Fighting malware and spam

A fine, a curfew and a treasure hunt

Round up of the month's spammer penalties.

Kicking off a round-up of some of the anti-spam penalties issued worldwide this month, the Chinese government has made an underwhelming impression with its first fine for spamming. Hesheng Zhihui Enterprise Management Consulting was fined a paltry 5,000 yuan renminbi (approx. £331) for sending 'bulk emails containing advertisements to Internet users since January'. The country's anti-spam regulations - introduced in March this year - state that commercial emails must be sent with the text 'AD' in the header and must contain opt-out options. The maximum fine for failing to do this is 30,000 yuan (approx. £1,989).

Next up is the equally underwhelming case of 18-year-old DoS spammer David Lennon - his penalty is a two-month curfew that will confine him to his home from 12.30am to 7.00am on weekdays, and between 12.30am and 10.00am at the weekend. Lennon was originally cleared of charges in November 2005 when a judge ruled that executing a DoS attack did not contravene the Computer Misuse Act (see VB, December 2005, p.3). However, the ruling was challenged by the Crown Prosecution Service and later sent back to the Magistrates Court.

Lennon - whose 5 million emails crashed the servers of the Domestic & General Group - initially faced the possibility of having to pay costs of up to £29,000, but the demand for the costs was later dropped. The judge told the court 'Even given his age at the time, this was a grave offence and caused serious damage, so I need to impose something to make him think again' - however it seems that the penalty Lennon now faces will barely impact on his life (other, perhaps, than allowing him a little more beauty sleep than his teenage contemporaries). The curfew has been arranged carefully so as not to interfere with Lennon's job at a local cinema and ends on the day before he starts college.

Finally, an update to the story reported on www.virusbtn.com last month about ISP mammoth AOL digging for treasure. The company obtained a court judgement allowing it to dig up the land of a convicted spammer's family, in a search for a stash of wealth it believes he has stowed away in the form of gold and platinum bars.

Davis Wolfgang Hawke was convicted of spamming offences last year and ordered to pay AOL over $12 million - but he has since disappeared, leaving behind only receipts for large amounts of precious metal. Initially Hawke's family insisted that the idea that he buried the stash on their land was ridiculous. However his grandparents - while still believing that the ISP is following a defective treasure map - have now agreed to allow AOL to search their land using radar and sonar equipment. It is thought that the threat of a legal battle with the mammoth ISP was sufficient persuasion. However, Hawke's parents remain resolute in their refusal to allow the company access to their property.

01 September 2006

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