A man who sent spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail) to millions
of AOL e-mail accounts has pleaded guilty to a charge of forgery in
a New York court. Jason Garon of California had disguised his
messages to appear as if sent by the internet provider of IBM,
IBM.net.
The practice of disguising an e-mail to appear as though sent by
someone else is known as e-mail spoofing. Garon sent spam
advertising pornography and get-rich-quick schemes through the
internet service of Market Vision, a New York company. The volume
of traffic overloaded the system and caused the company’s network
to crash. According to Market Vision, the down-time from the crash
caused losses of around $18,000. Garon was caught when the e-mails
were traced to a computer in his home.
New York District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the 46 year-old
faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for the crime of
second degree forgery. Pirro added that this is the first internet
forgery prosecution in the US.
