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Home > Archive > General Discussion > June 2004 > Why AOL gets so much SPAM
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Why AOL gets so much SPAM
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| DaDnDe 2004-06-24, 1:43 pm |
| Here is another reason why AOL is simply a bad idea. now the key thing to remember here is dont believe everything you read. After all, you will notice the article does come from MSN and we already know what they think of AOL.
AOL customer list stolen, sold to spammer
Former employee charged with stealing subscriber list
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 5:48 p.m. ET June 23, 2004
A former AOL employee was charged Wednesday with stealing the Internet provider's entire subscriber list -- over 30 million consumers, and their 90 million screen names -- and selling it to a spammer.
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The employee, a 24-year-old software engineer named Jason Smathers, was arrested Wednesday at his residence in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.
According to a complaint filed before Judge Andrew J. Peck, Smathers accessed AOL's subscriber list in May 2003, then sold the list to 21-year-old Las Vegas resident Sean Dunaway for an unknown sum. Dunaway was also arrested Wednesday.
Authorities allege Dunaway used the list to promote his Internet gambling business, and then resold it to another spammer for $52,000. That spammer, who isn't named in the complaint, eventually agreed to cooperate with authorities and fingered Dunaway to U.S. Secret Service Agent Peter Cavicchia, hoping for leniency from government prosecutors.
The unnamed spammer admitted to using the AOL e-mail addresses to send e-mail marketing herbal penile enlargement pills. The spammer also told authorities than Dunaway claimed to be making $10,000 to $20,000 per day from his Internet gambling business.
AOL said no users will be forced to change their e-mail address because of the theft. Instead, the company will simply continue to attempt to block spam before it hits users.
"What we are doing for consumers is cooperating with law enforcement," said Nicholas Graham, AOL spokesman. "AOL members can rely on us to tighten our filters, get them more tools to fight spam, and file lawsuits against spammers. Our anti-spam efforts are still hitting on all cylinders."
Other personal data also stolen
According to the complaint, information on AOL's 30 million subscribers is maintained in the company's "Data Warehouse," and access is limited to a small number of employees. Smathers, who worked at the firm's Dulles office, didn't have access to the data, but he impersonated another employee to reach it, the complaint says.
Smathers, who had worked at AOL since 1999, got more than screen names, according to the complaint. He also allegedly stole related zip codes, credit card types and telephone numbers. But he did not get credit card numbers, the complaint says, because they are stored separately by the company.
A search of Smather's employee computer last month revealed electronic conversations he had with Dunaway describing the heist, according to the government. After stealing the entire screen name database in May 2003, Smathers went back and got an update in March 2004, taking another 18 million screen names. Dunaway paid $100,000 to Smathers for the updated list, and later sold it to the unnamed spammer for $32,000.
During their investigation, AOL technicians discovered a telling file on Smathers' computer, which included a conversation between Smathers and a correspondent named "The Brews." Initially, the correspondent complains that most spam lists include many fake and invalid AOL addresses.
"Well . . . it would be different if you mailed current AOL members. But the lists I use, and others have used, are just collected lists where people have to enter their emails and all there is thousands and thousands of fake emails. If you have a database of REAL emails, that were fresh, the ratio of sign ups would be sooo much greater. If you have any ideas on bulk mailing with AOL lol let me know and I can get you a program set up in a heart beat. heh.”
To that, Smathers replied: "Well I’ll check it out ... It isn’t going to be easy. I think I found the member database ... Just need to figure out how to get the SNs [screen names] it is spread over like 30 computers ... You can’t talk about this."
But later, he added, "OK, I got it figured out ... there are going to be millions of them so, will take time to extract I will do them a chunk at a time ... because 37 million accounts have up to 7 screen names per account I’d expect there to be around 100 million active screen names4 maybe more."
Both face up to five years in prison, the complaint says.
© 2004 MSNBC Interactive | |
| jennie313 2004-06-24, 2:00 pm |
| I heard it on NPR last night, so I'm pretty sure it's a true story. | |
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| well, AOL is evil either way you look at it, anyway... | |
| DaDnDe 2004-06-24, 3:14 pm |
| evil is right...
but i was more ga-ga over the fact that the guy was making $10-$20,000 a day from his internet gambling business...
hmmm i must be in the wrong business... but then again, i sleep pretty good at night. | |
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| I'll tell you this much: if that figure is true, then he is a moron to jeopardize that activity... | |
| curiousgeorge 2004-06-24, 4:20 pm |
| Nice to see that AOL has such lame security that any engineer can just copy their sensitive data. | |
| jennie313 2004-06-24, 4:23 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by curiousgeorge
Nice to see that AOL has such lame security that any engineer can just copy their sensitive data.
I'm trying to act surprised, but I just can't do it with a straight face. I feel bad for AOL members. Not only do they use a crappy service but now they know it's crappy. And most of those people don't know their alternatives. | |
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| ...and we are surprised that AOL sucks because... why again?  | |
| DaDnDe 2004-06-24, 5:10 pm |
| AOL's service doesnt really suck. for what its designed to do, it works very well otherwise it wouldnt have 31 million zombies... i mean customers.
AOL is for the person who doesnt want to be bothered with configuring their computer, or looking for adds, or doing any independent thinking.
If you are the type of person who doesnt have a clue as to how a computer works or is in the habit of trusting everything to a complete stranger then AOL is for you. we dont really understand this train of thought because we simply dont apply to the above conditions. | |
| azimuth40 2004-06-24, 5:31 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by DaDnDe
AOL is for the person who doesnt want to be bothered with configuring their computer, or looking for adds, or doing any independent thinking.
I don't know if I agree with that. AOL users have to jump through hoops just to use the internet as it was designed. Many user drop it because they are tired of reading "every one just click here. Oh you dumb a.. AOL users follow this list of instructions or it won't work" Whoa be those that are AOL users and also use a Mac. | |
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| I beg to differ. AOL's service does not work well. They constantly over sell and over crowd their network. My inlaws used to to be AOL customers, and I'll tell you: their service was down more than it was up. | |
| Kasor 2004-06-27, 11:45 am |
| AOL is for people that not bright on the computing... and many users is unawake of the security and other sensitive issues...
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| freak 2004-06-27, 12:09 pm |
| agreed. It's perfect for people who simply don't want to learn. |
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