As one of the world's most prolific spammers, Jeremy Jaynes pumped out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a 1,000-employee company would need.
Jaynes' business was remarkably lucrative; prosecutors say he grossed up to $750,000 per month. If you have an e-mail account, chances are Jaynes tried to get your attention, pitching software, pornography and work-at-home schemes.
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Relatively few people actually responded to Jaynes' pitches. In a typical month, prosecutors said during the trial, Jaynes might receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails he sent out.
But he earned $40 a pop, and the undertaking was so vast that Jaynes could still pull in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead, McGuire said.
"When you're marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there" who will be suckered in, McGuire said in an interview. Prosecutors believe Jaynes had a net worth of up to $24 million.
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John Levine, author of "The Internet for Dummies" and an expert witness for the prosecution in Jaynes' trial, said Jaynes was relatively unsophisticated compared to spammers who use "zombie servers" in foreign countries -- akin to "e-mail laundering" -- to hide the e-mail's true origin. Such zombies are often innocent Internet users whose computers, through a virus or other malicious code, become relays for spam.
"I was surprised at how simple his operation was," Levine said. "If he were more clever, it would have been much harder to catch him."
Jaynes' defense attorney, David Oblon, never disputed that his client was a bulk e-mail distributor. But he argued that the law was poorly crafted and that prosecutors never proved the e-mail was unsolicited. He also argued before the trial that the law is an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.
Jaynes can raise the free-speech issue on appeal, and Oblon said both he and Jaynes are confident the conviction will eventually be overturned. Oblon also took issue with the recommended nine-year sentence, calling it exceptionally harsh.
Zombie servers -- often innocent Internet uses whose computers become unknowing relays -- pumping out firehoses of untraceable spam? A convicted spammer claiming the right to spam as a constitutionally-guaranteed free speech right?? What a pair of sickening thoughts. Funny how nine years rotting in a jail cell doesn't sound exceptionally harsh at all for Jaynes' crime.
In a related note, across the AP wire comes a wonderful passage:
Bill Gates Gets 4 Million E-Mails a Day, Thu Nov 18, 9:02 AM ET
SINGAPORE - Bill Gates might not use AOL, but he's definitely got mail. The Microsoft Corp. chairman receives millions of Internet messages a day, said Steve Ballmer, the company's chief executive. "Bill literally receives 4 million pieces of e-mail per day, most of it spam," Ballmer said Thursday.
Spam or junk e-mails are unsolicited messages, generally advertising goods or services and usually sent to many e-mail accounts simultaneously.
Ballmer said Microsoft has special technology that just filters spam intended for Gates. In addition, several Microsoft employees are dedicated to ensuring that nothing unwanted gets into his inbox.
"Literally there's a whole department almost that takes care of it," he said.
Ballmer was in Singapore for the company's Government Leader's forum, which ends Friday.
Reminds me of Allan Schiffman quoting Ed Felton blogging at the Meltdown Conference:
The security session descended into a series of rants about the evil of spam. Lately this seems to happen often in conference panels about security. This strikes me as odd, since spam is far from the worst security problem we face online. Don’t get me wrong; spam annoys me, just like everybody else. But I don’t think we’ll make much progress on the spam problem until we get a handle on more fundamental problems, such as how to protect ordinary machines from hijacking, and how to produce higher-quality commercial software.
Says Allan, "Tell it, brother."
Perhaps this is what I should be doing. And really, I don't need $750,000 a month, or even $400k. I could just charge 10 bucks, and be pretty content with a hundred grand a month. Sure, it'd still be months before I could buy a house here, but I could wait. Really.
Posted by: Emy | November 19, 2004 at 12:53 AM