| Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on | | | | Press reported that the AOL names matched a list |
| it.Jeremy Jaynes was on top of the world. By age | | | | of 92 million addresses that an AOL software |
| 28, he owned a million-dollar home, a high-class | | | | engineer has been charged with stealing.When Jaynes' |
| restaurant, a chain of gyms and countless other toys. | | | | operation was raided, investigators found that the |
| Yet those were only the spoils of his main line of | | | | house from which he ran his operation was wired |
| business, which was swindling innocent people out of | | | | with 16 T-1 lines (a large office building can get by on |
| their money through email scams. From an | | | | a single T-1 line for all its users). Investigators also |
| unassuming house serving as his company's | | | | entered into evidence to-do lists handwritten by |
| headquarters in Raleigh, NC, Jaynes sent an | | | | Jaynes. Take a look at Jeremy Jayne's meticulously |
| estimated ten million messages a day pitching | | | | detailed lists at:* |
| products most recipients didn't want, amassing an | | | | * |
| estimated $24 million fortune in the process. Using | | | | * Work if You Can Get (Away With) ItThe |
| aliases such as Jeremy James and Gaven | | | | economics of spamming makes Jaynes' decision to |
| Stubberfield, Jaynes spammed his way up to the #8 | | | | build a career of it understandable, though not noble. |
| position on Spamhaus' Register Of Known Spam | | | | Spammers work on the law of averages, which |
| Operations (ROKSO) and grossed as much as | | | | would seem like an odd strategy considering that the |
| $750,000 a month, allowing him to live like a | | | | average response rate for a spam message is just |
| king.However, Jaynes ran head-on into an information | | | | one-tenth of one percent. However, once you do |
| superhighway road block when a Virginia judge | | | | the math even this miniscule response rate can make |
| sentenced him to nine years in prison for his | | | | one very wealthy very quickly. If a spammer sends |
| November 2004 conviction on felony charges of | | | | one million messages pushing a product width a $40 |
| using false IP addresses to send mass email | | | | profit, a response rate of 0.1 percent works out to |
| advertisements (some just call it spamming). The | | | | 1000 customers, or $40,000 per million messages |
| conviction was a landmark decision, as Jaynes | | | | sent. Since each message costs only fractions of a |
| became the first person in the United States | | | | penny to send, and Jaynes was sending literally billions |
| convicted of felony spam charges. Though his | | | | of messages a year, it's easy to see how he pulled in |
| operation was based in North Carolina, Jaynes was | | | | $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending |
| tried in Virginia because it is home to a large number | | | | perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other |
| of the routers that control much of North America's | | | | overhead.The fact that spamming can be such a |
| Internet traffic (it's also the home of AOL and a | | | | profitable undertaking means that the profession is |
| government building or two).He should've Used the | | | | not likely to go anywhere in the near future. |
| Privacy SoftwareDuring the trial, prosecutors focused | | | | Spammers have financial motivation to come up with |
| on three of Jaynes' most egregious scams: software | | | | innovative ways to avoid detection, and they have |
| that promised to protect users' private information; a | | | | begun to join forces. While the landmark decision |
| service for choosing penny stocks to invest in; and a | | | | handed down in the Jaynes trial may serve as a |
| work-from-home "FedEx refund processor" | | | | deterrent to some would-be spammers, it is unlikely |
| opportunity that promised $75-an-hour work but did | | | | that the threat of prosecution will keep future |
| little more than give buyers access to a website of | | | | spammers from refining their trade. For now and the |
| delinquent FedEx accounts. Sound familiar? Anyone | | | | foreseeable future, the answer still lies in technology, |
| with an e-mail address has received countless | | | | not law enforcement.Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar |
| messages originating from Jaynes' operation. (If | | | | and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at |
| you're still waiting on your privacy software to show | | | | CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of |
| up, it's probably safe to stop checking the | | | | enterprise email security. The company's flagship |
| mailbox.)Jaynes got lists of millions of email addresses | | | | product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise |
| through a stolen database of America Online | | | | anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing |
| customers. He also illegally obtained e-mail addresses | | | | attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more |
| of eBay users. While the prosecutors still don't know | | | | by visiting today. |
| how Jaynes got access to the lists, the Associated | | | | |