Spam Soldiers On

Spammers hit with injunction, but junk mail keeps coming
Nov 2008
by Kai Davis

The United States’ Federal Trade Commission obtained a court order Oct. 14 to shut down one of the world’s most prolific spam groups.

The leaders of the group were Lance Atkinson, a New Zealand citizen living in Australia, and Jody Smith of Texas. New Zealand authorities are also involved in the operation. The injunction prevents the defendants from spamming, making false product claims and froze their U.S. assets, as well as those of their companies. According to the FTC, some security researchers believe at one time one-third of all spam emails were sent via a network of compromised computers promoting the group’s websites. They reportedly had spammers working on their behalf in Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Russia, Canada, and the United States.

"They are probably the most prolific spammers at the moment," Richard Cox of Spamhaus.org was quoted as saying in a story posted on The Register, a United Kingdom website focusing on technology news. "This is probably the first time that an action by law enforcement will affect the level of spam in people's inboxes."

Unfortunately, that prediction did not seem to come true. The Internet security company IronPort reported that in the week after the action spam volume dropped from 90.9 per cent to 89.7. – not a big decline. A theory floated in Sydney Morning Herald story was that the botnet used to distribute the messages was taken over by someone else. Meanwhile, Spamhaus’ Quentin Jenkins noted in his blog that "botnet spam systems are very automated and will continue to span even if the operators do not log in and control them."

The FTC alleges that the defendants deceptively marketed a variety of products, such as pills for weight loss and male enhancement and prescription drugs through spam messages. For example, the messages offered discounted drugs that were claimed to be from a U.S.-licensed pharmacy. In reality, the drugs were from India and were not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

As well, the FTC alleges the companies involved lied to customers about the security of their credit card numbers and other information. The web site said it used Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology, however the FTC could find no indication that it did.