Tsunami spam scammer cuffed
Feds swoop on 'rank amateur'
Posted in Spam, 19th January 2005 13:55 GMT
Free Download - Security Web 2.0
A man from Pittsburgh has had his collar felt by the FBI after allegedly sending out 800,000 bogus Tsunami appeal emails, Silicon reports.
Matthew Schmieder was quickly traced by UK spambusters Spamhaus after attempting to fleece netizens of cash with his "fundraising messages". Spamhaus' Steve Linford noted that the swift apprehension of the "rank amateur" ne'er-do-well was due to his failure to cover his tracks.
Linford noted: "He had very little in place by way of defences and upon first seeing the emails we were able to very quickly track him down to Pittsburgh. He lived right around the corner from the FBI offices there and they were able to leave the office and pick up him right away." ®
Related stories
UK's biggest spammer in court
VXers hit new low with tsunami-themed worm
Texas sues student 'spammer' for $2m

An Improved Architecture for High-Efficiency, High-Density Data Centers [WP126]
Implementing Energy Efficient Data Centers [WP114]
Blind SQL Injection [3-2APYM5E]
The Evolving Security Landscape
The Register Guide to Extended Validation

Inmate hacked prison network, broke into employee database
Miscreants hijacking machines via (freshly patched) Adobe flaw
Martial law planned for Craigslist's red-light district
Cocaine addicted IT manager hacks ex-employer's mail servers