Florida man ran $1.35m hack-and-spam racket with 50m-plus addresses

The leader of a spamming gang that took over corporate servers and private email accounts to send out spam has pled guilty to charges of computer hacking and identity theft. Timothy Livingston, 31, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, worked with two other partners to run A Whole Lot of Nothing, LLC. The shell company pulled in …

[sjsmoto]

Someone needs to knock on his jail cell every 15 minutes asking if he'd like to buy Viagra or cigarettes. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. For 25 years.

[ecofeco]

I like the cut of your jib. Have an up vote.

[Captain Badmouth]

Knock at the door

"Someone needs to knock on his jail cell every 15 minutes.."

Hopefully they will, and not in the way you're thinking...

[N2]

Excllent

That would be a worthy punishment, I doubt he'll get more than 3 years but should be at least 25.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Timothy Livingston you've bee n Pardoned!

C LICK HERE ! !!

[ecofeco]

Re: Timothy Livingston you've bee n Pardoned!

Well played.

[Herby]

But...

Will his arrest/conviction result in a decrease of the amount of spam I get every day?

Probably not bloody likely!

[ecofeco]

Re: But...

I've noticed a 0.02% decrease.

[Anonymous Coward]

The real story here is thousands and thousands of idiots purchased items as a result of spam emails.

If people stopped buying things as a result of an unsolicited email then down would soon stop.

[Mark 85]

True, but... Viagra.. Penis Enlargers, Car Insurance...... We need that stuff!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

_WE_ do not want to share your _"STUFF"_! But if it helps, car insurance will gladly dick you.

[ecofeco]

Well that beat my clever follow up MBD.

Up voted.

[Anonymous Coward]

The real story here is thousands and thousands of idiots purchased items as a result of spam emails.

If people stopped buying things as a result of an unsolicited email then down would soon stop.

It's getting worse as well. I had to add a notice to contact forms on websites that abuse of them for selling (SEO idiots, for a start) is automatically agreeing to a purchase of 4 hours of consulting to compensate for the use of time and resources to clear the junk and scan for possible infections, and I also get junkmail which contains without exception a macro-infested Word document, either as a .doc, a .docx or in a ZIP file. It's usually a pretend FedEx delivery, an invoice or an urgent IRS demand - you know, anything that would prompt you to open the email if it wasn't for the fact that we're very much non-US and send/return addresses and mail servers never quite line up.

None of these macro viruses will work, by the way, as the virus risk is yet another reason why we switched to LibreOffice wholesale (cost, UI stability and cross-platform fidelity were the other arguments). Besides that, we only have two Windows machines left, one in dev for user experience testing and one in support, and both of those will most likely be virtualised in the next few weeks.

[bombastic bob]

"we're very much non-US and send/return addresses and mail servers never quite line up."

I (a 'merkin) occasionally get UK-related spam as well...

The Comcast employee who used Comcast's e-mail database for spamming, though... that's pretty disturbing. I wonder how common it is for security breaches to happen "that way".

[Alan Brown]

> The Comcast employee who used Comcast's e-mail database for spamming, though... that's pretty disturbing. I wonder how common it is for security breaches to happen "that way".

Most breaches are inside jobs and as such tend to be covered up.

[N2]

But best of all

None of these macro viruses will work, by the way, as the virus risk is yet another reason why we switched to LibreOffice wholesale (cost, UI stability and cross-platform fidelity were the other arguments).

You dont have the fekking ribbon thing?

[frank ly]

What is it with the expensive car collections?

I've read about this sort of thing before and I can't understand it. If I was in receipt of 'ill gotten gains' I'd store it in carefully set up offshore accounts or gold ingots buried in the woods. Why do they do this?

[defiler]

Re: What is it with the expensive car collections?

Because the only waste or money is to sit on it.

For one, money needs to move around to be of any use. And for two, what's the point in working / defrauding / stealing for money if you can't them go on to enjoy it.

And fast cars are certainly enjoyable. Woefully bad investment, as a rule, but enjoyable.

[MotionCompensation]

Re: What is it with the expensive car collections?

"For one, money needs to move around to be of any use."

That explains the cars then.

[thomn8r]

Re: What is it with the expensive car collections?

>And fast cars are certainly enjoyable. Woefully bad investment, as a rule, but enjoyable.

You're not buying the right cars...

[bombastic bob]

Re: What is it with the expensive car collections?

"Why do they do this?"

The reason you do not understand why they do it, is because you do not have a criminal mindset. I think it ties in with GREED (among other things).

Criminally-minded people do criminal things to 'get rich quick' at everyone else's expense, without a care as to who is harmed in the process. Hard work, responsibility, etc. don't exist with these people. I've seen it before: they'll spend unlimited time thinking up scams or schemes, and won't spend 5 minutes looking for a real job. [my uncle, my friend's brother, some asshat I knew in college that had my name written in his 'book' so thanks for the interview with federal officers even though I repeatedly said "I don't want ANYTHING to do with"...]

Recently, some asshat was arrested because he used his REAL identity to rob banks and investment firms...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/28/hacker_bank_arrest/

After stealing the initial $100k - he'd apparently gotten away with it - it motivated him to go for the $1.5 million, which THEN got the FBI's attention.