The Spam King and the future of spam
If you haven't heard about the Spam King going to court, here is a good article for catching up: Feds Arrest 'Spam King' in Seattle. The short story is in the first paragraph:
Robert Alan Soloway, a 27-year-old Seattle resident dubbed "Spam King" by federal agents, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with multiple counts of fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. If convicted on the various counts, Soloway could face decades in prison.
This is definitely good news in the fight against spam, since it means that federal agents are taking cybercrime seriously, but one of the interesting things about this case is that the agents prosecuting the "Spam King" built a very strong case based on traditional crimes that existed before the time of the Internet. The reasons for this boil down to the simple fact that existing laws on spam and related cybercrimes aren't strong enough, especially when dealing with someone with as big a history as this Spam King.
Moreover, one of the important things to remember in this case is that even if the Spam King is sentenced to decades in prison, it won't cause a noticeable decline in spam or cybercrime on the Internet. Besides the facts that the volume of spam is increasing daily and a large amount of it comes from countries outside of the jurisdiction of American and European prosecutors, the simple fact is that treating something like a crime doesn't stop people from doing it. As long as spam continues to be profitable, people will do it, even with the risk of a prison sentence. As one can expect, the burden will continue to fall on end users to identify spam that their software does not detect.
So regardless of what happens to the Spam King, don't be surprised to see more and more 419 scams and lottery notices in your inbox as time goes by. And if you do happen to receive a large sum of money legitimately as a surrogate or a lucky winner, send a little over to me.
Wasn't the spam king the jerk that founded Cyberpromo?
I think that's the one.