Feds: Notorious Seattle spammer indicted

[Wazoo]

Merging this into the existing thread.

Not sure what might have happened, but .. I did the merge just now.

[StevenUnderwood]

Not sure what might have happened, but .. I did the merge just now.

Sorry. Work interfered and I never did return to the forums.

[Farelf]

...I'd be interested to know if his bail is still denied and if he is still in Federal detention.

spam suspect denied bail Judge finds Seattle man could pose flight risk if freed before trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Warma convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohoe that Soloway poses a serious risk of jumping bail because he likely has large amounts of cash stashed in secret accounts.

"We don't know where his money is -- he made a lot of it," Warma told the judge.

Defense attorney Richard Troberman disagreed.

"He is cash-poor," the lawyer said. "What he owns is a lot of clothes."

Then how is he gunna pay you, Mr Troberman?

[rooster]

"We don't know where his money is -- he made a lot of it," Warma told the judge.

Defense attorney Richard Troberman disagreed.

"He is cash-poor," the lawyer said. "What he owns is a lot of clothes."[/i]

Then how is he gunna pay you, Mr Troberman?

Ta Steve;

The alert must have hit my inbox about the same time as yours. I would have checked my other messages and replied to this thread, but I was busy cantering up and down the street in my skivvies, ivy wreath on my head, strawing flower petals and chortling:

"Kaloo Kalay, no work today

We're cabbages and kings".

It took the missus a couple of hours to post my bail.

[dra007]

with a stunt like that I tought she might have picked you in a hospital ward....

[Farelf]

with a stunt like that I tought she might have picked you in a hospital ward....

Clearly Rod's good lady wife is a paragon of all the virtues and accustomed to suffering.

[rooster]

Clearly Rod's good lady wife is a paragon of all the virtues and accustomed to suffering.

Right you are. She ain't 'purty' or nuthin'; but she still has all her teeth and she scrubs up well.

[Farelf]

...she still has all her teeth and she scrubs up well.

You lucky devil.

[rooster]

You lucky devil.

Indeedy;

It was a tough choice between her and Minnie Bannister, but the missus was irresistible

by lamplite in her moose-hide body stocking and I was compelled to bid Rhythm Min a fond "Sailors' Farewell".

...but back on point... mayhap there is some room for cautions optimism that the Feds

are getting a bit of a handle on the bot-net problem.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel07/botnet061307.htm

[GraemeL]

spam suspect denied bail Judge finds Seattle man could pose flight risk if freed before trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Warma convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohoe that Soloway poses a serious risk of jumping bail because he likely has large amounts of cash stashed in secret accounts.

The court documentation for denial of bail is now available. Makes for interesting reading.

[Telarin]

Just as an update to my observation, I am still noticing MUCH lower than normal spam rates across the board (my Yahoo account, and the aggregate statistics from the spam filters on my mailserver at work and at home).

[Wazoo]

There are some folks conjecturing that some of the Botnets that sent spam last month are now all wrapped up in being part of the DDoS going on against numerous anti-spam sites and services.

[Farelf]

There are some folks conjecturing that some of the Botnets that sent spam last month are now all wrapped up in being part of the DDoS going on against numerous anti-spam sites and services.

Can't tell from "a sample of one" but that sort of fits in with what I am seeing on one of my accounts - virtually the only spam I have seen in the past 96 hours are totally lame "new kid" verification things like http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z13272292...;action=display (he doesn't quite get the hang of bcc ). My other account is "routine" but distinctly subdued, maybe 25% of "normal" volumes.

[Merlyn]

Can't tell from "a sample of one" but that sort of fits in with what I am seeing on one of my accounts - virtually the only spam I have seen in the past 96 hours are totally lame "new kid" verification things like http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z13272292...;action=display (he doesn't quite get the hang of bcc ). My other account is "routine" but distinctly subdued, maybe 25% of "normal" volumes.

Need to change it to http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1327229259z4...;action=display for non members

[Farelf]

Need to change it to http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1327229259z4...;action=display for non members

Thanks Merlyn, done in post & quote too ... my head must have been elsewhere, which is a bit of a worry.

[rooster]

Rather than expend valuable SC bandwidth, I entered a suggestion on a 'blog' about the possible entertainment value of keeping in touch with Mr. Soloway during his dalliance among the friendly folk at Seatac... if anyone is interested.

http://boundarybaymorningsteamer.blogspot....enge-of_16.html

[Farelf]

Thank you Rod. Not the same since they stopped using the stocks for reasons of public hygiene but that may suffice.

GSS

[Farelf]

Update on:

...My other account is "routine" but distinctly subdued, maybe 25% of "normal" volumes.

That being my work address for which the numbers crept up in the last week and then back to "normal" or more over the weekend (Fri night - Mon morning). Not many but the average for the (almost) 7 months since the logging for the Abuse! reporter started is 6.9 pd and the weekend produced 9.5 pd. That may be a significant change (without actually crunching the numbers). The home account (SC reporting) remains "depressed". More real mail than spam for weeks (a month) now. Which is certainly not depressing.

Hmm... wildcards are useable in the Excel spreadsheet COUNTIF() function - only just stumbled across that (thinking it would be nice if it were so, and behold ...). Like =COUNTIF(A1:A10058,"="&B10061&"*") where B10061 contains the common start of a string expression of variable length, found in one row only of each record, records comprising a (potentially) variable number of rows.

[Farelf]

Well, I've said it before, myself - if your spam levels have dropped it probably means your provider is filtering like mad (and dropping the detritus). Got around to delving into my home account settings last night, found anti-spam filtering is in place, enabled by default (Symantec Brightmail) with delete by default. Toggled to "label " instead of "delete" and in a 12 hour period when I have lately getting 4-5 spam I received 71.

I guess my provider told me they were doing all of this, sometime. But not around the time of the sudden reduction. Anyway, all those dear little spammers are still out there, still lusting after my riches , my address permanently engraved in their magic lists, it seems. Reassuring, in a way. Saw the visiting Egyptian Antiquities exhibition on loan from the Louvre on the weekend. Those people went to a lot of trouble for their "immortality". Mine came free, merely by having an email address.

[Wazoo]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/346878_spamking11.html .... January 10, 2008 8:34 p.m. PT

Four more charges against 'spam King'

Seattle man now faces 40 counts of cybercrimes

A Seattle man dubbed the "spam King" for allegedly using stolen e-mail addresses and "zombie" computers to send massive amounts of spam was arraigned Thursday on four more criminal charges.

The new charges -- aggravated identity theft, mail fraud and two counts of willful failure to file income tax -- boost the number of federal charges Robert Soloway faces to 40.

Soloway, 27, has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

.......

Investigators say Soloway used a controversial software called Dark Mailer, which allows users to tap into a network of proxy computers to send bulk e-mails with near-total anonymity. Investigators believe Soloway made more than $1 million over four years by sending millions of pieces of spam.

Court documents say Soloway, long reviled by international anti-spam groups, sent more than 90 million e-mails in three months through just two of the servers he used.

Soloway remains free on bond pending trial in March.

[rconner]

The new charges -- aggravated identity theft, mail fraud and two counts of willful failure to file income tax -- boost the number of federal charges Robert Soloway faces to 40

Throwing the kitchen sink...yeah, I like it. Should keep his lawyers on the job for quite a while come spring.

-- rick

[rconner]

I was looking through Soloway's case file on spamsuite.com and found this tidbit in Soloway's (apparently unsuccessful) response to the motion for detention (http://www.spamsuite.com/node/140):

Although Robert suffers from Tourette disorder, anxiety, and depression, these physical and mental conditions will not interfere with his ability to appear for future court appearances.

Don't know about the Tourette's, but I can well imagine the anxiety and depression at work here.

-- rick

[Farelf]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/346878_spamking11.html .... January 10, 2008 8:34 p.m. PT

Four more charges against 'spam King'

Seattle man now faces 40 counts of cybercrimes

...

The new charges -- aggravated identity theft, mail fraud and two counts of willful failure to file income tax -- boost the number of federal charges Robert Soloway faces to 40. ...

Hey, that's interesting

The continuing investigation turned up a new alleged victim of ID theft, in London -- identified in court documents as "T.C."

Soloway is accused of stealing T.C.'s e-mail address and using it in a forged spam e-mail header to make recipients believe it came from T.C.

Aggravated ID theft carries a mandatory two-year sentence to be served consecutive to prison time received for other convictions. Soloway already faces several other ID theft charges.

- implying most/nearly all spammers are carrying out "Aggravated ID theft". Maybe we should be filing all spam (or representative samples) which forges our respective addresses JIC it might be proferred as evidence against other scum in future cases. If the seattlepi reporter has got the story right.

[Devilwolf]

I was reading the comments about him posted on one of the local seattle boards..

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/346878_spamking11.html

People actually sound sorry for him, and feel he is being persecuted... How do people who obviously don't own a computer or use email get on to sites to post comments? Are these all comments from crack heads at the local library in Seattle?

"This is a classic case of finding someone whose behavior is villanous and misusing statutes to overcharge him."

"What do people have against entrepreneurs? "

[Farelf]

...Are these all comments from crack heads at the local library in Seattle?...

Those are the comments of the three people in the known universe who don't want to lynch the little bugger - or maybe they're all just his mother using different (pseudo)nyms, a more believable proposition. If that woman had only kept her legs crossed ... still, there will be more to take his place and we can't blame their progenitors.