Porn Spammer Nailedhttp://web.archive.org/web/20010420113412/www.wired.com/news/...1 of 21/13/07 7:05 PM

Porn Spammer Nailed

byArik Hesseldahl

10:55 a.m. Sep. 4, 1998 PDT

NEW YORK -- Juno Online Services celebrated its detective work Thursday, announcing it had finally caughtup with the alleged spammer who has forged Juno email addresses to hawk pornographic videos.Juno's Richard Buchband said the national Internet service provider found Ronald Alvin, chief of suspectedporn marketer TCPS Inc., at his home in Brooklyn, where he was served with legal papers last week."They went to extraordinary lengths to make themselves unavailable to the public," said Buchband, vicepresident of the New York-based company. Buchband said Alvin used a complex web of rented mailboxes,unlisted phone numbers, and false addresses to avoid being discovered.Juno initially filed suit in May in a Manhattan federal court against TCPS and Alvin's affiliated firm, FinancialPlanning Associates, but it has taken the company this long to trace the operation, which is based inBrooklyn.Junoaccused Alvin of running a business that sent several million spam messages with false Juno accountslisted as the return address -- a practice that Juno has successfullysued other spammersfor in the past.One of the messages in question contained the subject line "Astounding World Record Sex," and advertisedvideos like "World's Biggest Gang Bang" and "Gang Bang II."Using an address obtained from within many of the the spam messages, Juno's lawyer, John Lovi, tracedAlvin to a Manhattan mail drop which recieved mail for Alvin, TCPS, and Financial Planning Associates, anotherfirm connected to Alvin."When we asked the owner of the establishment for account information on that mailbox, he said he wouldn'trelease it without a subpeona, which I was happy to serve him with," Lovi said.That account information led Lovi to Alvin's home in Brookyn, where he was served with papers on 25August.Lovi said Alvin has until 15 September to respond to the court papers. "He may decide to run, or he maydecide to stand and fight in trial."If the case goes to trial, Lovi is confident Juno will prevail, and will be able to recover damages. "Given thenumber of solicitations [Alvin] sent out, and the fact that he is in a highly profitable area of Internetcommerce, we should be able to recover a large award."Other services have been trying to locate Alvin for some time, among them America Online and Hotmail.When Wired News tried to reach Ronald Alvin on a number listed in one of the unsolicited porn emails, a manfirst answered to the name of "Ronald." He then hesitated and gave his name as Dave Jackson.Jackson said he had heard nothing of Alvin being served with court papers. "He would have told me if hehad," he said. Jackson agreed to take a message for Alvin, which was not returned.Jackson defended Alvin, saying that the company specifically avoided using Juno addresses in its spammessages because Juno has been so aggressive in the past in bringing suit against others."If [bulk mail with Juno return addresses] happened once, it was a mistake and someone here screwed up,"Jackson said. "If it happened several dozen times, then something's wrong."Buchband disagreed, calling the bulk mailing assault "very frequent.""That's why they are one of many we are pursuing with this lawsuit," he said.