Software Developer Pleads Guilty To Spamming

A software developer in Virginia has pleaded guilty to spam charges under the CAN-SPAM act. The Justice Department says David Patton aided Spam King Alan Ralsky in running a huge multimillion dollar spam operation. Ralsky also pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Authorities say he could face as much as 7 years in prison.

The Justice Department says Patton’s company, Lightspeed Marketing, created and sold software designed to aid in spamming. The software allowed users to send large amounts of spam at high speeds and evade blacklists and spam filters. As part of his plea agreement Patton acknowledged that his software allowed users to forge headers and use third party proxies to send spam.

Patton is the 12th person convicted in the spam ring case. In all they face up to 24 years in prison. The ring generated over 3 million dollars in just a few months by sending pump and dump spam, which tricked people into investing in worthless penny stocks, artificially raising their worth. The spammers then sold their shares, making a huge profit and leaving the rest holding the bag.

The CAN-SPAM Act has been in effect since 2003. It lays out specific rules commercial emailers must follow or face stiff fines and possible prosecution. The rules prohibit using false information in headers and require mailers to provide a working opt-out feature and provide their actual physical addresses in each email.