AOL engineer sold 92 million emails to spammers

[rawstory]

First reported in America on The Raw Story, the liberal alternative to Drudge, http://www.rawstory.com

AOL engineer sold 92m names to spammers

David Teather in New York
Thursday June 24, 2004
The Guardian

A software engineer working for America Online was last night charged with stealing the internet service provider's entire subscriber list and selling it to spammers, the senders of unsolicited junk emails.

Jason Smathers, 24, was arrested on conspiracy charges at his home in West Virginia, close to AOL's headquarters, where he had worked since 1999. Sean Dunaway, 21, who bought the list of 92m screen names, was arrested in Las Vegas.

Although detailed customer information was obtained, there is no evidence that any credit card details were stolen.

According to the indictment, Mr Smathers used his skills to steal AOL's database of customer account screen names in May 2003. He sold the list to Mr Dunaway and possibly others. Mr Dunaway allegedly used it to promote his own internet gambling website and is said to have boasted that spamming was bringing in up to $20,000 (£11,000) a day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1246208,00.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0623042aol1.html

[shanti]

1. $20 grand a day??

that's six mil a month...:crazy:

[ps1074]

5. wrong

that is 600.000 a month :hi:

[shanti]

6. oops, my bad

never was good at math:-)

[saigon68]

2. I read where 87% of E-mails are now spam

In my inbox its closer to 98% It (E-Mail) is almost useless.

You can't tell who is writing, or what the mail is about. Forget going after the spammers--- the senders. Go after the companies who want to give every man a 12 inch penis or be hung like a horse.

[rawstory]

7. Glad I don't have AOL.

Tho i doubt with all the spam no one ever even noticed the difference.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. Hmmm, I smell deep pocket lawsuits

I bet AOL legal department is squirming about this.

[Dover]

4. Internet users are at the mercy of unknown individuals like this who work

for any of the big online companies as well as your server company, to name a few. Same with guys who do computer repairs...

You have to just have faith that these people are "honest".

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. What kind of penalties does this guy face?

Sounds serious. Should do some time.

[Ilsa]

9. I like what Al Roker had to say about this news item:

"YOU'VE GOT JAIL!"

Hey, I laughed pretty hard over my breakfast with that one.

[Tommy_Douglas]

10. What's really amazing...

Is that with all the spam a person gets, that people actually read them and then go and spend money because of them... I don't get that.