Prolific Japanese Spammer Nabbed

The Japanese Police have taken a "dedicated spammer" into custody for supposedly flooding inboxes with countless unsolicited e-mails, promoting gambling and dating Websites under the pretense of a false ID.

As per the investigators, Yuki Shiina, aged 25, transmitted as high as 2.2 Billion junk messages in the previous year by means of basic spamming methods. It is said that he bought a directory containing 600,000 e-mail addresses for $927. He earned $18,540 through the subsequent spamming attack, according to the security firm, Sophos, and reported by The Register on February 19, 2008.

As per the police reports, it took action after an Internet Service Provider (ISP) lodged a complaint regarding the incessant increase in spam. Police inquiries showed that Shiina forged the e-mail headers of unsolicited mails so as to evade discovery, a criminal offense under the national anti-spam laws.

The anti-spam laws of Japan forbid transmitting of spam with false sender details following its presentation in 2002 and 2004.

According to Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, anybody who learns about a lone individual allegedly dispatching 2.2 Billion junk e-mails can understand the magnitude of the problem, as reported by ComputerWeekly on February 19, 2008.

Remarking on the detention of the spammer, Sophos Asia-Pacific's Head of Technology, Paul Ducklin, told that though it doesn't actually prevent the unrepentant spammers, at least it sends out a clear message to those thinking of working outside the legal limits that this isn't going to be permitted by the police, as reported by SCMagazine on February 20, 2008.

The accessibility of Japanese anti-spam laws is remarkable given the nation's evident need of anti-malware laws. In the first month of this year, Kyoto Police exposed a plan to affect people using Winny P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file-sharing program with a malevolent program that showed pictures of popular Japanese animation characters while erasing song and film files.

However, Shiina's arrest over the unsolicited mail crime is not the only instance in Japan. In January 2007 too, four people believed to be transmitting 5.4 Billion net-clogging unsolicited messages to advertise a dating network were apprehended.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/26/2008