Spammer Robert Soloway Arrested

Mike writes "Yahoo is reporting that US prosecutors captured Robert Soloway, a prolific Internet marketer responsible so much junk e-mail they called him "Spam King." Soloway was arrested in Seattle, Washington, a week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and e-mail fraud. Soloway is accused of using botnets to disguise where e-mail originated and of forging return addresses of real people or businesses for his mass mailings. If convicted as charged, Soloway will face a maximum sentence of more than 65 years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars."

Comments

give hima real punishment...

[gbjbaanb]

..... make him delete all the spam emails he sent out, individually.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[aussie_a]

While that might satisfy our need for revenge as individuals, as a society aren't we suppose to seek the rehabilitation of criminals such as Robert Soloway? If so, I doubt very much punishing him in such a manner would rehabilitate him. It would simply urge him not to get caught next time, although it is of course quite impossible for him to do it hence the silly moderation. Although I imagine many people are thinking "Yeah! We should do that! Really make him suffer!" I think we need more behaviour modification specialists (including psychiatrists) over the simple cry for vengence when we make laws against spamming. Otherwise we simply get laws that say a spammer should be put in jail for 65 years rather then laws which actually seek to rehabilitate the spammer.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[giorgiofr]

Rehabilitate him, you say. Is he ill? Is he handicapped? Is he being manipulated? No. He made his choices and got caught. Now it's *retribution time*. Yeah, revenge. Criminals commit crimes deliberately, I don't see why we should assume that they are somehow to be "saved", saved by what I ask? Their own decisions? I lead a somewhat free life just like they do, they have always had a choice, they chose to commit crimes, and now they get caught and suddenly it's "think of the criminals" time? No way. Rehabilitation works for people who *care* about social acceptance. This kind of people obviously do not care.
However I believe that spamming should not be a crime. In the grand scheme of things... robbing someone is much worse.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[hotdiggitydawg]

However I believe that spamming should not be a crime. In the grand scheme of things... robbing someone is much worse. You had my mod points coming your way, right up until that last sentence. His actions have no doubt cost countless people around the world significant amounts of time, money and resources (bandwidth bills, cost of wages paid to clean up infected machines, additional infrastructure to cope with increased mail volume, etc. etc.). The only real difference is that he is "robbing" many people instead of one... OK he's not committing physical assault, but he is effectively trespassing electronically.

Bad analogy time (hey, this is Slashdot, after all...) - he's not breaking into your house and stealing all the electrical goods to sell at the local pawn shop. Instead, he's breaking into every single house in the whole neighbourhood while the owners are away at work, and using all the bedrooms to run his own private brothel, and then leaving the owners to clean up the mess.

Maybe his actions sit somewhere between robbery and fraud, but either way they are still most definitely criminal IMHO. Simply spamming (in the literal meaning of the word - "sending unsolicited email") should be a misdemeanor depending entirely on the volume of spam sent, and whether any of the email headers are fraudulent. Bot-farming, however, should be a felony.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[tacocat]

Holy Crap you're a bleeding heart pussy!!!

Rehabilitation works only if there's remorse for a crime. The only thing he is aware of is the $$$ he makes. If he had to delete 20 billion spam then he might start getting a clue of just how much of a pain in the ass he is for doing his business the way he has. I would go further in that he should also be held accountable for the format/install of all those owned machines out there. And on top of that he's probably also responsible for a lot of people buying new computers under the false impression that they need to get a new one because the old one is slow. It's only slow because of his doings.

I have no interest in rehabilitation unless someone actually shows a sense of regret and remorse for their crimes. And even then there's a question of being real or just playing the therapists.

I do hope that if he's convicted that they have the sense to toss everything they have at him.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[rjshields]

Spamming is effectively robbing people of little bits of time and other resources, so it's kind of like stealing but spread over millions of people instead of a single victim.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[tacocat]

If I had mod points today I would give them to you...

spam will never go away, it's a multi billion dollar industry and people actually buy this stuff. So there's a very strong business case to keep it around. Capitalism...

The process of sending unsolicited email may or may not be something you can criminalize if the sender is accurately representing themselves in the email. However, the process of not removing someone from a mailing list upon their request can be considered harassment. I don't know if harassment is a misdemeanor or a felony. Probably depends on the degree. I'll assume for now it is not a felony.

But doing this under snake oil pretenses is a criminal intent. You hide your true identify by forge mail headers and trespassing onto other peoples computers.

The forgery should be treated as just exactly that -- forgery. I think this is considered a felony.

The invasion of someone elses computer should be treated as breaking and entering or theft. The economic value of the theft should be calculated on the cost of the machine being stolen. This would push most actions out of small claims/misdemeanors into felony court. So this too is a felony.

So there you have it, based on previously existing law. Spam is legal if accurately represented. Continuing to send Spam is a misdemeanor. Sending spam as a misrepresentation of yourself or through resources you do not have permission to use, is a felony. Is that so hard to work with?

Re:give hima real punishment...

[GreyPoopon]

When someone constantly makes the life of millions of people miserable, he should be at the very least as much a criminal.

And more importantly, we should ask ourselves: What is the purpose of spam? It's to separate people from their money (either by selling something, by identity theft, or by fraud). Identity theft is actually worse than a one-time robbery. Fraud would be the same as robbing someone. The only case that couldn't be consider the same as or worse than robbery is the marketing of a legitimate item. Unfortunately, if you look at the techniques used by spammers to bypass spam filters and those market their wares on people who are clearly not interested, you have to assume that the product they are marketing is not worth a dime. In my book, tricking someone into buying something that isn't worth the money is the same as robbery. And for the spammer, it's not just one robbery. It's robbing everybody who "bites" the hook.

Consider the fact that the spammer *knows* that it's a crime (otherwise there would be little attempt to hide the origin of email). The spammer *knows* that almost nobody on his list wants to receive the email (otherwise there would be no need to use a botnet to bypass spam filters). The spammer *knows* (or ought to know) that it's illegal to compromise somebody's computer and use it against their will. So you have here a person who knows that it's illegal and socially unacceptable to do what they are doing, and that there will be severe punishment if they get caught. Yet despite the fact that they could count their winnings and move on, they continue to follow the path of a criminal.

Re:give hima real punishment...

[DrLov3]

This maybe off topic but I think there is something seriously wrong in the US with the punishment they give to prisonners,
I mean, you get arrested for DUI(crime in which you put other lives at risk and you get a 23 days sentence) but for a non-violent, non-life threatning crime such and identity theft and spamming(the action of sending lots of emails(GOTO 10, you know, can't live without it)) you get 65 years + a fine.
Some law makers aren't thinking. On that note, I wish to recommend a more appropriate sentence : 65 years of first line tech support :P (I meant that for Paris Hilton by the way)

-Hi, you have reached comcast tech support, my name is Paris, how can I help you?
-Hi m'am, the internet no work no more.
-OMG, what are we gonna do, like OMG, I'm so hot but people aren't gonna know no more z'OMG ...

Re:give hima real punishment...

[griffjon]

Y'know, I'm all for rehab - but I agree with parent poster, I don't see the point for white-collar financial crimes. You want to rehabilitate the Enron fuckups? Spammers? It's not like they were born in a gang-violence dominated neighborhood with massive social obstacles to overcome and make ends meet and need job training, these are well-educated, well-supported "members" of society who are making money hand over foot at the cost of millions of others. I think a bit of punishment[1] is in order, and then probation - like never being able to touch a computer again. Hell, he can become a computer security consultant to anti-spam companies and make millions again, as long as he stops spamming.

[1] I predict we'll see a drop off in pen1s 3nlargement!!1! emails after he spends some time in the prison showers...

Re:give hima real punishment...

[Ed_Pinkley]

Here are some fuzzy numbers from google / wiki.
1) He was sending 20 million emails over 15 days. Let's call that 1 million emails per day.
2) He was doing this since 2003. Let's call that 3 years.
3) 3 Years * 365 Days * 1 million emails per day is 1,095,000,000 emails.
4) Some spam emails are obvious and some are not. Lets say it takes you, on average, 5 seconds additional time to detect and delete a spam email. That's 5,475,000,000 seconds he has cost people.
5) 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, 365.25 days = 173 years.
6) That doesn't include cpu cycles waisted or law enforcement costs. That's 2+ lifetimes. *just in wasted time*.

Even if I am off by an order of magnitude. I'm ok with years of prison. (I'm also ok with higher penalties for drunk driving, but that's another story.)

Re:give hima real punishment...

[photomonkey]

That's not the best argument. I'm a technology-oriented person and am in very good shape. In fact, I'm a state boxing champ. So not all nerds are pasty, 98-pound weaklings.

Second, there is probably tremendous profit potential in dealing in spam. If there weren't, people like this wouldn't do it. What's six months or a few uncomfortable years in prison if you come out rich, and with rights to the TV movie and book?

Finally, you get someone who's already a criminal, and a pretty smart one at that, and throw him in the general population with other criminals. What do you think they're going to talk about there while he festers? Probably one of two things: Jesus or crime, and more probably talk about crime. Prison is like crime college featuring taxpayer-paid tuition, room and board.

Prison should be reserved for those who are out to physically harm others and cannot be loose. We should use community service and other society-beneficial practices to punish and rehabilitate those that commit nonviolent crimes.

Is 65 years excessive?

[lib3rtarian]

I can't decide, what do people think, 65 years is basically a life sentence. Is that excessive?

Re:Is 65 years excessive?

[UnknowingFool]

I think that sentence for all charges not just spamming: identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and e-mail fraud. So if you add them all up, 65 years is probably right.

Re:Is 65 years excessive?

[smooth wombat]

Is that excessive?

Nope, not in the least. When you consider that he took over people's machines, used those machines to scam people, took their money and laundered it for his own use and forged other people's email addresses for the return addresses on his emails, thus having innocent people harassed, 65 years is a good start.

Solitary confinement with him only able to be out three hours a day would be a good thing. In fact, use his money the government wants to confiscate to pay for his incarceration. That way the taxpayers don't have to foot to the bill for this asshat.

Re:Is 65 years excessive?

[Solandri]

apply a very simple test: "What does the average murderer/rapist/pedophile get when convicted?" If the answer is less then the person in question I ask "What's worse, what this person did or what they did?"

You have to be careful because murder/rape/pedophilia is directed at one or a few victims. Spamming is a distributed crime. Each individual victim may have suffered less, but the aggregate damage may be much more.

Is there a difference between stealing $50,000 from a bank, and stealing 1 cent from each of 5 million of the bank's customers? It's the same amount of money, and the same people are going to absorb the cost. But for some reason people think "1 cent per person isn't that much" and decide to let the spammer off easy. Just because the crime is distributed across many victims doesn't make it any less of a crime.

Re:Is 65 years excessive?

[Gospodin]

Whoever this Mr. Noone is, he really sounds like the victim here.

Thank Goodness

[ReidMaynard]

Todo List:
[x] Eliminate SPAM From Internet
[ ] Bring peace to Middle East
[ ] Make $1,000,000,000

That's one less thing for me to do now...

Re:Thank Goodness

[QuantumG]

I can help you with that last one. You see, my uncle died recently and he was really rich, but I'm having some trouble getting the money out of the country..............

More on Soloway..

[Dynamoo]

Soloway also has close ties to other arch-spammers Alex Polyakov and Leo Kuvayev. Between those three there is a substantial involvement in fraud, money laundering and even child pornography. It's hard to say who is responsible for what.. but I betcha that the Russians are running scared that Soloway will really start to talk. I've documented this connection a couple of times in the past (see here and here.)

There's plenty of evidence around to nail Soloway for a long, long time.. but to be honest he's not even the worst spammer out there. I suspect the possibility of a plea bargain is quite likely, so that international law enforcement can get to the even bigger fish.

Now I'll buy penis enlargement pills...

[Anonymous Coward]

and send them to his jail mates.

I hate spam as much as the next guy, but...

[N3wsByt3]

*65* years? That seems way over the top. Why can't laws just reflect some reason in the usa?

Yes, sure...he did more then just spam. But even murderers often come off with less then 65 years, so is spam, impersonating people, using botnets, etc. *really* worse than murdering people?

People should get a grip.

I'm all for laws against spam and all the rest of it, but hell, 5 years + a considerable fine is more than enough.

Soloway Mocks MS Suit - Will he mock again?

[newsact]

Spamhaus Project has a rather long list of Soloway's recorded history. He mocks every attempt to nail him such us the lawsuit from Microsoft http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence.lasso?rokso _id=ROK5164 We will probably do the same again...

"I've been in business for over 10 years with the best accountants in the world, and lawyers in all 50 states that know how to run my business legally and protect me from all lawsuits that come my way.. not a concern.. I just pay them a few hours of my work and they take care of the entire cases for me..."

Get real, people

[djupedal]

Every single person here has been affected by this guy - some more than others, but all negatively. This is not the time to turn the other cheek, because every time you deleted one of his emails, you were doing just that.

Now is the time for him to get the short/pointy end of the stick...the stick that he sharpened and used on all of us. He took time away from each of us that we will never get back. Talking about fair this or fair that in terms of years behind bars....are you serious? Wake up. This guy leached your life and given the opportunity, he would not hesitate to do it again.

It is only fair to take his time away from him until he has no more.