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New York, NY - Man Gets 30 Months Prison for Spamming AOL |
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Adam Vitale, 27, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan after pleading guilty more than a year ago to breaking anti-spam laws.
He was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL in restitution.
Vitale was caught making a deal with a government informant to send junk e-mails -- known as spam -- that advertised a computer security program in return for 50 percent of the product's profits, prosecutors said.
"Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging in child's play," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin told Vitale as he sentenced him. Vitale earlier apologized and said he had learned a lesson.
Prosecutors said Vitale had 22 prior convictions.
Vitale and another man, Todd Moeller, defeated AOL's filter system by using several different computer servers to relay the e-mails and changed the e-mail header information to ensure the spam e-mails could not be traced back to them.
Moeller, of New Jersey, was sentenced last November to 27 months for his role in the scheme.
Court papers said that in less than a week in August 2005, Vitale and Moeller sent e-mails on behalf of the informant to more than 1,277,000 addresses of subscribers at AOL.
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Read Comments (6) — Post Yours »
1
Jul 15, 2008 at 10:23 PM bigwheeel Says:
The sentence (of prison time plus restitution) might appear to be a bit harsh! But such a serious breach of security might have far-reaching consequences for national security, beside the annoyance!
2
Jul 16, 2008 at 09:57 AM Anonymous Says:
only in amwerica. part of this was that he was a good hacker and that AOL was too stupid to not be secure enough to not be hacked by joe shmo.
we got real criminals (drug pushers, molesters) roaming our streets, but an email spammer gets 3 years?
hashem yishmor...
3
Jul 16, 2008 at 01:41 PM Moishe Yehuda Says:
I agree with Anonymous.
I think the sentence was too harsh.
Besides,all an AOL user has to do is click the delete button!
What's the Big Deal?
4
Jul 16, 2008 at 05:23 PM Anonymous Says:
forget the abuse, how stupid is aol to be vulnerable to such a hack?
the sentence is deplorable. we have REAL criminals that get nothing. sick. this is bush america.
5
Jul 16, 2008 at 11:58 PM Matzahlocal101 Says:
Post his name, address, picture, phone, and EMAIL address.
6
Jul 17, 2008 at 02:51 AM Anonymous Says:
You think just push the delete button? Do you know how many spam emails get blocked by aol? You only see the ones who make it through. Without spam filtering you would have 500 spam emails and 5 personal emails and you'd spend time sorting through the email to find yours.