Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 46806
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2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

2007/5/31-6/4 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:46806 Activity:nil
5/31    "Man described as a top spammer arrested"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070531/ap_on_hi_te/spam_arrest
        YEAH!
        \_ every spammer thinks they are 'the top spammer'
           \_ no!  im the top spammer!
              ]_ no its me! me ! mE!
                 \_ its meeeeee!!!!!
                    \_ I have a business proposal for you.
        \_ sodan quoted:
           http://www.crn.com/security/199800149
2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

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2012/8/16-10/17 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:54458 Activity:nil
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2010/8/13-9/7 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:53924 Activity:nil
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2009/12/8-26 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:53580 Activity:low
12/8    Old news, but new to me:
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2009/7/17-24 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:53157 Activity:nil
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	...
2009/5/5-6 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:52948 Activity:moderate
5/4     Is mail still down? I don't seem to be getting any and vermouth
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2009/4/7-13 [Computer/Blog] UID:52819 Activity:low
4/7     I have a friend who recently started a blog posting about
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news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070531/ap_on_hi_te/spam_arrest
AP Spam flows despite high-profile arrest By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 1 hour, 29 minutes ago NEW YORK - Junk e-mail continued to land in mailboxes around the world Thursday, despite the arrest a day earlier of a man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers. Click Here Even if Robert Alan Soloway is ultimately convicted and his operations shuttered, spam experts say dozens are in line to fill the void. "In the short term, the effect it's going to have is more symbolic more than anything else," said John Levine, co-author of "Fighting Spam for Dummies." "Soloway is a large spammer, but hardly the only large spammer." Levine said Soloway was a good target because he operates in the United States and has taken few steps to cover his tracks. Soloway, 27, was once on a top 10 list of spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization. Others have since topped him, mostly based in Russia and other countries out of reach of US or European law. But Soloway remains on a Spamhaus list of about 135 spammers deemed responsible for as much as 80 percent of all junk e-mail, and one Spamhaus official considers him in the top 20. "Most of the Russian gangs seem to have a lot more freshly hijacked computers and are able to deliver much more spam into people's inboxes," said Vincent Hanna, a European investigator for Spamhaus. Prosecutors say Soloway has sent millions of junk e-mails since 2003 and continued even after Microsoft Corp. won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment. Soloway could face decades in prison, though prosecutors said they have not calculated what sentence range he might face. Like most spammers these days, authorities say, Soloway sent out unsolicited bulk e-mails using networks of compromised computers called "zombies." These are generally home computers whose owners typically have no idea that their machines have been infected with viruses or other malicious programs; service providers can't easily block messages from zombies because they are mixed in with legitimate messages. What set Soloway apart was his focus on spam designed to sell tools and services for companies and organizations to send their own junk e-mail, said Patrick Peterson, vice president of technology at anti-spam vendor IronPort Systems Inc. Other types of spam were largely unaffected by the arrest. One Gmail account collected messages Thursday promising deals on Viagra and other medicines, while an AOL account drew an offer for two large, mouthwatering pizzas. IronPort said it saw no notable drop in spam volume, with 70 billion messages in a 24-hour period, unchanged from two weeks earlier. The company said spam has doubled from about 36 billion a day last May Anne Mitchell, who runs the anti-spam consultancy Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, said an individual user who happens to be on Soloway's list might see a big drop, but the collective impact is negligible. "Many times the feds grab a high-ranking don but the mafia didn't go away. Nonetheless, anti-spam experts lauded the arrest, calling it an encouraging sign that authorities are taking spam seriously. Compared with civil lawsuits that have led to multimillion dollar judgments, prosecutions have been rare. "Criminal prosecutions are absolutely necessary," said Richi Jennings, lead analyst for e-mail security with Ferris Research. "It adds a whole new level of fear to the lives of these spammers." Joseph Smith, 43, a Web designer in Greensboro, NC, said he couldn't say for sure the arrest resulted in a decrease in spam Thursday, but he was hopeful. "I can see the Net becoming a little more secure now and becoming a more enjoyable experience," he said. Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said the arrest not only removes Soloway from spamming "but it throws caution to others that are doing it as well. At Wednesday's news conference in Seattle announcing the arrest, US Attorney Jeff Sullivan acknowledged that "others sometimes take their place, but we want it to be a deterrent." A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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www.crn.com/security/199800149
May 31, 2007 E-mail security specialists were happy to see Robert Alan Soloway arrested Wednesday, but expressed doubts that the downfall of Seattle's alleged "Spam King" would make a significant dent in the volume of unsolicited e-mails plaguing Internet users around the world. proxy network of compromised computers, also known as a "bot-net." The case brought by the US Attorney's Office in Washington's Western District focuses on allegedly false and fraudulent claims made by Soloway about NIM products and services. Soloway, 27, is alleged to have transmitted tens of millions of e-mails containing false and fraudulent headers to advertise NIM. "It's kind of ironic that he got in trouble for spamming people about his spamming service," said Rand Wacker, senior product manager at e-mail and Web security vendor Ironport. spam e-mails to 81 billion the day before Soloway was arrested, then dropped back down to 70 billion messages sent on the day of his arrest. But Wacker cautioned against making too much of those numbers or connecting them to Soloway. "So that was an 8 percent drop, but it was during a week that there were 8 percent rises and drops on a daily basis," he said. "For the Internet as a whole, it's not going to have a very perceptible effect. This guy was one of hundreds of spam ringleaders out there, the majority of whom are outside the United States." Barracuda, a seller of e-mail and Web filtering appliances, actually tracked an increase in spam the day after Soloway's arrest, said vice president of product management Stephen Pao. "I was looking this morning at our spam volume numbers, and we've actually seen spam volume tick up slightly. He sold packages to different organizations to push spam through his networks. "It's like Monopoly, where this kind of guy may actually do okay in jail, collecting rent." There's just too much money involved for spammers," MacArthur said. Ken Tortura, vice president of channel sales at e-mail and Web security vendor MX Logic, paused for a brief second to celebrate. But from a channel perspective, I don't think spam's going to go away because it's too profitable. It's so cheap and inexpensive to get these viral networks going," he said. Spam operations like the one Soloway allegedly ran aren't the real threat to security, said Ironport's Wacker. Google Acquisition Crosses the Security Border News that the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Google's purchase of online ad traffic aggregator DoubleClick overshadowed another curious acquisition by the search giant -- that of a security company.