Shane Atkinson, of

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

, New Zealand was a major

spammer Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose (especial ...

whose details were leaked onto the Internet soon after an article was written about him in the ''

New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...

''. After he was exposed as a spammer in 2003, Shane Atkinson found himself at the receiving end of a barrage of public outrage and proclaimed that he would give up spamming. Atkinson was tracked down by anti-spam collaborators on the

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...

news.net-admin

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...

s. Before being identified, Atkinson's operation would send up to 100 million messages on a "good day," advertising for penis-enlargement pills. The actual spamming was done by a 15-year-old boy in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, who earned US$500 a day doing so. His web sites were hosted on

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

i network providers. His brother Lance has also become well-known and was ordered to pay US$2 million to the

authorities for his spamming operations in March 2005. BBC World Service ''On the Trail of the Spammers'' 17 January 2008 An investigation by the BBC broadcast in December 2007 and January 2008 found Atkinson was still active in spamming. Atkinson's

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

was contacted and explained that he was not sending it from his own account but hiding behind a number of other slave or

zombie computers A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...

, making identification difficult. Simon Cox of the BBC phoned Atkinson in late 2007 and after confirming his identity told him that there were serious allegations about him. He denied them. His reply was Cox put it to him that he was still controlling a network of computers and that he had been sending out spam. Atkinson replied Following on Cox's investigation, New Zealand police at the end of 2007 raided four properties in Christchurch and seized 22 computers. They interviewed two men about illegal spamming and in October 2008 the

Department of Internal Affairs The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), or in te reo Māori, is the public service department of New Zealand charged with issuing passports; administering applications for citizenship and lottery grants; enforcing censorship and gambling la ...

asked the High Court to impose penalties of NZ$200,000 each for breaching the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act On Monday, 22 December 2008 Lance Atkinson was fined NZ$100,000 after the Department of Internal Affairs laid charges under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act. It is understood Atkinson settled out of court. In summing up the judge conceded that the offending started before the act came into force and Atkinson had co-operated with the authorities. Lance now has the dubious honour of being the first person to be fined under the new act. Shane Atkinson and Roland Smits have elected to defend the changes currently before the courts.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkinson, Shane Living people Email spammers People from Christchurch Year of birth missing (living people)

See also

References