Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Wednesday, May 7, 2003 | JULIA ANGWIN

[TroutStalker]

ATLANTA -- For more than a year, Mary Youngblood has been chasing the "Buffalo Spammer."

The 34-year-old Ms. Youngblood, who sports a picture of Darth Vader on her company ID badge, works at the headquarters of EarthLink Inc., a big Internet-access provider. She leads a team of more than a dozen investigators whose job it is to find spammers, hackers and other "bad guys" who haunt the company's network.

[Dubh_Ghlase]

Hang him and leave him out to dry as an example to others...

[Alouette]

he had sent out "over 10 million" spams on his behalf. All those spams generated a mere 36 sales, and he paid Mr. Carmack $360 for his efforts.

What motivates these Spammers if there is not really any money in it?

I think we should re-introduce the public stocks for spammers and provide garbage for passers-by to pelt them with.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Amazing article. Thanks to people like Wellborn and Youngblood, this despicable man was stopped.

[Lysander]

Select and delete.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Mr. Wellborn drew applause when he suggested the best way to deter a spammer would be to "draw him and quarter him and put his head on a pike."

I don't have a problem with this solution - not at all.

[ikka]

You know, a company of Earthlink's size should be able to determine when customer x sends more than say 10,000 emails a day. There are system logs that they could write a program to parse that would tell them that.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

LOL... ran across this today!

[dighton]

At a recent antispam conference Mr. Wellborn drew applause when he suggested the best way to deter a spammer would be to "draw him and quarter him and put his head on a pike."

[Media Insurgent]

"She added, 'Maybe if they got jobs for the fellows, they wouldn't have to do this.'"

How long is it before the Dems latch onto this? Can't you just hear it?: "We obviously need a federal jobs program to stop people from spamming! Spam is a byproduct of the Bush economy!"

[jimt]

Let's see. 825,000,000 emails, times ten wasted seconds per email, equals 8,250,000,000 wasted seconds, or stolen time.

Sentence the SOB to 8,250,000,000 seconds of prison time at hard labor. That's 261 years.

After that, the scum will have repaid his debt to society and can be released. NO parole for spammers.

[headsonpikes]

"draw him and quarter him and put his head on a pike."

It's jump on the bandwagon time, I see. ;^)

Drawing and quartering seems a tad rude, but piking is festive!

[FierceDraka]

Good article. I noticed that the perp is a bodybuilder - no big surprise. Those guys rarely have real jobs because they have to spend 4 hours a day in the gym.

[bootyist-monk]

Since they are Earthlink, perhaps they should introduce the spammers to this device to help them see the error of their ways...

[RippleFire]

bump

[MediaMole]

It probably took him 20 minutes to send out the 10 million e-mails. $360 for 20 minutes work is pretty good.

He's a jobless, dateless wonder who lives with his mommy, how much money does he need anyway?

[Alouette]

NO parole for spammers.

And no Internet access either.

[jokar]

Drawing and quartering seems a tad rude, but piking is festive

How ya going to get his head off ?

[headsonpikes]

There is a veritable plethora of 'head-off-getting' technology.

But the venerable 'pike' is the ne plus ultra of justice not only being done, but being SEEN to be done.

;^)

[Rebelbase]

"Mr. Carmack said he didn't have an attorney"

HA! Can you say Toast?