Russian man pleads not guilty to global spam scheme (that at times accounted for 1/3 of global spam)

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

A Russian man accused of operating an e-mail spam business that at times accounted for one third of global spam has pleaded not guilty in a federal court in the US state of Wisconsin.

Oleg Nikolaenko is charged with running a global network of more than 500,000 virus-infected personal computers, in violation of a US anti-spam law.

Mr Nikolaenko asked to be allowed a form of house arrest, pending a trial. But the judge ordered him held without bail, ruling he was a flight risk. "He is a citizen and resident of Russia and the government believes, if released, he would seek to return there and the government wouldn't be able to prosecute him," argued prosecutor Erica O'Neil.

The network Mr Nikolaenko is accused of running, called a botnet, used other people's computers infected with malicious code to send out billions of e-mails. Prosecutors said the computers were capable of sending up to 10 billion e-mails per day.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11917471

[truthisfreedom]

1. How nice.

Wait... now where will I get my v1@G®@?!?!1111!??!?

[okieinpain]

2. and people always wonder why people write viruses. n/t.

[LiberalLovinLug]

3. I'm not usually in favor of Capital Punishment but in this case...

OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

[Owl]

4. Agreed.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Why should anyone even consider house arrest for that slimeball?

Milwaukee has a perfectly adequate city detention center where he could become acquainted with some like-minded local citizens.

[tomm2thumbs]

5. guess his visit to Disneyland is proving not to have been a good idea

or whatever reason he was visiting the States... or was he captured?

[CatholicEdHead]

8. He was caught in Las Vegas

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is being tried and held in Milwaukee.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/111273314.html

[savalez]

6. Wow. So does this mean that now

there is 1/3 less spam?

[ikri]

9. There was 1/3 less. Briefly

The botnet that was sending the spam was taken down in January 2009 and spam levels did drop by about 1/3 overnight but since then they've drifted back up again but haven't reached the same levels.

[mudplanet]

7. Tell them to hold him until I can get to Vegas and punch him in the nose.

I'm so fed up with being told I need to increase the size of my penis I'm actually beginning to want to try it.

[No Elephants]

10. Did he send out a link to a website. If so, he got my son's gmail account, then one of my hotmail

accounts. (I hope only one. I have 3.)