Spammer Lance Atkinson Fined $16 Million

Nashville Guy writes "According to Australia's The Age, 'A New Zealand man living in Queensland and believed to be behind the world's largest spam operation, has been ordered to pay more than $16 million for running the illegal enterprise. Lance Atkinson, 26, originally from Christchurch, was living in Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast when the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had his assets frozen last year. ... The FTC found Atkinson and American Jody Smith were at the centre of the world's largest internet spam operation, dubbed 'AffKing,' having recruited spammers from around the world.'"

Comments

And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[eldavojohn]

The BBC coverage correctly notes:

Mr Atkinson will only have to pay his part of the $15.15m fine if he enters the US.

I guess all we can do is pray for extradition?

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[clone53421]

Also, according to that article, Atkinson’s assets weren’t frozen (contrary to what the summary says).

Jody Smith, his accomplice in the US, was the one whose assets were frozen. Smith has pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to traffic counterfeit goods” and is to be sentenced here in the US this month (December).

However, I still have hopes for Lance Atkinson seeing justice... his brother, Shane, had already been fined $122,000 in a separate case by a New Zealand court (Lance’s conviction was made by a US court, which has no jurisdiction in New Zealand – so he’d have to be extradited, unless he foolishly decided to come here for some reason). I imagine if Lance could be similarly tried in a New Zealand court, he’d be required to pay whatever they demanded.

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[kirill.s]

...where he would pay the fine or go to jail and share a cell with men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[DoofusOfDeath]

It appears that New Zealand does extradite to the U.S.

I guess the question is whether or not the U.S. will request it.

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[dangitman]

... so he’d have to be extradited, unless he foolishly decided to come here for some reason

Oh, that's easy. Just send him an email claiming to be from a former New Zealand prince and ambassador to the US, who has $1 million locked up in a US bank account which can't be accessed unless someone travels to the US to make the withdrawal on his behalf.

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[ArhcAngel]

I don't know...I suspect there are a few Nigerian aristocrats who might like to have a go at him.

Re:And Yet He Won't Pay a Penny

[Interoperable]

Can extraditions be requested for an offense that only carries a fine?

just data

[czarangelus]

Advertisement wants to be free.

Additionally

[Rik Sweeney]

He was also told to apologise to everyone he'd sent spam to.

Foolishly, the court allowed him to send these apologies via email.

Damn moronic 'anti-spam' laws.

[DavidTC]

According to the original documentation, 'In early 2008, a security company identified one botnet -- which it dubbed "Mega-D" -- that sent sparn promoting Affking's VPXL and King Replica products as the worst botnet in the world, accounting for 32% of all spam.'

The Mega-D botnet consisted at least 264,784 computers.

That's 264,784 UNAUTHORIZED COMPUTER ACCESS FELONIES.

Why the FUCK are we 'fining' someone who committed at least 264,784 felonies? We invade goddamn countries and charge people with war crimes for that level of criminality!

Anti-spam laws are nonsense. Forget the damn anti-spam laws. Lock them up for the felonies they're committing. Extradition would be a lot easier, too. (Of course, we could just find a few hundred IPs this guy hijacked in Australia, turn them over, and have him locked up there his entire life, instead.)

Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Where exactly does the 16 million go? Does the federal government get it simply because they have to jurisdiction to make said case? Shouldn't it go to the people who were actually subject to the damages caused by the spam?

Wait, who am I kidding...

Re:Quick question

[jez9999]

5 minutes of US DoD operational costs?

New Zealand Finally Gets With The Program?

[damn_registrars]

For a while, the likes of Leo Kuvayev and his cronies were taking advantage of the lax laws in New Zealand and purchasing their spamming (and spamvertised) domains there. It took quite some time to get the New Zealanders to distance themselves from the profit of those crimes, now it is encouraging to see they are taking a more active anti-spam stance.

Its too bad that in the end this all won't be worth squat.

Completely the WRONG tactic

[damn_registrars]

So you suggest:

Lock them up for the felonies they're committing. Extradition would be a lot easier, too. (Of course, we could just find a few hundred IPs this guy hijacked in Australia, turn them over, and have him locked up there his entire life, instead.)

Although as you have rightly noted extradition is extremely difficult, especially when you consider some of the countries where spammers are currently hiding.

However, that is all moot because no amount of law enforcement, threats, or even executions will stop the spammers. And why is that, you might ask? Because no law enforcement tactic addresses the underlying problem that drives spam. For every spammer kidnapped, thrown in jail, murdered, etc... there are many, many, more waiting to take his place. Even more so, there are many people who want his money.

In short, spam is an economic problem. If you really give a damn about the problem, and want to do something more than just make yourself feel better, you would pay attention to the economics that drive spam. Spammers didn't choose their profession to piss you off - they did it to make money. If you want to stop spam, do something about the profits and the problem will go away on its own.

Re:Completely the WRONG tactic

[JoshuaZ]

Spam is at its heart an economic problem, but that doesn't mean that it can't be solved using other tactics as well as economic ones. For any far reaching problem in society, the use of many different strategies together has potential to do a better job than any single one. Most responses to proposed anti-spam solutions fail to see that the solutions should occur not in an isolated form but together with other solutions. Thus for example, the standard copy and pasted anti-spam response checklist on Slashdot is always used as if the proposed technique is being touted as a magic bullet. In that regard, spam is a bit like cancer. It is quite silly to claim that we will ever have a single cure for cancer, because cancer is a complicated set of diseases with multiple causes. But a series of different responses (such as chemotherapy, surgery and radiation) used appropriate together can do a pretty decent job in most cases. Thus, cancer is no longer a death sentence. The spam problem should be targetd the same way.

Re:Completely the WRONG tactic

[damn_registrars]

Nothing short of public flogging/caning/torture or even execution will stop the asshats from being asshats.

For reasons I already stated, that won't work, either. Even if we made spamming a capital crime in the US this afternoon, it wouldn't mean shit; spammers would continue to spam because they know that they are someplace where the long arm of the US law can't touch them.

But even if somehow, every country in the world agreed today to make spamming a capital crime, that wouldn't mean shit either. It wouldn't take away from the insane profitability of sending spam. And the spammers would know that there are countries where capital crimes can easily be swept under the rug in exchange for payment to the right official(s).

Odd, that your signature mentions that people are

dumb, stupid, panicky animals

While you are yourself offering up an extremely panicky attempt to solve a problem.

Re:Completely the WRONG tactic

[damn_registrars]

The economic damage caused by said bots and rootkits is HUGE.

If more people set up their computers in a half-way intelligent manner the rootkits would be a thing of the past. Rootkits won't go away as long as the vast majority of windows users log in with full administrator rights. But hey, you're getting closer to the reality of the spamming problem now. You have at least acknowledged an economic component of the problem. Let's see if you find reality from there...

In the US Constitution, we have the ability to issue letters of marque, which can be used to fight this economic piracy. All we need to do is issue a couple of these letters of marque and let the bastards die a miserable horrible death at the hands of soldiers of fortune.

Nope. Another swing and another miss. International hit men will not solve the problem.

If there was a finite supply of spammers, and a limited amount of money to be made from spamming, then a hit man might have some impact. However since neither of those are true, you have proposed nothing more than a panicky, feel-good solution. You might as well propose rounding them up and putting them on a spaceship with a course for the sun.

And no, I'm not kidding. You cannot deal rationally with people like these, because they use it against you.

That may be one place where you have me wrong. At no point did I propose actually dealing with the spammers directly, as you are trying to do.

You cannot deal with anti social people using normal means. They are anti social because they don't think the rules apply to them, and will use the rules they want against you.

You are wrong on that account as well. Many spammers are the leaders of companies (which send spam) and network with many other capitalists (some of whom pay for them to send out spam on their behalf). They may be many things but antisocial is not one of them. And they are sending spam from places where it is legal to do so; they don't see themselves above the law, they just don't agree with US law.

So, let them hide in foreign countries all they want, we'll just send someone after them there. If the other country doesn't like it, then they have to do something about it or STFU.

So you propose then to spend money to break laws in other countries in order to make yourself more content about what people in other countries are doing that affects you? I'm glad people at your level of crazy aren't in charge of our country. Your idea is about as reasonable as the suggestion that executing Bernie Madoff would end the recession.

FYI

[w0mprat]

Queensland is in Australia, not New Zealand, he formerly lived in N.Z. and like most NZers in trouble with the law, moved to Australia. Australia does have a extradition treaty with the U.S.

RecycleDirect

[Animats]

The USPS should offer RecycleDirect service. With RecycleDirect, you specify which classes of mail are automatically forwarded to the regional mixed paper recycling center nearest the sender. RecycleDirect mail will be diverted at the first sorting post office directly to the recycling center.

No, it's not an economic problem

[Animats]

spam is an economic problem

No, it's not. Not since all the ways to do it without committing felonies were stopped. Spamming today is organized crime.

Re:Pay attention here...

[Jedi Alec]

Economics

Spam is sent because it is profitable. No matter what you tell yourself, spam isn't sent to you to piss you off, flood your inbox, waste your time, or anything like that. Spam is sent to make money.

Hence spam is an economic problem, and if you want to truly deal with it, you need an economic solution. If spamming ceases to be profitable, then there will cease to be spam. The spammers just want to get paid, that's all.

Houses are burglared because it is profitable. No matter what you tell yourself, burglary isn't committed to piss you off, piss on your bed, scare your dog or anything like that. Burglaries are committed to make money.

Hence burglary is an economic problem, and if you want to truly deal with it, you need an economic solution. If burglary ceases to be profitable, then there will cease to be burglaries. The burglers just want to get paid, that's all.

Bonus points for saying that out loud at a decent pace without tripping over your words ;-)