the spammers get busted,Opinions??

Two Men Arrested in AOL Spam Scheme
By ERIN McCLAM

NEW YORK (AP) - Millions of AOL customers were hit with junk e-mail after an America Online insider stole the Internet giant's subscriber list and sold it to spammers, prosecutors say.

The scheme resulted in AOL customers being sent unsolicited advertisements for herbal penile enhancement pills and Internet gambling come-ons, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Jason Smathers, 24, stole 92 million AOL screen names while working at AOL offices in Dulles, Va., and sold the list to a Las Vegas man, Sean Dunaway. Dunaway used it to send gambling ads and then sold it to spammers, a criminal complaint said.

Smathers' list also included customer ZIP codes and credit card types, prosecutors said. AOL said it did not appear that Smathers had gained access to credit card numbers, which the company keeps in a separate facility.


Smathers and Dunaway, 21, were arrested and charged with conspiracy.


``We deeply regret what has taken place and are thoroughly reviewing and strengthening our internal procedures as a result of this investigation and arrest,'' AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.


AOL, owned by Time Warner Inc., has about 32 million customers worldwide, Graham said. Many customers register several different screen names for family members or themselves.


David Kelley, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan, said the arrests were two of the first prosecutions under federal anti-spamming legislation that took effect early this year.


Dunaway declined to comment after he left a federal courthouse. Secret Service agents confiscated his computer equipment when they arrested him Wednesday, said his lawyer, Kevin Kelly.


Smathers was to appear in court in Virginia. No lawyer for him could be located. Each man could face up to five years in prison and at least $250,000 in fines if convicted.


Smathers was not authorized to have access to the screen name list, which is kept in Dulles, but used another employee's access code last year to steal it, prosecutors said. AOL fired Smathers on Wednesday.


Prosecutors did not immediately say how much they allege Dunaway paid Smathers for the list, but they said Dunaway later paid him $100,000 for an updated version of it.


Dunaway then offered the list to spammers, charging them $2,000 for lists containing names beginning with a single letter of the alphabet or $52,000 for the entire list, the complaint said.


At least one spammer used the list to send advertising for herbal penile enhancement pills, prosecutors said.
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my opionon

think the Dickheads(pun intended) who spam
deserve what they get, for waisting some of my lifes time ,
deleting crap from my inbox,
now they get thier "box"filled with things not wanted ( maybe)
and some got to do with enhanced body parts.
i consider all spammers parasites , they are like lice and leeches
you dont want em on you'
what do you think of them,

peace

Hopefully media coverage of people staring to be jailed for spamming might put a few off, but being honest I doubt it. Unfortunately if they send out say 10,000 mails and make one sale it's worth it to them to continue. It's wecome step in the battle but I doubt if they'll ever win the war.

:(

All of my spam mail goes into a seperate folder. And I never even open it. I just click "clean" and magically all the spam goes away. But in two days I had over 1500 spam e mail messages. If you ignore them you don't have a reason to be tempted to buy into their crap. And finally they might go away. But I do agree they should get busted for spamming.

I don't like spammers. I don't like the feds either. Seems to me that there are already laws that this guy could have been charged with without creating more power for the feds with more laws. The feds won't grab control of the internet all at once. They will gain their control a little at a time by passing laws that give them the power to do it, while claiming they are protecting us with these laws. Forfeiture laws just plain suck. I will never think it is a good idea to let the feds have another license to steal. I think the act goes to far.

Toker

I totally agree. This is no longer a free country. And free thinkers are being weeded out or locked up. The rest of the "moral majority" is becomming even more brain washed by our government. I say the only alternative is to move to another country. Despite what the government tells you or the gung ho right wing religious moralists there ARE other countries out there that are better than America. Countries that give you more freedom. I'm so sick and tired of saying that and then people tell me they should just ship me to iraq and see how I like it.

Spammers should just be executed on the spot when found. And it should be made a capital offense. Maybe then my mailbox wouldn't get flooded with crap.

lmao thats kinda funny 2 bad they got caught they coulda made sum good money doin' tht personaly i hate aol so i dont really care wut happens 2 them(sry to all the aol cusomers out there)