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'Spam King' Sanford Wallace Sentenced To 2.5 Years In Prison For Facebook Phishing Scam (bbc.com)
Xochil writes: Sanford Wallace gets a two-year prison term and $310K fine on charges of fraud and criminal contempt for sending over 27 million spam messages to Facebook users. Sanford Wallace has made a name for himself over the course of the last several years. In 1998, the "Spam King" announced he would put an end to spamming on his part, instead resorting to a new scheme in which ISPs would be paid to receive the mail. Flash forward to 2004, the Associated Press reported that a judge issued a temporary restraining order against Wallace for alleged spyware distribution. Last August, Wallace admitted to compromising around 500,000 Facebook accounts, using them to send over 27 million spam messages through Facebook's servers, between November 2008 and March 2009. While he could have been sentenced to as many as 16 years in prison, he was only sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and five years of supervised release. In addition, Wallace was ordered to pay about one cent for every message sent or about 60 cents per account compromised, totaling $310,628.55 in restitution. The phishing scam consisted of Wallace automating the process of signing into a Facebook user's account, retrieving a list of their friends and sending them each a message that encouraged them to log into a website. The website would trick users into divulging their Facebook username and password before directing them to an affiliate website that would pay him for the traffic.
You know, any high school kid that demonstrates it knows more about computers than the average CIO and hacks a server that was secured as well as a barndoor with a hay stack in front of it gets some verdict where he can't get near a computer any time soon.
Why is that waste of oxygen still allowed near anything using electricity?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course American jails are horrible. They're full of Americans.
There's a school of thought that making prisons uncomfortable is just desserts and even a deterrent for some..
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Are you for real?
That *is* his nickname. Google it.
E
I haven't heard that name in years. Kind of funny what he's been up to:
As of October 2003, Wallace was working as a DJ in New Hampshire, making weekly appearances at area nightclubs. Wallace performs under the name DJ MasterWeb.
In March 2006, the FTC filed a suit again against Wallace and SmartBOT for practices similar to the 2004 suit. This time Wallace and his co-defendants were ordered to pay $5,089,550.48 in fines.
In May 2008 Wallace and Rines were ordered to pay $230 million to MySpace by the L.A. District Court when they failed to appear for trial.
Wallace filed for bankruptcy in June 2009. On October 29, 2009, federal judge Jeremy D. Fogel awarded Facebook $711 million in damages.
In August 2015, Wallace pleaded guilty to electronic mail fraud and criminal contempt of court as well as admitting to mass spamming in 2008 and 2009. He also pleaded guilty to violating a court order to not access Facebooks' computer network.
In June 2016, Wallace has been sentenced to thirty months in prison and ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution for bombarding Facebook users. U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila also sentenced Wallace to mental health treatment and five years of probation once he is released. Judge Davila barred Sanford Wallace of possessing or using any computer without the permission of the probation order.
He's been fined nearly a billion dollars, he's banned from creating MySpace profiles or accessing Facebook's network, and in general possessing or using a computer, he's a repeat offender with criminal contempt and only caught 30 months in jail. He probably deserves at least 5 years, with another 10 on probation. Maybe he'll go back to DJing.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"1998 called and wants their meme back...
Wait, they didn't have memes in 1998!"
Au contraire, we had a whole Beowulf cluster of them, naked and petrified with hot grits! And we had spamford wallace! In soviet Russia, only old people don't have memes!
C|N>K
And how, exactly, is restricted computer access going to prevent him from going right back to his old tricks? Not only has he proven time and time again that he has no intention of stopping, he doesn't even need to be in the same room as a computer because all he's doing is paying other people to send out spam for him. No, the only thing that might work is sending some of his employees to prison because they're just as guilty as he is.
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If you want to get rid of most telemarketing, put all of your phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. Then, make a habit of reporting violations so that the feds have the evidence they need to enforce the law. This won't stop all of it, but it will keep away the more honest companies and give you a way to fight back against scammers.
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You know, any high school kid that demonstrates it knows more about computers than the average CIO and hacks a server that was secured as well as a barndoor with a hay stack in front of it gets some verdict where he can't get near a computer any time soon.
Why is that waste of oxygen still allowed near anything using electricity?
What I don't understand is once you've discovered your "business model" doesn't work you don't take what you've learned and try to sell your skills in a way that does't get you in trouble? even if your "skills" aren't viewed as particularly good by people who are techies you still could sell your knowledge about spam and how to fight it to corporations. He was one of the early spammers who who had notoriety when other's didn't and could have capitalized on that; after all along with the "Green Card Lottery" spammers was one of the early persons to capitalize on spam's potential. Others made the leap to being a consultant after being hammered by the law; follow Frank Abagnale's need and sell the ability to stop others from doing what you do. Maybe because it's hard for some people to admit they're wrong and get their kicks from beating the system?
It's not that different form going from being in government to being a lobbyist and helping people negotiate working with government to get what they want, or working in a field and then using the knowledge you gain to help others compete in the same field. Ethics side, that may not be viewed as a good way to make money but it beats prison, especially since you have your former adversaries now on your side.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Sanford Wallace?
We don't need any more lists, lists invariably lead to scope creep. The sex offender registry was created to keep tabs on violent rapists and predators; now teenagers get added to the list for texting pictures to each other. The no-fly list was created to keep terrorists off airplanes; terrorists have still gotten onto airplanes while that faulty list has caught up innumerable innocent citizens (e.g. Ted Kennedy), now they want to use it to deny people their 2nd amendment rights. Or the most egregious example, social security numbers were created to track who was due how much in social security payments; now that list is used for everything under the sun.
In this day and age, a computer or phone with internet access is a necessity for almost every job. Even jobs you don't think of as being remotely related to technology still require employees to be "connected." Truck drivers, retail cashiers, the trades, construction... If you aren't legally permitted to use a computer or phone with an internet connection, you are fucked in terms of finding a job. And in some places, even filing for unemployment can only be done online!
No, creating a cyber offender list is not a path we need to go down.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!