<div>very good information, Anne Rachel, thank you.</div>
<div>I wil share it to all plate forme we have,thank you again.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Baudouin<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">2007/6/14, Anne-Rachel Inné <<a href="mailto:annerachel@gmail.com">annerachel@gmail.com</a>>:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">All articles from this source: <a href="http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal.aspx">http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal.aspx
</a><br><br>Spam King Robert Soloway Arrested for Sending Billions of Illegal Messages a Day<br>IBLS Editorial Staff<br>Wednesday, June 13, 2007<br><br>On May 30, 2007 Robert Alan Soloway, voted one of the ten biggest spam
<br>artists in the world, was arrested in Seattle, a week after being<br>indicted by a grand jury in Washington, and charged with fraud, money<br>laundering, identity theft, and breaking Federal anti-spam<br>legislation. Soloway has been a colossal Internet pest for years,
<br>sending giant amounts of spam, filling mailboxes and mail servers to<br>overflowing with unsolicited and unwanted junk email. Criminally, he<br>fraudulently marketed spam services as legitimate 'opt-in' services,
<br>fooling innocent users and then offering no customer support or<br>refunds. Soloway used hijacked computers and open proxies,and<br>therefore repeatedly violated the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act of 1984<br>and the CAN-SPAM law of 2003.
<br><br>On May 30, 2007 Robert Alan Soloway, voted one of the ten biggest spam<br>artists in the world, was arrested in Seattle, a week after being<br>indicted by a grand jury in Washington, and charged with fraud, money<br>
laundering, identity theft, and breaking Federal anti-spam<br>legislation. Soloway's arrest followed a large joint investigation by<br>the Washington State Attorney General's Office, the Federal Bureau of<br>Investigation (FBI), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Internal
<br>Revenue Service Department of<br><br>Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), and the U.S. Postal Inspection<br>Service (USPIS).<br>Soloway has been a colossal Internet pest for years, sending giant<br>amounts of spam, filling mailboxes and mail servers to overflowing
<br>with unsolicited and unwanted junk email. Criminally, he fraudulently<br>marketed spam services as legitimate 'opt-in' services, fooling<br>innocent users and then offering no customer support or refunds.<br>Soloway used hijacked computers and open proxies,and therefore
<br>repeatedly violated the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act of 1984 and the<br>CAN-SPAM law of 2003.<br><br>Who is Robert Alan Soloway?<br>Robert Alan Soloway, 27 of Seattle Washington, worked his way to<br>becoming one of the most hated figures on the Internet. He alone may
<br>be responible for billlions of spam messages sent out every day, till<br>his arrest. He is also founder of the so-called anti-spam "Strategic<br>Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam", or SPAMIS, but ironically
<br>may be the Internet's biggest spammer through his company, Newport<br>Internet Marketing. He went after Microsoft when they began fighting<br>his activities as a serial spammer.<br><br>What is the Case Against Soloway?
<br>Soloway appeared before the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington<br>unshaven, wearing loafers with no socks, to hear Assistant U.S.<br>Attorney Kathryn Warma announce that if he's convicted of all charges,<br>
including fraud, money laundering and identity theft listed in the<br>indictment, he could spend 65 years behind bars. "We know that Robert<br>Soloway is one of the most prolific spammers in the world," claimed<br>
Warma before the case opened. "He has condemned them (his victims) to<br>perpetual spam hell" unless they escape by canceling their domain<br>names or changing their Internet protocol addresses.<br><br>Robert Alan Soloway's arrest came a week after a federal grand jury
<br>returned "a 35-count indictment charging him with mail fraud, wire<br>fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.<br>He's accused of using networks of compromised computers to send out
<br>millions upon millions of junk e-mails since 2003."<br>Soloway employed networks of non-spec computers called "botnets" to<br>shoot oceans of unsolicited bulk e-mails advertising his Internet<br>marketing company for promotions. Those who clicked on a link in the
<br>e-mail were sent to his Web site, where he offered two types of<br>services. In one, he claimed he would send as many as 20 million<br>e-mail advertisements in two weeks for $495, according to the<br>indictment.<br><br>
U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan claims this is the first case in the US<br>where federal prosecutors used identity theft statutes to nail a<br>spammer for stealing someone else's Internet domain name. This alone<br>could net Soloway an extra two years on his sentence if convicted. A
<br>long prison stretch may be in the cards, depending what sentencing<br>guideline is used.<br><br>The grand jury indictment claims Soloway ran Newport Internet<br>Marketing Corp., which sold a "broadcast e-mail" software product and
<br>"broadcast e-mail" services that is clearly outlawed by the federal<br>CAN-SPAM Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2004, and makes illegal<br>transmission of a large amount of commercial e-mail messages added to
<br>set criminal additions, like using relay computers to send the<br>message, meant to hide the origin or using fictitious header<br>information in the e-mail. Soloway did all these things.<br><br>Soloway's name and company had been turned in to the Northwest
<br>Computer Crimes Taskforce, housed by the FBI and which includes an IRS<br>Criminal Investigation Division and the U.S. Postal Inspection<br>Service. This triggered an investigation after the Federal Trade<br>Commission and the state Attorney General's Office received hundreds
<br>of complaints that Soloway regarding false and fraudulent claims<br>regarding his products and services. The victims were denied refunds,<br>and were upset about being blamed for sending illegal spam as a result<br>of mistakenly hiring Soloway's company, said Assistant
U.S. Attorney<br>Warma.<br><br>Soloway has already been sued successfully by Microsoft Corporation<br>and Robert Braver, owner of an Oklahoma-based Internet company, for<br>violations of the U.S. CAN-SPAM law and various state anti-spam laws,
<br>and they received millions of dollars in damages. Soloway never paid,<br>claiming he lived off proceeds of a family trust and was therefore,<br>legally, "judgement-proof." When sued by Braver in September 2005 in
<br>Oklahoma City, Soloway fired his lawyers and then skipped out on the<br>case. U.S. District Judge Ralph G. Thompson then issued a permanent<br>injunction, forbidding him to continue sending spam. Needless to say,<br>Soloway ignored this and continued his reign as Spam King.
<br><br>How Did Soloway Work his Spam?<br>Soloway's online empire was commandeered from his trendy, Seattle<br>Harbor Steps apartment on the waterfront, according to investigators.<br>One expert estimated that the man agents named the "Spam King" when
<br>they apprehended him sent billions, or perhaps even tens of billions,<br>of e-mails a day. On just two servers groups, during a several month<br>stretch, the Feds found in excess of 200 million spam messages that<br>originated with Robert Soloway.
<br><br>To hide the origin and ownership of Web site, Feds claim Soloway<br>constantly changed the address to different domains, even employing<br>Chinese Internet Service providers last year. The spammed messages<br>that he used to advertise his corporate Web sites contained false
<br>header information (email message lines and top of Internet page<br>banners) and then were systematically forwarded using networks of<br>slave computers called "botnets."<br><br>Soloway's work in the virtual world caused real-life chaos, heartache,
<br>loss and rage to others. Since he could not use his own information,<br>but needed to have someone's information attached to his sent<br>messages, his spam had these phony headers with the real life e-mail<br>addresses or domain names of innocent people or organizations, whom
<br>were then fingered for Soloway's spam and "blacklisted" from future<br>contacts with the recipient. Said John Reid, a volunteer with The<br>Spamhaus Project, an anti-spam group, "The amount of damage he does to
<br>the Internet -- the fraud thing to innocent people who think they're<br>hiring some Internet person -- is awful." When computer-gullible<br>business owners hired Soloway to help increase traffic to their Web<br>
sites, Soloway instead sent torrents of spam in their name.<br><br>Who is Spamhaus, What is ROKSO?<br>According to their site, Spamhaus is "WORKING TO PROTECT INTERNET<br>NETWORKS WORLDWIDE -- Spamhaus tracks the Internet's Spammers, Spam
<br>Gangs and Spam Services, provides dependable realtime anti-spam<br>protection for Internet networks, and works with Law Enforcement to<br>identify and pursue spammers worldwide." Another site describes<br>Spamhaus as "The Spamhaus Project is a completely volunteer effort
<br>founded by Steve Linford in 1998 that aims to track e-mail spammers<br>and spam-related activity. It is named for the anti-spam jargon term<br>coined by Linford, spamhaus, a pseudo-German expression for an ISP or<br>other firm which spams or willingly provides service to spammers."
<br><br>Soloway originally premiered on the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) in 2001,<br>and by 2003 had made it to Spamhaus's Register of Known Spam<br>Operations (ROKSO), a compendium of the world's "worst of the worst"
<br>illegal spammers. Spamhaus spamtraps were still getting Soloway<br>solicitations from those advertising his services right up until his<br>arrest.<br><br>In response to Soloway's arrest, the Spamhaus site wrote, "Spamhaus
<br>commends the Seattle FBI and U.S. Attorney for ensuring that the<br>indictment contains both spam-related and non-spam-related counts, and<br>on preparing an indictment which shows so clearly the profile of the<br>typical spammer's activities, such as fraud, identity theft, and other
<br>online deception. Spamhaus recognises that a successful prosecution<br>requires careful preparation which inevitably takes longer than the<br>victims of the crime wish. Careful preparation is essential in cases<br>involving CAN-SPAM violations, since the CAN-SPAM Act does not yet
<br>have extensive case-law to support it."<br><br>****************************************************************<br>Another Cyber Attack Hits Europe<br>Editor, Maricelle Ruiz, IBLS Director – Europe<br>Wednesday, June 13, 2007
<br><br>When Estonia suffered a series of cyber attacks in recent months, US<br>official John Negroponte told the Financial Times: "We need to prepare<br>ourselves because this is likely only to become more of an issue in
<br>the future." Well, the future is here. And the wave of cyber attacks<br>has moved from Eastern to Western Europe. It has recently been<br>disclosed that around the time Estonia was under cyber attack, an<br>important Spanish domain-registration company was also waging a battle
<br>against unknown cyber pirates. The Cyber Terrorism Division of the<br>Spanish Police is investigating the incident. If identified, the<br>hackers involved could be prosecuted for blackmailing a company to<br>prevent the disclosure of confidential information.
<br><br>There seems to be a disagreement regarding the severity of the<br>situation. While some reports claim that the private data of hundreds<br>of thousands of Internet users is in the hands of criminals, the<br>leading Spanish company in the domain registration and web hosting
<br>business, Arsys, has issued a statement denying this information.<br>Executives concede the company has experienced what they describe as<br>"a security incident, compromising some client data." However, they
<br>say, none of the data in question involves email, bank account or<br>credit card passwords and therefore, they claim there's no risk of<br>illegal access into bank or email accounts.<br><br>According to Arsys, hackers reportedly stole FTP codes, enabling them
<br>to insert a link to an external server containing malicious code, in<br>the web pages of some clients. As soon as the company detected the<br>incident, executives say it eliminated the link from the web pages,<br>notified affected clients and boosted security measures across the
<br>board. To comply with legal requirements, executives add the company<br>has reported the incident to the Cyber Terrorism Division of the<br>Spanish Police. They confirm the incident is under investigation and<br>may end up in court.
<br><br>The attackers reportedly used servers located in the United States<br>and Russia. According to the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat<br>Report, the United States is the top country for malicious threat<br>activity, accounting for 31% of the worldwide total, followed by China
<br>(10%), Germany (7%), France (4%), United Kingdom (4%), South Korea<br>(4%), Canada (3%), Spain (3%), Taiwan (3%) and Italy (3%). Meanwhile,<br>law enforcement authorities have detained a Russian teenager suspected<br>
of involvement in the Estonian cyber attacks. The youth reportedly<br>called for massive cyber attacks against Estonian servers in Internet<br>forums.<br><br>***********************************************************************
<br>CHALLENGES IN CLASSIFYING VOIP SERVICES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION<br> Email Article<br> The European Union regulatory framework for electronic<br>communications aims to provide a coherent regulatory scheme for all
<br>transmission networks and services within the European Union. The EU<br>regulatory framework defines the communication service categories that<br>can be applied to VoIP (Voice over the Internet Protocol) services<br>such as the Electronic Communications Service and the Publicly
<br>Available Telecommunications Service. VoIP services that fall under<br>the scope of the EU regulatory framework are classified as VoIP<br>services with no specific obligations.<br> In 2002, the European Union adopted a regulatory framework for
<br>electronic communications. The main objective of this regulatory<br>framework was to provide a coherent regulatory scheme for all<br>transmission networks and services. The main goal of the regulatory<br>framework was to promote European market integration and
<br>telecommunication standardization, and to support consumer interests.<br><br>Under the aforementioned regulatory framework, companies are permitted<br>to provide new electronic communications services based on a general
<br>authorization by the EU and without an extra burden of administrative<br>authorization by a National Regulatory Authority (NRA). The EU<br>regulatory framework also defines the service categories that can be<br>applied to VoIP services. Since VoIP technology is used to transmit a
<br>large variety of market offerings, which fall under multiple<br>regulatory categories, the categorization of these offerings has<br>proven to be a significant regulatory challenge.<br><br>In June 2004, the EU launched a consultation on the treatment of VoIP
<br>services under the 2002 Regulatory Framework. The primary goal of this<br>consultation was to clarify the application of the EU Directives to<br>VoIP services. In February 2005, the European Commission opted to<br>refrain from developing detailed guidelines for VoIP regulation, based
<br>on its express intention to promote the development of VoIP services.<br><br>What communications services are defined by the regulatory framework<br>related to the VoIP?<br> The regulatory framework includes descriptions of a variety of
<br>communications services with differing rights and obligations. The<br>2002 EU regulatory framework includes two services that are actually<br>related to VoIP; these are Electronic Communication Services and<br>Publicly Available Telecommunication Services. (a) Electronic
<br>Communications Services (ECS) are defined as services that are<br>provided for remuneration, and which include the conveyance of signals<br>over electronic communications networks; and (b) Publicly Available<br>Telecommunications Services (PATS) are defined as services that are
<br>available to the public for originating and receiving national and<br>international calls, and which provide access to emergency services.<br><br> Where in the EU regulatory framework do VoIP services fall?<br> VoIP services with no specific obligations are, in principle, within
<br>the scope of the Authorization Directive. Today, most enterprises are<br>replacing their existing private branch exchanges (PBXs) with VoIP<br>solutions that are covered by the Authorization Directive, which<br>imposes no specific obligations or restrictions.
<br><br>VoIP services that involve the conveyance of signals through an<br>electronic communications network fall under the regulatory framework<br>of the EU when publicly offered. However, their regulatory treatment<br>depends on the nature of the service offered.
<br><br>What are the different types of classifications of VoIP which fall<br>outside the scope of the EU regulatory framework?<br>Recent technology allows a user of VoIP enabled devices to place calls<br>directly to another user using similar equipment or software over the
<br>public Internet. These services are known as self-provided services,<br>and fall outside the scope of the EU regulatory framework, because<br>there is no communication service provider in this model.<br><br>_______________________________________________
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