Spam King Making News

The so-called Spam King will not be holding court anytime soon.
April 2008
by Robin Wark

On March 14, Robert Alan Soloway pleased guilty in Seattle’s U.S. District Court to both mail and email fraud as well as willful failure to file a tax return. The Seattle resident, who will be sentenced June 20, faces up to 26 years in jail and $625,000 in fines. U.S. District Court officials were somewhat surprised Soloway owned up to his cyber dirty deeds.

“This is a man who has resisted taking responsibility for his actions and eluded all kinds of people for a long, long time,” Kathryn Warma, assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, told ChannelWeb for a March 17 article. “It was gratifying to hear him confess his guilt.”

While the Spam King has been dethroned, the fight against spam continues. According to Commtouch, a leader in messaging security, spam levels ranged from 60 to 94 per cent of all emails sent during the first quarter of 2008. Spam and malware writers are becoming much more sophisticated. They are hiding their “junk” messages within websites that appear to be legitimate.* As well, during the first quarter, 355,000 zombie computers were activated daily to aid in malicious activity.**

As for the Spam King, it is unlikely Soloway will be sentenced to the maximum allowed under the statute. However, Warma expects a mini-trial will occur at sentencing with both sides vigorously arguing their sides.

"Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners," said Jeffrey C. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington in a prepared statement when Soloway was nabbed in 2007. "Our investigators dubbed him the 'Spam King' because he is responsible for millions of spam emails."

According to the government, Soloway and his company, Newport Internet Marketing Corporation, between November of 2003 and when he was jailed in May of 2007 sent tens of millions of spam messages. Through NIM, Soloway operated “broadcast email” software and services. Customers paid him to send out emails or purchased Soloway’s software to do it themselves. The government says Soloway made numerous false claims about his services, including that all of the email addresses were opt-ins and that satisfaction was guaranteed. Much of the spam was sent out using false and forged headers and was relayed through bot nets, which is a network of computers infected with malware.

The business was certainly very lucrative for Soloway. In 2005, the year he did not file a tax return, he reportedly made more than $300,000 through his spam activities. He was charging $495 to send out emails to 20 million addresses or the same price to sell clients 80,000 email addresses.

The mail fraud charge will likely hit Soloway the hardest. On that charge he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. For email fraud he could be hit with up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, while the failure to file a tax return could net him a year in jail and force him to pay $25,000. U.S.

Soloway could also face jail time for past offences. In 2005, Microsoft won a $7.8 million judgment against him after he used their Hotmail service to send spam. During the same year, a small Oklahoma Internet provider won a $10 million civil judgment. On online forums, Soloway mocked Mircosoft for its inability to collect from him. His defiance of the Oklahoma court order could influence his sentence, possibly adding 18 months.

Interestingly enough, Soloway could have been facing an even longer prison sentence and forking out more dough. His original indictment featured 40 counts. These include at least five counts of aggravated identity theft, which includes a minimum sentence of two years in prison, and 13 counts of money laundering. In all, 37 charges against Soloway were dropped.

^* ParetoLogic Spam Controls boasts one of the highest detection rates in the industry against phishing attacks. Phishing attacks involve using seemingly legitimate websites to dupe users into providing confidential information.

^** ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS offers superior protection against a wide range of malware and viruses.