest way to be a step ahead of the people that receive that.

Re:Pro-spam server

[symbolset]

They have this. It's called hotmail.

Re:Pro-spam server

[flyingfsck]

How about spamradio: http://www.spamradio.com/ A whole pro-spam broadcasting system.

It's about time...

[bitkid]

So it finally payed off that I forwarded all my spam to the SEC :-)

The current amount of stocks advertised by spam is human-manageable (see http://www.spamnation.info/stocks/ for a list of about 15 spamvertised symbols), and it will probably stay that way, because there are not that many companies that have the volume and the price such that spam will have an influence on the price; I think that is a very sensible solution for the spam-problem in that domain; I wish they could do something like that for medication-spam as well...

Re:It's about time...

[value_added]

The current amount of stocks advertised by spam is human-manageable

Maybe yes, but according to the fine article:

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said that not even the investor protection agency is immune to the onslaught of stock-related spam. He said the SEC's public affairs director, John Nester, received an e-mail touting the stock of one of the 35 companies.

``Not even the SEC's spam filter can stop all this spam,'' Cox said.

Rather funny, if you think about it; at one level, this could be a case of the Spamming the Wrong Guy. What isn't so funny is reading the trading volume numbers and being reminded that there's people out there who do read their spam.

Re:It's about time...

[Stephen Samuel]

What isn't so funny is reading the trading volume numbers and being reminded that there's people out there who do read their spam. when you're spamming 55 million people, you're bound to find a few dozen suckers willing to part with their money in hopes of a quick buck.

Or, as I like to say: "A one in a million shot isn no big deal when you've got 25million bullets".

some things to remember re: microcap/pink sheets:

[artifex2004]

1) these are companies that can't get listed on regular exchanges. Either they're too new or small to afford the fees, or they don't have the financials that the exchanges require.
2) this is a big one: the market makers may not report every single transaction and every price change, or every minute or hour. You're used to seeing the market change, and having updated info pretty quickly after a trade. "Real time level 2 quotes" and all that. Guess what? These are thinly traded. Some report daily. Some report every couple of days. Some report weekly. Unless you check, you don't know. If you see stock trading for 5 cents one week and 25 cents the next week, you don't know if it really is going up, or if it went to 10 dollars in the middle of the week, and all the pumpers jumped, and 25 cents is the reported figure on the way back down. You just don't know.

Go here for some more information. Really. Don't think about these without being sure you know the risks.

(Also, I have to say, while the information I gave in #2 was deemed correct when I worked for a broker, I was never a licensed broker myself. So don't take my word for it still being completely true. I see that a company called pinksheets.com offers what they say are real time quotes now for dealers, but they're neither a NASD broker-dealer nor SEC-registered, so... who knows what that means? Ask your broker and do your own research. Be sure and ask your broker what it means when you try to sell "at market" on a pink sheet, too, if you're assuming you're going to be able to get out quickly :) )

In a race between weapons and armor ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Presumably this opens an opportunity for denial of service attacks on stocks. However, ... the market distortion of a brief shutdown, even if it were a DOS attack, would be massively less than the integrated spam surge.

Two platitudes:
  - In a race between weapons and armor the weapons eventually win.
  - To end a war you must defeat the enemy.

My bet: Once this goes into effect the spammers will adapt. Expect the result to be a bigger problem.

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[TubeSteak]

My bet: Once this goes into effect the spammers will adapt. Expect the result to be a bigger problem.

Assuming the SEC creates an effective system, what are the possible results?

1. Pump N Dump Spam goes away
2. Spam volume increases, but the SEC's system halts trading of those companies
3. Spam volumes are tailored to raise prices in a more natural fashion and the SEC doesn't catch the new behavior

Of those results, #3 is the only one in which the Dumpers will make money and even then, it won't be nearly as profitable.

Platitudes are nice, but honestly, you're going to have to do better than that to backup your conclusion. Especially since your second platitude isn't 100% supported by history. Two examples off the top of my head are The Korean War & The Six Days War

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[greed]

Problem with the spammers hoping #3 works is, a bunch of us report stock pump'n'dump scams to the SEC. The SEC is not watching the trading patterns only.

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[Pollardito]

you forgot option 4: the SEC doesn't do as good of a job of catching these as they'd like to and it keeps going on just with a slightly lower hit rate

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[cdrguru]

We're still fighting the Korean war. It isn't over by a long shot. Check how many US troops are sitting on the border waiting for the invasion that hasn't happened yet.

Israel is still at war also. Every country that was in the Six Day War still has a no-trade policy with Israel and pretty much is supporting people killing Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Sounds like to unresolved, continuing wars to me.

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously have no clue wtf you're talking about

North and South Korea want to increase the amount of trade between their countries. Partially by expanding the commercial cities on the borders & partially by opening up borders. The U.S. is doing the most to hold back progress.

As for Israel...

Egypt & Jordan completely withdrew a long time ago. Saudi Arabia said they were going to remove the ban (but haven't yet). Most countries evade the ban, without formally declaring they will no longer uphold it. Syria & Iran (who didn't participate in the war) are the only two countries who strictly adhere to the boycott.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_politica l_boycotts_of_Israel
All of this is old news.

Re:In a race between weapons and armor ...

[BillX]

Or the spammers offer "protection" as their moneymaker over the meager 5.79% of spam touts.

Hey, YKNZ corp... we at SpamHell Inc. were just about to pump 'n dump your penny stock, but this would cause an immediate SEC trading halt! So, we'll offer to cease and desist for the low, low price of....

instead of banning everything

[Kanasta]

when not just educate the users and let the ones that don't listen die cruel horrible deaths and be a lesson to others?

Re:instead of banning everything

[Tweekster]

Because people are stupid, they will fall for this stuff, cause problems for others then demand from their leaders that something be done.

Re:instead of banning everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately educating people on how to deal with spam isn't as easy as it sounds.

At my workplace, there are still people that need to be warned about internet banking scams, etc that are sent to their work email address. It's not as if there are no efforts being made to educate people. People just don't want to think before they act.

If there were a way to ensure that dealing with spam incorrectly could result in a cruel horrible death, it would be a very quick lesson for the others, but the IT industry would then be under fire from headlines like: 100 dead in latest wave of spam.

I realise it is a figure of speech, but this could be analogous to problems with many different approaches to educating users.

Re:instead of banning everything

[larry bagina]

Consider this: Slashdot is supposedly full of intelligent people. I expect around 0% would buy viagra or penis enlargement pills from a spam that can't even spell them correctly. Yet in every story about stock spam (including this one), around 50% of the comments are people who think you could make money by a) shorting the spammed stock(1) or b) buying the stock and then selling it after it goes up 5% (2).

1. For penny stocks/pink sheets, shorting is pretty much impossible
2. The same rationale of every other buyer. You're not as smart as you think you are.

Re:instead of banning everything

[Paulrothrock]

That would be a great idea if everyone were completely independent. When someone declares bankruptcy, it affects me.

Re:instead of banning everything

[mgblst]

Not just stupid, there is nothing wrong with being stupid. But greedy and stupid will get you into trouble.

Stupid is sitting watching Big Brother on tv all day. Stupid and greedy is applying for every get rich quick book, going to every talk, etc.

Too late.

[sakusha]

By the time the SEC decides to act, the pump and dump is already over. These scams happen in the space of a few days. Blocking trading on a group of stocks that have already been pumped and dumped is futile. As the submission suggests, if they could act promptly by blockign trading immediately after a spams, that would effectively be a DoS attack on a stock trading, any spammer could initiate one. The SEC needs to go after the spammers, not the stocks.

Re:Too late.

[king-manic]

They might use a heuristic. If X stock rises > 100% over 30min stop trade for 5h. that might actually eliminate most profitable pump and dumps.

Re:Too late.

[Paradise Pete]

The SEC needs to go after the spammers, not the stocks.

It's not very likely that the companies are completely innocent. All sorts of crap goes on. Often the entire company exists only to try to fleece unsophisticated investors.

Re:Too late.

[larry bagina]

They're called penny stocks for a reason. If a stock is trading at $0.05 a share, a 100% gain isn't meaningful (buying a couple hundred shares could do that)

Re:Too late.

[kerrbear]

Blocking trading on a group of stocks that have already been pumped and dumped is futile

I don't understand this. Given that nobody will buy the stock until they recieve the email, the SEC could easily monitor the spam and shut down trading after they see it. I'm guessing they could be faster at stopping the trade than grandpa is in buying it. Or am I missing something?

Re:Too late.

[gbjbaanb]

Admittedly, the SEC might act too slowly, but we're assuming the spammers need a few days to pump the market up, and that they will not sell until the stock has risen a certain amount. So, the SEC only has to stop trading of the stocks *before* the spammers have sold, then the spammers will have placed a load of money into stock they cannot sell. When trading resumes, these stocks will have their price set at the level it was before the pumping began.

Hopefully, when the spammers then try to sell the ton of stock they hold, they will depress the price. Personally, I like the idea of the spammers holding loads of worthless stock :)

Re:Too late.

[carlos92]

A couple hundred shares would be 10 dollars...did you mean a couple hundred bucks?

Re:Too late.

[sjwest]

well even so - but if the sec investigate and find that x - sold $x.xx worth of shares - they might well find the spammer, and take action via a fraud charge.

Dumb investors could then sue induvidual 'x' when made public. - Its a start

gee, thanks SEC

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a moral imperative in a capitalistic society for the smart to profit off the stupid? Like Warren Buffet said in the recent letter to shareholders: "When someone with experience proposes a deal to someone with money, too often the fellow with money ends up with the experience, and the fellow with experience ends up with the money."

Re:gee, thanks SEC

[-brazil-]

Isn't it a moral imperative in a capitalistic society for the smart to profit off the stupid?

No. Capitalism concerns itself with economical imperatives, not morals. What you're thinking about is Social Darwinism. The two are not the same, despite the attempts of many to blur the distinction.

Re:gee, thanks SEC

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is founded on the institution of private property. If you don't think theft and expropriation are moral issues, you're a fool.

Ready to explode

[psaunders]

From TFA:

The SEC said it launched an enforcement effort to protect investors from potentially fraudulent spam e-mail promoting small company stocks with phrases like, "Ready to Explode," "Ride the Bull" and "Fast Money."

Now, Fast Money I get. But if I saw the phrase "Ready to Explode" in spam, to me that would suggest something pretty far from small company stocks.

And "Ride the Bull" is something else entirely...

"Operation Spamalot"

[Anonymous Coward]

An Associated Press article adds: "The suspensions are part of an SEC effort called 'Operation Spamalot,' which began last fall."

Ni!

Fax Spam

[bizitch]

I am hoping that they are including Fax spam when they mean "Spam"

This seems to be the biggest driver for fax spammers - the old pump-n-dump

Its popular with them because they don't have to ID themselves with a real callback number(s) - they don't want any calls they just want you to bid up that stock.

I am also hoping that they use this as a means for trapping and busting spammers (both email and fax)

Shouldn't the SEC (or whatever) be able to look at all the perfectly timed trades on the victim stock and track down who they were?

Wrong answer to problem

[winkydink]

All this does is give bad guys a new way to extort money from companies. "Hey, Mr. CEO! Wire $50k to my egold account by Friday or I'll send pump&dump spam and get trading suspended on yoru company's stock."

The right answer is to unroll these trades and see who is profiting. Then start doing some analysis on the brokerages associated with these trades, because I'm willing to bet we're talking about "less reputable" brokerages. Now pull their securities dealer's license. Do you think that would cause other brokerages to look more carefully at sudden large volume trades on previously thinly-traded stocks? I do.

Re:Wrong answer to problem

[Dachannien]

The stocks involved typically have such low volume that they may not even trade at all some days. Once the IPO is complete, the CEO probably doesn't give a rat's ass if his or her stock gets halted for a few days.

Re:Wrong answer to problem

[1u3hr]

Hey, Mr. CEO! Wire $50k to my egold account by Friday or I'll send pump&dump spam and get trading suspended on yoru company's stock.

Why should the CEO care, unless he's about to cash out himself?

Re:Wrong answer to problem

[winkydink]

A company's market capitalization affects it's ability to borrow money / obtain credit. What's the market cap of a company on which trading has been suspended?

Re:Wrong answer to problem

[Anonymous Coward]

A company's market capitalization affects it's ability to borrow money / obtain credit.
Marginally. Institutional lenders are much more interested in assets and cash flow.

What's the market cap of a company on which trading has been suspended?
Exactly the same as it was before the temporary freeze was put in place.

Does the U.S. enforce securities laws anymore?

[nbauman]

Pump and dump violates the securities laws, right? The SEC's own web site calls them "fraudulent".

So why can't they track these guys down and prosecute them? The SEC has a pretty good investigative force. They tracked down Martha Stewart. They subpoenaed her phone records and everything.

You have to buy these stocks from a broker, so that leaves a paper trail. They have to report stock purchases to the IRS, if nothing else. You can't buy stocks with stacks of currency, can you?

The guys who are behind the pump and dump schemes by definition will buy the stock at the beginning, send out 10 million spam to get the suckers buying, dump the stock when the price goes up, and leave the suckers holding the bag.

So why can't the SEC track these guys down through the brokers, and prosecute them for this pattern of buy and sell that is obviously fraudulent?

Will somebody who understands this better than me explain to me why the SEC can't enforce the law?

Re:Does the U.S. enforce securities laws anymore?

[larry bagina]

Martha Stewart wasn't convicted of fraud, insider trading, or anything blatantly illegal. She was convicted of lying to a federal investigator (during the investigating of a "crime" for which she was never charged). Just like Libbey, who was convicted of lying (or perhaps misremembering) during the investigation of another non-crime.

Think that over for a minute. It smells an awful lot like entrapment, doesn't it?

Re:Does the U.S. enforce securities laws anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

The SEC and other financial regulators are fairly slow to wake, but when they get going they can be unstoppable juggernauts.

Re:Does the U.S. enforce securities laws anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Martha Stewart wasn't convicted of . . . anything blatantly illegal. She was convicted of lying to a federal investigator (during the investigating of a crime.

I have no idea how you can call that anything but blatantly illegal. It's not even close to entrapment. She had plenty of money for lawyers and was convicted. Clearly what she did was illegal. Same with Libbey. Why did they lie when the truth wouldn't have gotten them in trouble (your claim), we'll probably never know for sure, but I sincerely doubt they are as blatantly innocent as they pretend to be.

Re:Does the U.S. enforce securities laws anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is not the goal of the SEC to enforce the law. The SEC is in the back pocket of the Big brokerages, where all SEC employees eventually end up with cushy jobs.

Some of the stocks on this list that got halted weren't involved and weren't even being spammed. When the Market Makers and BigBrokers who are short in a penny stock get caught with their pants down they use tricks like this to bring the price back down so they can cover. Most of the time they just start disallowing online trading so you have to call orders in. This usually scares off enough investors so they can cover. Getting a stock halted just takes it to the next level.

ISPs that host zombies need to hurt.

[jthill]

It's time to stop tolerating ISPs that tolerate infected PCs. Is spam the only thing a zombie can do? No. Will this stop ddos botnets? Not a chance. One thing at a time, and spam leaves a trail. The Heinlein strategy: ~when you don't know how to solve a problem, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.~

Get as many as possible of the major email services - gmail, hotmail, yahoo, aol, all their equivalents in other countries - to backtrack inbound spam envelopes to a retail ISP. Crank up the heat on the worst offenders until they shut off zombies. Private warnings, name and shame, SMTP brownouts and blackouts, BGP blackhole.

The ISPs all have AUPs. Seems simple enough: they warn spam sources, point them at instructions and commercial offers of help for a full disinfect, then if they stay infected shut them off until they pay for an ISP-provided (and expensive) brainwipe. That'll make lots of new niches in which the scum who'd otherwise be sending spam can turn a buck, and take the load off everybody but the clueless.

Now, obviously, this is *too* simple somehow, or otherwise somebody'd be doing this already. What is it?

Re:ISPs that host zombies need to hurt.

[livewire98801]

I totally agree. I worked at Speakeasy for a while, and they had such a policy. It wasn't that difficult to implament.

1) User 1234 has had 500 smtp connections open in the last hour, trip a flag.
2) If there are x number of flags tripped in y period of time, freeze account until customer calls in.
3) Restore account, include a grace period of z hours. If problem not resolved, freeze account again.
4) Inform use that the service will not be reactivated until they have cleaned the computer. If they claim it has been and the account gets frozen again, service is terminated.

Thats not the exact policy that Speakeasy has, but that's how I would have done it. Step one can be any easily identified trigger, SMTP connections, connections to known botnet systems (not sure how they did that), upload traffic pegged for a certain percentage of the time, etc.

If every ISP in the country started kicking customers on this criteria, spam originating in (insert country of origin here) would stop. Sure, we still have China and Korea to worry about, but it gets far more difficult to get spam out if your country is one of a few that sends spam. If messages come from paticular countries, the spam filter automatically kicks up a few notches.

Re:ISPs that host zombies need to hurt.

[The Master Control P]

ISPs won't do this because of the people who are their customers now. It's the fucking idiot masses. Here's an example:

Hi, I'm the dipshit with an infected machine that's spewing viruses, spam, and ddos over it's connection. I don't care that my ignorance is damaging to the Internet. I am entitled to be on it. Who cares that it's the most complex thing humanity has ever created, I have a right to use the Internet despite knowing nothing about how to be safe on it. And don't you dare suggest I educate myself, you elitist pig! You have no right to disconnect me because of the trojans, worms, viruses, and spyware riddling my computer, stealing my information, and wasting your bandwidth. If anything goes wrong, it's entirely your fault for not seeing into the future and stopping it from happening. I demand all the privileges of being an Internet citizen with none of the responsibilities. If you dare contravene my militant ignorance, I will scream at your tech support non-stop for hours on end and go to the first alternative provider who will let me remain dumb.

In the olden days, circa the mid 90's and earlier, the technical knowledge required to become a Netzien was it's own test. Now, there should be an explicit test that one must pass before being able to get a network connection. It should cover, for example: Basic network etiquette, setting up a firewall, the signs of malware and appropriate removal tools, and safe browsing habits. When you first get the connection, all outbound connections go to a study guide and a "take test" buttom. When you pass (80+%), the connection unblocks and you're free.

If a random scan or scans for common malware flag your connection, all connections except HTTP to anti-malware sites are blocked until another scan (at your request) shows you are clean. Of course, see above for "why this will not happen." As a stopgap, ISPs should insert clauses of "You will run a firewall; If you run Windows, each machine will be scanned for malware regularly" into their TOS :)

Re:ISPs that host zombies need to hurt.

[LordLucless]

Doing so pisses off customers. No one single ISP wants to be the first to do this, for fear of customers jumping ship to a more tolerant competitor. Unless some pressure is put on the industry from above (fines for spammy ISPs, etc) then this is never going to be implemented on a wide scale. Some small, forward-thinking ISPs will take steps, but the big ISPs catering to your average Joes will not.

Personally, I like my ISPs solution. Port 25 is blocked by default, but you can logon to your control panel and turn that filtering off if you want to. Those stupid enough to get zombied are usually also too clueless to turn the filter off - even if they wanted to. Granted, that doesn't prevent zombies, but it does reduce spam.

Re:ISPs that host zombies need to hurt.

[rajinder]

Now, obviously, this is *too* simple somehow, or otherwise somebody'd be doing this already. What is it?
The same thing it always is... profit. In this case the profit on increased network trafic by bandwith sellers - MaBell 2.0 bitches, recognize.

Why they have trouble tracking

[The Mutant]

First of all, the fraudsters aren't stupid enough to leave (much) of a paper trail; its common for them to use brokerage accounts compromised by phising. They execute their pump'n'dump via a stolen account, and by the time the dust settles the funds have been transferred.

Secondly, many of these folks operate from abroad and the amounts involved - in any single fraud - just aren't large enough to warrant the intervention of The Feds. Sad but true.

Because the market for these shares is so thin - most of the pink sheets companies will have market caps of less than one million dollars - the criminals can't fraudulently run huge amounts of money. So they perform a large number of smaller transactions.

Short of some organised crime indictment, The Feds won't get involved as the individual amounts are so damn small.

Re:Why they have trouble tracking

[Anonymous Coward]

No but they go after you if you download an mp3 :)

Priorities man!

Re:Why they have trouble tracking

[hotdiggitydawg]

First of all, the fraudsters aren't stupid enough to leave (much) of a paper trail; its common for them to use brokerage accounts compromised by phising. They execute their pump'n'dump via a stolen account, and by the time the dust settles the funds have been transferred. ...so, follow the trail then. They don't get transferred to thin air.

Secondly, many of these folks operate from abroad and the amounts involved - in any single fraud - just aren't large enough to warrant the intervention of The Feds. Sad but true.... The Feds won't get involved as the individual amounts are so damn small. Agreed that it's sad but true. But it's obviously serious enough to warrant attention and action by the SEC. There has to be enough evidence there already that this crime is organised. I'm sure they could get international authorities to help, even the IRS too perhaps? They took down Al Capone, surely they could throw their weight about here, maybe lean on a few brokers and banks...

Re:Why they have trouble tracking

[pjrc]

Because the market for these shares is so thin - most of the pink sheets companies will have market caps of less than one million dollars - the criminals can't fraudulently run huge amounts of money. So they perform a large number of smaller transactions.

Short of some organised crime indictment, The Feds won't get involved as the individual amounts are so damn small.

From TFA:

``Now that we have stopped the trading in these stocks, we will focus our attention on the people behind the spam and profiting from it,'' Schonfeld said.

He said the SEC is investigating the companies themselves as well as outsiders, and that the same people are likely behind multiple spam campaigns.

Also, from TFA:

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said that not even the investor protection agency is immune to the onslaught of stock-related spam. He said the SEC's public affairs director, John Nester, received an e-mail touting the stock of one of the 35 companies.

``Not even the SEC's spam filter can stop all this spam,'' Cox said.

Someone cynical might conclude, rather than being sensitive to suckers, er, investors losing their money, perhaps Cox got fed up with penny stock spam in his inbox, picked up the phone, and next thing you know, Schonfeld halted trading and issued a press release.

It remains to be seen if they'll actually find and shut down these scammers.

Re:Why they have trouble tracking

[cdrguru]

Bank privacy laws. The minute you leave the US, most banks will never disclose who owns a given account. Tracking transactions is impossible through just one layer of banks in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland.

Sure, the SEC and FBI can get Germany or UK to cough up some information. That doesn't work elsewhere. Russia? Probably not. Russia through A Cayman Islands bank? Forget it.

Expand the SEC jurisdiction

[Statecraftsman]

Too bad the SEC can't freeze the artificial erection and weight-loss markets.

Re:Expand the SEC jurisdiction

[Anomalyst]

WOW! Artificial erections can result in weight loss!?! What Canadian pharmracy has the best pricing?

SEC Public Affairs officer lost money too?

[flyingfsck]

From TFA: "SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said that not even the investor protection agency is immune to the onslaught of stock-related spam. He said the SEC's public affairs director, John Nester, received an e-mail touting the stock of one of the 35 companies." That would explain the crackdown...

MOD PARENT UP. Story impossible to understand.

[Futurepower(R)]

MOD PARENT UP! This is a new development among Slashdot editors: Stories that are impossible to understand.

Comments about poor editing are always on-topic.

Re:MOD PARENT UP. Story impossible to understand.

[1u3hr]

This is a new development among Slashdot editors: Stories that are impossible to understand.

You must be new here...

State electricity commision?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, I thought the state electricity commision vanished years ago when Kennet privitised everything that wasn't bolted down, plus a few things that were. I must be just so out of touch. Maybe I should buy some of there shares. Are they worth a penny?

We need a greater context here

[JRHelgeson]

The stock spam and pump-n-dump activities; while they do pose a threat to our financial systems, these actually represent the last step(s) in the chain for some very serious and very brilliant criminal activities. There is a much, much bigger story going on here that the public are not being told about.

Permit me to break it down for you:
The Phishers will phish usernames and passwords for brokerage accounts, or they will collect the information from personal users by means of a trojan. The criminals log into these accounts and schedule sell orders for whatever stocks they are holding, and schedule buy orders for the penny stock they are going to pump-n-dump. Then they walk away.

They execute the spam, eager traders read the spam, look at the account and see that volume of shares purchased have been bought up in the past n-hours and they jump in. The pumpers have bought their stock before hand and once the volume peaks, they dump. The account holders whose accounts were compromised are left holding the pumped-dumped stock...

The criminals are getting GOOD! They don't need to worry about transferring money out of the compromised brokerage accounts, they are stealing the money and laundering it all in the same step.

And it should be no big surprise that the criminal organizations behind the whole operations is the Russians.

Welcome to professional bank robbery in the 21st century.

*NOW* this is not to say that the traditional "boiler rooms" don't exist. They most certainly do and they continue to pose a serious problem which the SEC has addressed for many years. What is new is this most recent innovation that targets retirement accounts, day traders and even the average investor. The "tens of millions of dollars in losses" mentioned in TFA are coming from liquidated brokerage accounts. The SEC is in a panic to shore up or stop this exploit by suspending trading on pump/dump stocks. They're hoping to stem the hijacking of retirement funds by stopping the ability to get the money out.

See, when you view it through the proper perspective, within this greater context, now it makes sense as to why the Russian spammers and bot masters have suddenly gotten involved in the game.

I personally have communicated with the scammers & spammers, some of the conversations I have written about on my site, which includes screenshots of bank accounts that have been compromised by phishing, etc.

Re:We need a greater context here

[HappyEngineer]

I'm confused. At what point do they get money out of that process? You said "They don't need to worry about transferring money out of the compromised brokerage accounts", but if they're just using the accounts to pump the stock then wouldn't they still leave a trail back to themselves since they would have needed to own the stock in one of their own accounts in the first place?

The authorities would just need to look at the owners of these stocks who owned the stock before the hype and then see who sold during the hype. One time would be a coincidence, but if they were found doing that more than once then it'd be awfully suspicious.

Re:We need a greater context here

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a citation for that?

Most of these stocks trade so rarely that a buy order from a phished account would almost certainly purchase the stock that the phisher is selling.

At that point, sending spam is redundant.

Re:We need a greater context here

[FiniteElementalist]

Let me say what I believe he is saying. First step, the spammers decide on some penny stock(s), and buy up a good amount of it with 'real' accounts. Then, they go to compromised brokerage accounts which have someone's portfolio in them, and liquidate it (or set it to be liquidated in the near future). They don't cash out the money from selling those assets, but instead set the account to purchase large amounts of the penny stock in the future. Then they shoot off spam to increase the volume and price of the penny stock, and sell off their holdings to it while the compromised accounts buy it at inflated prices. So in the end the spammers have profits from turning the stock in their accounts, while the compromised accounts are sitting on a big pile of now worthless dumped penny stocks. It's a pretty cunning scheme, since they never attempt to directly extract the money from the compromised accounts and they mask their efforts in their real accounts by inflating trading volume. The SEC shutting down trades could help deal with this by preventing the compromised accounts from sucking up the large quantities of pumped stocks, giving more time for the account holders to realize that they have been compromised. However, they would need to be very quick on it, and it does have the potential for denial of service on stocks.

Re:We need a greater context here

[JRHelgeson]

HappyEngineer asks some good questions, first:

...if they're just using the accounts to pump the stock then wouldn't they still leave a trail back to themselves since they would have needed to own the stock in one of their own accounts in the first place? FiniteElementalist does an excellent job answering the question; I'll just recap in my own words:
The criminals/spammers/phishers purchase up the penny stocks using legit accounts starting at the time of the Pump/Dump email.
They watch the price rise, then sell off their shares.

HappyEngineer's continues:

The authorities would just need to look at the owners of these stocks who owned the stock before the hype and then see who sold during the hype. One time would be a coincidence, but if they were found doing that more than once then it'd be awfully suspicious. The third key component is disguising their activities, which is mixed in with the thousands of other "day traders" throughout the US and all over the world. Not only this, but one person buying up a penny stock is usually not enough to create enough market momentum to bring the price up over the standard 5% fluctuation one sees in standard boiler room operations. They need the participation of greedy traders to hide their trades and also pump the price.

The SEC investigates only to find out that the criminals exist well outside their jurisdiction. They can't just issue fines, which is why they're resorting to more drastic measures to stop these brokerage account pirates.

Think about it: The SEC is resorting to the potential undermining of our free market system to stop this pump/dump activity which has been going on for decades. Such a drastic move can only be justified if they are trying to counter a threat that poses an even greater threat to our economy.

The first commenter, AC asked for sources:
I do have one news article that talks about a small fry the SEC took down. However, Most of the sources I speak of are either first hand information that has become evidence in ongoing investigations where I am not at liberty to divulge the details. I can only speak in generalizations. I know this starts to sound conspiratorial ("I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you") but I really don't care if anyone believes me or not, I have nothing to sell here.

The empirical evidence alone supports my claims, which is why I don't mind divulging this information. Why else would the Russian spammers be involved in pump-n-dump schemes? Why else do you think there has been a major market shift away from spammers marketing hard-on pills over to marketing stocks? They're simply following the money.

As for that article:

Monday, 8 January 2007
SEC Freezes Assets of Alleged Stock Pump-and-Dump Hacker

Sophos, a IT security firm, has warned online stock traders to take care over their brokerage accounts following allegations that a man manipulated stock prices by hacking into other peoples' accounts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has convinced a court to freeze the assets of Grand Logistic, a Belize corporation located in Talinn, Estonia, and its owner Russian-born Evgeny Gashichev. Gashichev is accused of making USD 353,609 by manipulating stock prices in at least 21 companies by breaking into online brokerage accounts. His error was using a US friendly nation to host the brokerage account. That is the only reason anyone heard of this crime because he got busted.

SCOX Stock Spam Is what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey all those Spammers around if you can Halt SCOX stock trade for a Month I will open my mail box for your relay.

Here's some examples.

[jlebrech]

http://www.cybertopcops.com/stock-market-spam.php

Why is bullishalerts.com still around?

[mumblestheclown]

If you do research (via google) on almost any stock spam email you get, you will undoubtedly find yourself either at or reading a press release by 'bullishalerts.com'. For the life of me, I don't understand why this company / website still exists. It's clearly somehow intimately related with the spam as this place just happens to put out and then widely distribute through the web (as opposed to email) all sorts of press releases and other nonsense coiincidentally timed with waves of equivalent spam. the thing is, this is not some website in Nauru - they claim to have an office in downtown Philadelphia. The website, complete with vague nonsense crap and 8th grade writing sort of hints at the caliber of people running it - so why in hell hasn't the FTC or SEC done something?

Re:Why is bullishalerts.com still around?

[BillX]

Heh. I misread that as "bullshitalerts.com" 'Til I googled it I was thinking, "but why would the SEC shut down a site debunking all the spam touts?..."

I am no brain surgeon but

[Dragged Down by the]

Can't the SEC monitor the individuals who buy these penny stocks advertised by spammers? Compile a list for each stock. Those individuals who appear repeatedly would be the spammers, n'est-ce pas?

New spam spotted!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Dear Esteemed President or CEO of Tiny Company, USA,

My name is Oolong Mgobotu, a large scale SPAM operator from Nigeria. Please remit 100,000$ to the secret numbered 102-3459-949-222 account in Cayman Island. Or we will blast SPAM touting you stock to millions of US email addresses. Your stupid SEC will suspend trading on your stock and you will become a micro-penny stock. sincerely,

Oolong Mgobotu, BAR-at-Law, Adis-A-Baba, Nigeria.

Another scenario would be for the spammers to short the stock and then blast spam touting, and getting the company's stock suspended. With tarnished reputation these tiny companies would not survive.

Spammers and scammers are very nimble and they game the system faster than you can block the breaches.

all the sec has to do it

[night_flyer]

set up a honeypot, see what spam is coming in to see which stock is being pumped, then halt it on the spot.

Re:BUY 5C0X

[Notquitecajun]

Not a valid ticker symbol.

Commentor has reading comprehension problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have been reading too much spam if you can't understand compound sentences.

effect/than

[Anonymous Coward]

effect/than

...and thanks for all the fish

[TropicalCoder]

I found this discussion extremely informative, and I am grateful to all the people knowledgeable about stock trading who provided enlightening comments.

It was interesting to see the "stupid" ideas some people had who thought they may actually profit from getting in early on pump & dump scams, or by selling short. Thank God that I am certainly much smarter than these "stupid" people. Instead of displaying my ignorance for all to see, I watched and read others post the same doubts I myself may have posted (were I not so brilliant) and saw them get shot down, thus sparing me from displaying my own ignorance in public.

What I am trying to say here in a very round about way is a comment on the tendency many of the technical 1337s on Slashdot have of calling everybody who doesn't have our level of knowledge "stupid people who deserve what they get". This is not an attitude worthy of a professional. If we have more knowledge than others, it is our duty as members of human society to help others with our knowledge, not to put them down and call them stupid. I believe that pretty much everybody has the same number of brain cells, only some people have had more opportunity or motivation to inform themselves better in certain areas than others. All have the same claim to being a member of our human family. I would suggest that if we could develop our humility and humanity to the same level as our technical skills, we would benefit from a more gratifying life.

Re:...and thanks for all the fish

[iamcf13]

I would suggest that if we could develop our humility and humanity to the same level as our technical skills, we would benefit from a more gratifying life.

That won't happen as long as greed, advertising, inflation, and 'consumer culture' exist in this world.

All 4 are chiefly responsible for the extreme wealth disparity in this world.

The people that suffer the most are the 'working poor' / unemployed in 'first world' nations.

Abundance surrounds them but they don't have the opportunity or resources (if at all) at hand to take advantage of them.

Is it no wonder that the USA leads the way at having the most people per capita in jail due to crimes motivated by the 4 factors mentioned above?

Oh the irony

[SephBot]

Espion International was one of the companies shut down by the SEC. Their primary product is spam elimination hardware!

The .com bubble is over

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Of course the SEC is acting now. The Federal Senators and Representatives have already made their millions from their priveleged position in the know. Now it's time to ensure that the common people remain in debt.

Paper trail

[HomelessInLaJolla]

the fraudsters aren't stupid enough to leave (much) of a paper trail One might even go so far as to say that the laws are specifically written to leave loopholes in which to hide the paper. The closer you are to the social circles which write the rules the better chance you have of knowing where and how to hide the paper.

Short of some organised crime indictment, The Feds won't get involved Due to their continued involvement the Feds should be the recipients of organized crime indictments.

Funny thing about Karma

[symbolset]

It's a shame funny points don't count towards karma on slashdot. I wish someone had modded this insightful.

It is really unfortunate

[symbolset]

that we cannot attach a toxic milkshake to a spam and bulk mail it to the entire Internet.

If we could, the Spam buying morons would drink it and log off.

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