On Wednesday Robert Soloway was charged with fraud in connection with electronic mail, aggravated identity theft plus another 33 various charges. Soloway is the first person to be charged under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and if he is found guilty on all counts he will face a fine of a cool US$250,000 and a maximum prison term of 65 years - ouch! Prosecutors also want to seize US$773,000 from him, it is rumoured that this is how much Soloway has made from his firm, Newport Internet Marketing.

Unfortunately we’ve all been here before with over US$10 million in damages being awarded to Robert Braver, an ISP owner, by an Oklahoma court in 2005 and a Washington court ruling in favour of good old Microsoft back in the same year for the tidy sum of US$7 million. However neither of these rulings forced Soloway into a corner and he has remained one of Spamhaus’ most wanted spammers ever since.

In fact he appears to have had a pretty good time of it so far as, according to the prosecutor, he lives in a ‘ritzy apartment’ and drives a Mercedes convertible. Nice work if you can get it.

Here’s an interesting email from Soloway regarding the Braver ruling showing his arrogance. Spamhaus also has a nice list of bits and pieces they have compiled on Soloway over the years.

Hopefully this time, Soloway will get what he deserves and our inboxes will be a little leaner from now on.

Source: CNN

Featured Tags email, robert-soloway, spam


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Once again, we are forced to admit that *some* spammers are stupid, and you’ll see why. McAfee announced today that they have found a new way of spamming. A way that was also supposed to offer the spammer an income as a benefit. They received one message in which they were asked to pay the spammer the sum of $1 in order for him to remove their address from his database.

Obviously, he didn’t knew what he was getting himself into. McAfee employees reported the man to the Russian authorities immediately. Andrey Slabosnickiy from Rostov-on-Don sent the unsubscribe e-mail along with many ways to make the requested payment, including his personal info, mobile phone number and valuable identification information, as you can see in the picture.

Now, it’s up to the Russian authorities to verify and trace the information received, and take actions against the reported person. I have no idea if Russia has laws against spam and informatics fraud, but for Christ’s sake, I never thought a spammer can be that dumb.

Featured Tags antispam, mcafee, spam


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