Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years

Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it.

Jeremy Jaynes was on top of the world. By age 28, he owned a million-dollar home, a high-class restaurant, a chain of gyms and countless other toys. Yet those were only the spoils of his main line of business, which was swindling innocent people out of their money through email scams. From an unassuming house serving as his company's headquarters in Raleigh, NC, Jaynes sent an estimated ten million messages a day pitching products most recipients didn't want, amassing an estimated $24 million fortune in the process. Using aliases such as Jeremy James and Gaven Stubberfield, Jaynes spammed his way up to the #8 position on Spamhaus' Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) and grossed as much as $750,000 a month, allowing him to live like a king.

However, Jaynes ran head-on into an information superhighway road block when a Virginia judge sentenced him to nine years in prison for his November 2004 conviction on felony charges of using false IP addresses to send mass email advertisements (some just call it spamming). The conviction was a landmark decision, as Jaynes became the first person in the United States convicted of felony spam charges. Though his operation was based in North Carolina, Jaynes was tried in Virginia because it is home to a large number of the routers that control much of North America's Internet traffic (it's also the home of AOL and a government building or two).

He should've Used the Privacy Software

During the trial, prosecutors focused on three of Jaynes' most egregious scams: software that promised to protect users' private information; a service for choosing penny stocks to invest in; and a work-from-home "FedEx refund processor" opportunity that promised $75-an-hour work but did little more than give buyers access to a website of delinquent FedEx accounts. Sound familiar? Anyone with an e-mail address has received countless messages originating from Jaynes' operation. (If you're still waiting on your privacy software to show up, it's probably safe to stop checking the mailbox.)

Jaynes got lists of millions of email addresses through a stolen database of America Online customers. He also illegally obtained e-mail addresses of eBay users. While the prosecutors still don't know how Jaynes got access to the lists, the Associated Press reported that the AOL names matched a list of 92 million addresses that an AOL software engineer has been charged with stealing.

When Jaynes' operation was raided, investigators found that the house from which he ran his operation was wired with 16 T-1 lines (a large office building can get by on a single T-1 line for all its users). Investigators also entered into evidence to-do lists handwritten by Jaynes. Take a look at Jeremy Jayne's meticulously detailed lists at:

* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes1.JPG
* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes2.JPG
* www.ciphertrust.com/images/jaynes_notes3.JPG

Good Work if You Can Get (Away With) It

The economics of spamming makes Jaynes' decision to build a career of it understandable, though not noble. Spammers work on the law of averages, which would seem like an odd strategy considering that the average response rate for a spam message is just one-tenth of one percent. However, once you do the math even this miniscule response rate can make one very wealthy very quickly. If a spammer sends one million messages pushing a product width a $40 profit, a response rate of 0.1 percent works out to 1000 customers, or $40,000 per million messages sent. Since each message costs only fractions of a penny to send, and Jaynes was sending literally billions of messages a year, it's easy to see how he pulled in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead.

The fact that spamming can be such a profitable undertaking means that the profession is not likely to go anywhere in the near future. Spammers have financial motivation to come up with innovative ways to avoid detection, and they have begun to join forces. While the landmark decision handed down in the Jaynes trial may serve as a deterrent to some would-be spammers, it is unlikely that the threat of prosecution will keep future spammers from refining their trade. For now and the foreseeable future, the answer still lies in technology, not law enforcement.

Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The company's flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting enterprise anti spam solution today.

Ancona limousine airport .. Lockport Chicago limo O’Hare

---

The Great Spam Scam: Five Strategies To Stop Brand and Revenue Robbery

Marketers usually think of anti-spam tactics as 'how to prevent'... Read More

A Practical Approach to Eliminate Spam

Spam is out of control! I guess that would be... Read More

Dont Look Spammy!

We all hate spam and get way too much of... Read More

Kill The Messenger (Service)

You are familiar with the software applications that you run... Read More

What To Do When You Get Spam

When you go to your mailbox and find pieces of... Read More

The Definition of Spam

Spam can bring down your website faster than a speeding... Read More

How to Write a Privacy Policy

A Privacy Policy can be defined as the policy under... Read More

Bayesian Spam Filters Explained

In a word Bayesian spam filters are "intelligent". Bayesian spam... Read More

Which Spam Filter Is Best For You?

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week... Read More

What Exactly is Spam?

Spam, as defined in the context of computers, the Internet... Read More

I Love Spam!

What's the big deal? All you read on the internet... Read More

How You Can Avoid The New Dangers Of Spam

Until recently, spam has been an annoyance, a definite load... Read More

FTC Botches Fight on SPAM, Microsoft Takes Over the Battle

While the Federal Trade Commission is busy fighting over definitions... Read More

Eight Quick Tips For Stopping SPAM

If you are buried in SPAM then you're not alone.... Read More

Get Your News Releases Through the Spam Filters in 11 Easy Steps

In today's spam-filled email world, it's sometimes VERY difficult to... Read More

ANTI-S*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Sites Email Address(es)

Did you know that there are software programs that view... Read More

Email Spam and Phishing

It seems like the volume of email spam has doubled... Read More

Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years

Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it.Jeremy Jaynes... Read More

Protecting Your Business From Spam

Even being as careful as possible with my email address,... Read More

Take Back Control of Your Inbox: Eliminate Annoying and Potentially Harmful E-mails

Are you tired of spam stealing your time, your money,... Read More

How To Stop Unwanted Email Spam

You can stop unwanted email spam, you can choose to... Read More

Challenge Response Spam Filters Explained

As the flood of spam increases end users are looking... Read More

Dont Give the Spammers Your Address From Your Page

Spammers get email addresses from web pages using programs called... Read More

Spam Filters Explained

What do they do? How do they work? Which one... Read More

Sick Of Wading Through Spam?

It's a nightmare isn't it? You fire up your email... Read More

Buffalo Grove cheapest limo ..