DailyTech - MySpace Files Lawsuit Against 'Spam King' Scott Richter

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Internet MySpace Files Lawsuit Against 'Spam King' Scott Richter
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - January 23, 2007 10:43 AM

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34 comment(s) - last by oTAL.. on Jan 30 at 3:55 PM

But spam is still on the rise

This week MySpace.com announced it had filed a lawsuit against Scott Richter, also known as the "Spam King." MySpace.com claimed that Richter had sent out millions of e-mails to MySpace members. Richter is being sued under the CAN-SPAM Act. MySpace also said that Richter illegally gained access to millions of MySpace user accounts by using phishing schemes that exploited certain flaws in MySpace's website architecture.

Richter's run-in with tech companies isn't something out of the ordinary and MySpace is definitely not his first. In 2003, Microsoft took Richter to court, in which he was ordered to hand over $100,000 USD for damages caused by e-mail spam. After failing to pay the fines, Richter was ordered to pay $7-million USD.

Law enforcement agencies and IT companies are strengthening their fight against spam in all forms. DailyTech recently reported that Jeffery Goodin became the first person in the U.S. convicted of a criminal offense for spam. Goodin is facing prison sentence on July 1st of this year and could face up to 101 years in a federal prison. Goodin was also prosecuted under the CAN-SPAM Act.

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By Scabies on 1/23/2007 11:54:50 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Richter's run in with tech companies isn't something out of the ordinary and MySpace is definitely not his first. In 2003, Microsoft took Richter to court, in which he was ordered to hand over $100,000 USD for damages caused by e-mail spam. After failing to pay the fines, Richter was ordered to pay $7-million USD.

I have to wonder who was the beneficiary of these damages, aside from the lawyers involved... I got spam before '03, and I havent been issued a cent in compensation.

"OMG CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO" password scams... all my myspace contacts have been fooled by this. Die, Scott, Die!

RE: $?

By discussion on 1/23/07, Rating: -1

By discussion on 1/23/2007 2:08:34 PM , Rating: -1

This is not right by any measures. No man or woman should have to face such stiff penalties for an act which hurts absolutely no one. It is but a minor inconvenience, yet spammers are ranked into the same categories as pirates or even worse as Murderers?

America, I am ashamed of you. I am ashamed of the corruption which has become your life blood. I am ashamed of anyone, any leader who believes Simple text is worthy of one's life or huge amounts of money, when it hurts nobody.

People today are about being lazy and the simple life that they have forotten how to really live. Stop complaining about Spam, stop sentencing these people to large jail times and maybe start living your own lives, instead of trying to ruin someone elses life for writing text on a blog, or a forum.

It makes no sense. America and the American legal system makes no sense...no wonder wo many people feel they are "Owed" everything...the legal system makes it so for everything is being taken away.

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RE: $?

By AxemanFU on 1/23/2007 2:39:05 PM , Rating: 5

Are you out of your mind? Hurts noone? You think it doesn't cost each of us some expense to pay our ISP's to filter out the masses of this useless waste and garbage flying around the web? All the wasted time, all the man hours of work, all the programming time, all the wasted electricity to run all the network equipment all over the world to transport, process, and store trillions of usless, unnecessary waste emails? All the extra infrastructure built just to handle the massive bandwidth and storage requirements for a bunch of junk and crap? You tell me it's not costing ALL of us money/time wasted to subsidize spamming and other nefarious web related behaviors? My life is either my time, or my time traded for money, and any less time these blood sucking spammers take out of my life while I try to search through and filter out their junk and uesless crap is better for me, and for everyone else I suspect. More time for me, my family and friends, for busieness, entertainment. More use I can get out of email as a means of communication.

SCREW spammers and their parasitic ilk. We can all only hope punishing them harshly for wasting hundreds of millions of poeple's time and money will get a message across...

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RE: $?

By virginia on 1/23/07, Rating: -1

RE: $?

By NaughtyGeek on 1/23/2007 3:58:58 PM , Rating: 3

People pay to put their junk in the USPS therefore it's not costing us any money. No comparison.

The fact that it doesn't cost these parasites any money is the reason the problem has become so widespread. If these folks can make money off of 1% of the SPAM they send, they are bound to make a fortune at our expense with no risk to them without these SPAM laws. Too bad they can't torture the pukes before they send them off to jail.

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RE: $?

By cochy on 1/23/2007 5:51:11 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed and I believe I read some where that in some short amount of time spam email will be more common then legitimate email. So obviously something needs to be done. The stiff penalties are to set precedence and scare people from breaking the same laws after the precedence has been set.

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RE: $?

By oTAL

(blog) on 1/30/2007 3:55:41 PM , Rating: 2

I believe that in absolute number, the amount of junk mail (including malware such as spread by mail viruses and the sort) is already superior to the amount of legit e-mails. Don't forget that a single infected computer can spew tens of thousands of e-mails every hour.
I don't have any sources, but I believe I've read it somewhere credible.

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RE: $?

By Chernobyl68 on 1/23/2007 7:00:34 PM , Rating: 2

I'd challenge that assumption based on how much the price of a stamp has increased in recent years. I believe one of the reasons cited for the increase was to pay for upgrades to sorting equipment to handle the increasing volume of mail. how much would it cost if we weren't sent 10 credit card applications, student loan consolidation, or mortgage refinance (I live in an apartment!!!) letters every month.

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RE: $?

By Grast on 1/23/2007 7:09:51 PM , Rating: 2

I agree. but the day it costs me a dollar to send a letter through the mail is the day I stop using the postal service.

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RE: $?

By Scabies on 1/23/2007 2:42:20 PM , Rating: 2

relax. We call this exaggerated sarcasm. Spare us the moral crusade. I know I do not have the right to pass a sentance on Scott Richter, and I realize that as I joke about what punishment he should receive. Do note that a recent spam offender faces up to 101 years in prison (life, essentially,) which is a great margin above the default murder sentance.
I would readily categorize spammers with pirates, in fact I would rank them as worse than pirates. Pirates give the shaft to holders of copyrights to supply (illegally) the public. Spammers help no one but themselves and the advertising groups and companies they are hired by, unless you are interested in recieving discounted v!@g@r@.

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RE: $?

By masher2

(blog) on 1/23/2007 10:20:46 PM , Rating: 2

> "Do note that a recent spam offender faces up to 101 years in prison (life, essentially,) which is a great margin above the default murder sentance."

In most states, First Degree Murder is a life sentence or, in the states that permit it, the death penalty. That's for a single offense.

Under CAN-SPAM sentencing guidelines, however, a single offense is one year in jail. Five years if the spam was sent in order to facilitate some other felony crime. That is, compared to a life sentence, a fairly light penalty, wouldn't you say?

Goodin is facing 101 years in jail for multiple offenses. Rather like a serial killer can easily face a 1,000 year sentence. However, its important to note that Goodin has not yet been sentenced. Odds are he'll receive a far shorter sentence in actuality.

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RE: $?

By nschor on 1/23/2007 2:50:10 PM , Rating: 3

I agree that levity should be given to small time spammers on a case by case basis, but this guy STEALS lists using high tech methods, and is not averse to scheming and cheating people, who maybe aren't as saavy as you, out of every penny they have. He is a criminal and should be treated as such. He has to PAY the price if for no other reason, to be made an example, and maybe protect thousands of innocent people from being ripped off. Given the opportunity, this guy would steal your SSN and sell it to the highest bidder. I'm ashamed of you for being so narrow minded. Think before you blog!

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RE: $?

By discussion on 1/23/07, Rating: -1

RE: $?

By nschor on 1/23/2007 3:25:46 PM , Rating: 3

Oh man, are you serious?!? Playing the sympathy card on a completely unrelated issue. Thanks for your scrifice -- I too am a veteran, but you should get sympathy for missing a brain, not a leg. How was anyone supposed to know you're missing a leg anyhow? Did you limp into this BLOG? BTW, look at the reaction your initial comment is getting - case closed!

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RE: $?

By throughhyperspace on 1/23/2007 3:59:41 PM , Rating: 2

I have the utmost respect for your service in the defense of our country. That is, however, no reason not to disagree with your stated opinion on this matter.

While, I too, feel the fight against malware is something to be expected while on the internet with a PC, that does not mean those who propagate such software should not be held accountable. The vast majority of spammers are not innocent advertizers. They use doubious methods to collect email addresses and as stated above, have no qualms about phishing and other identity scams. This is the case on myspace. The are either pushing webcam girls, video ipods, ect or attmpting to steal the password to your other email accounts. This costs MySpace millions in attempting to combat this scourge and that cost inevitably gets passed onto consumers(as is the case with ISPs, antivirus companies, ect). While myspace is currently free, will it be forever? Or will they increase the amount of adviews people must bear? Or perhaps they will not be able to broaden their services because they have too many resources tied up in security.

I do believe that punishing the worst of the perpatrators will be a deterrent to others considering such schemes and as such, have no problem with them recieving relatively harsh sentances for a nonviolent crime. 5-10 for those involved in large scale more nucience spamming up to 25+ for those involved in serious identiy theft scams.

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RE: $?

By OrSin on 1/23/2007 4:08:59 PM , Rating: 1

I with the 1 legged guy. Sorry its a hassal and he shoud be fined. The big dogs like them maybe even a a year or 2 in cake walk prison. But 101 years for spamming is crazy. Now if you can prove he stole things (money, accouts names) or anything like that them hit him hard. But All they got him for right now is spamming. When emailing gets you 101 and double murder get you 13 years its insane. And yes i know someone that served 13 years (had got 22)for killing 2 people and they had witnesses.

Its funny how the entitled lose it over suck small things.

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RE: $?

By nschor on 1/23/2007 4:37:16 PM , Rating: 2

I say no less than ten years for serious offenders -- One or two for small fries. Anything less than ten years would not deter a serious offender. As a matter of fact, they'd probably keep doing it from the computer in the prison library.

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RE: $?

By Chernobyl68 on 1/23/2007 7:04:44 PM , Rating: 2

Sorry, butI fail to see the connection between showing respect to vets (I am one also) and this spam king.
101 years? not enough I say. I want him to spend an equal amout of time in jail for the sum of the individual lost time of all the people he spammed...

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RE: $?

By rudy on 1/23/2007 3:35:46 PM , Rating: 3

You are obviously a spammer yourself otherwise I see no reason anyone would not support reasonable measures to reduce this junk. A harsh penalty like a couple years in jail for wasting the time of millions of people seems reasonable to me. And lets not forget many of these guys (probably all that are convicted) are phishing and stealing real monetary things such as money. That is nothing more then a new version of fraud. They also spoof peoples email addresses. In the US if you claim to be someone you are not you can and should be punished. That is why we in the US have a booming internet economy because we actually punish people for making the internet an insecure place unlike other countries who just don't give a shit or worse are corrupt like china and turn a blind eye to the large numbers of hackers and spammers they harbor so long as they don't say anything bad about their country and help stimulate their server companies which provide safe off shore web servers to pollute the internet with spam. As time goes on each country will realize the only way they can advance their internet potential is to create some sort of security for the honest average people using the internet. That means if you phish, spam, or steal you need to be held accountable.

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Off with his head!

By angryhippy on 1/23/2007 11:55:02 AM , Rating: 4

Jeese, I hope this guy gets put away for a long time. So tired of spammers, spyware, adware. Time to start throwing those losers in prison!

RE: Off with his head!

By ajfink on 1/23/2007 12:19:28 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed. A few years in jail will serve him well. Nothing extreme.

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RE: Off with his head!

By DEredita on 1/23/2007 12:28:23 PM , Rating: 2

I agree. Most of the people I know on Myspace have been a victim of phishing schemes. I really hope they lock him up for a few decades.

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RE: Off with his head!

By z3R0C00L on 1/23/2007 12:33:23 PM , Rating: 2

I say freeze his assets, take all the money he made from spamming and give it to charity and then jail him for life.

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RE: Off with his head!

By hapticz on 1/23/2007 1:33:44 PM , Rating: 2

yes, it is time to start treating these spam masters as what they are, CRIMINALS. judicial has whole departments to pursue trite copyright issues, why not another entire department to lock up these deviant societal misery makers also!

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101 Years for a Vi@gra ad?

By TheGuyWhoIsRight on 1/23/2007 4:08:38 PM , Rating: 2

Yes, spam costs money. It makes companies employ developers and network engineers while buying custom routers and specialized software just to deal with the nuisance. In its worst form, it's used to phish people's private information and use it to abuse their accounts, steal their identities, and potentially even bankrupt them.

Of course, most spam just wants us to have longer penises.

That being said, spam is still just spam. Yeah, it's a crime. But 101 years in Federal prison? By the way -- Federal prison means you must serve a minimum of 80% of your sentence, so don't think "oh he'll probably only get a few years". Put this in true perspective -- murderers, rapists, and child molesters rarely come close to a criminal sentence that severe. No matter how much IT people like to complain about the cost of spam, it's nothing compared to the crimes of rape and murder.

When a crime can be prevented by the implementation of common sense and technological innovation, the fault lies equally on those who fall victim to it as much as it does on those who commit it.

RE: 101 Years for a Vi@gra ad?

By masher2

(blog) on 1/24/2007 10:10:04 AM , Rating: 2

> "murderers, rapists, and child molesters rarely come close to a criminal sentence that severe..."

If they engage in as many counts of murder, rape, or abuse as this individual did of spamming, they'd receive sentences of several thousand years. The sentence for a single violation of the CAN-SPAM act is one year. One. That isn't "severe".

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Sex-with-a-corpse 5 years in jail, Spam 101

By corporatecookie on 1/23/2007 4:54:52 PM , Rating: 2

Attempted sex with a corpse in the state of Wisconsin:
Max of 5 years in jail, 12,500 fine.

'Hot' 'Stock Tips' 101 years in Jail.

Hum.

Source:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0906061grave3...

RE: Sex-with-a-corpse 5 years in jail, Spam 101

By SmokeRngs on 1/24/2007 9:04:14 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Attempted sex with a corpse in the state of Wisconsin:
Max of 5 years in jail, 12,500 fine.

20 counts of attempted sex with a corpse in the state of Wisconsin:
Max of 100 years in jail, 250,000 fine.

Now maybe you will begin to understand. Also, the guy was convicted for more than just spam.

Also, the original topic of the article has nothing to do with the criminal justice system or up to 101 years in prison. This is in the civil justice system. The guy is getting sued for damages due to his spamming and hijacking of MySpace accounts to do his spamming. This can be nothing more than a monetary award to the plaintiff if the defendant is found guilty.

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Scott Rickter still spams big time, but now its off shore

By Freddie Flintstone on 1/25/2007 1:00:34 AM , Rating: 2

Scott Rickter didn't stop spamming when he got busted. He just moved it to Asia where the rules are lax.

Funny, but I just read another story stating that China is now has the highest amount of spamming in the world.

That would be his signature.

RE: Scott Rickter still spams big time, but now its off shore

By lunalavalliere on 1/25/2007 10:36:20 AM , Rating: 2

Spam is annoying and all, but let's face facts here. Most people don't pay for an email address, and if you do I feel sorry for you because there are plenty of places to get good email services without paying. That being said, I don't think spam hurts people as much everyone thinks. It's just junk mail, it's not like this guy is coming into your homes and raping you. Death is a little much. If you really want to hurt him, just find him until he's bankrupt.

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