The Spam Cryer

How To Stop a Spammer – Go After His Bank Account!

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October 16th, 2008

The US Federal Trade Commission along with their counterparts in New Zealand and Australia have finally made a dent in the spam volume.

As reported by the The Register and IT Brief, a two month investigation involving international cooperation has resulted in the laying of charges against [tag]Shane Atkinson[/tag], his brother [tag]Lance Atkinson[/tag] and Roland Smits alleging that they were responsible for the spam messages marketing ‘Herbal King’, ‘Elite Herbal’ and ‘Express Herbal’ along with ‘genuine replica watches’ and ‘adult toy’s’. This has resulted in a noticeable drop in spam volume as this ‘team’ was responsible for up to 1/3 of the spam.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/14/prolific_spammers_targeted/

http://www.itbrief.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2995&Itemid=799

These same people appear to have been involved in spamming for a while according to a Wikipedia article with reports going back as far as 2003 with a previous monetary judgment against Lance.

Why did the last judgment not stop then and this time it did?

The authorities froze their bank accounts.

I applaud the authorities taking this step but only time will tell if this is going to force them out of the spam game for good.

I believe that this is a temporary slowdown in the volume of spam. They were able to get away with it for a long time and made lots and lots of money.

Where there is lots of easy money it attracts those drawn to easy money so I would expect the vacuum to be filled shortly or for the same team to be back at it shortly.

Sorry but this does not mean that you don’t need an anti-spam solution

- The Spam Cryer

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Entry Filed under: Barracuda Networks, Bulletins, CudaMail, Online Scams