Death By Email Blog

TV Anchor Gets 3 Years of Probation for Email Snooping on Co-Anchor

Two sparring, good-looking Pennsylvania TV anchors was the basis for the FOX TV comedy, "Back To You."  Now, add some email, and the theme turns into three years of probation and other penalties.

In the life can be stranger than fiction category, Larry Mendte, the news anchor for KYW-TV, the CBS affiliate station in Philadelphia, was sentenced to three years of probation for obsessively hacking into his co-anchor of four year's email 537 times and leaking gossip about her to the press. 

He must serve six months of home confinement during the three years of probation and must perform 250 hours of community service and pay a $5000 fine.

"My role at the station was still being diminished when Alycia (Lane) told me during an argument on the set that she [was] the rising star and that I was '50 and on my way out,'" Mendte said after his Aug. 22 plea to a single-count information.  "I felt I was in trouble," he continued. "My career, my future, my family's future was in trouble. And, this is where I got into more trouble — federal trouble."

In response, he reportedly logged into her email account to get juicy information.  The information was then leaked to the press.  Prosecutors say he is the only plausible source of damaging leaks concerning a swimsuit photo she sent a friend, married TV sports anchor Rich Eisen.  (Alycia Lane in a bikini.)  She was fired from her position after a December 16 arrest in New York following a late-night scuffle with police.  (Source)  Charges were dropped and Lane filed a wrongful dismissal suit.

"The only public life she wanted was her news anchor career. Larry Mendte's criminal conduct destroyed that career and made her a tabloid feeding frenzy," Paul Rosen, Lane's attorney said in a statement Monday.

The FBI began investigating Mendte in the spring, when a station employee stumbled upon a computer that was logged into Lane's private e-mail account — nearly 2 months after she was fired.  Mendte reportedly bought and used a keystroke device to access her email.  (Fox News) 

Texting Your Way To Safety

I am in front of my television watching live coverage of the horrific attacks by armed gunmen in Mumbai, India.  So far, 78 are known dead and it looks like more terrible things are to come. 

What is the Death By Email connection to this news story?  The BBC World News, which seems to be the only channel actually following events as they happen, just mentioned that they were in contact with a person hiding from the terrorists via text message.  The person cannot talk as it would give away his position.  But, using his phone to send text, is providing critical information to rescue parties and the world.  A real benefit to the technology.

Let me also give kudos to Verizon FiOS for carrying BBC World News on a 24/7 basis.  I count more than a dozen 24-hour news channels on my television set.  Two of them, BBC World News and CNN International, give great coverage of the rest of the globe.  I am impressed by the amazing amount of capacity of the fiber optic FiOS network, which provides the ability to keep me well informed.

What's The Point Of The Anti-Gift Card Email?

The warning seemed real to me and I even forwarded it to friends.  But, it is a fake.  (Thanks for telling me, Michelle.)  And, I can't figure out who benefits from the hoax.

The subject of the hoax email was: "Gift cards are not always the perfect holiday gift." 

It appeared to be a warning from the Better Business Bureau against buying gift cards for the holiday season.  As evidence, it described some real stores that have closed or are closing or are near bankruptcy.  It specifically warned, “when Sharper Image filed bankruptcy and then closed earlier this year, between $20 million and $20 million in gift cards were not redeemed.”   I knew this evidence was true.  So, I started to think it was all true.

The hoax was the list of other stores that it claimed were in immenent danger of closing and the warning ot to buy gift cards at these stores.  The hoax email even accused the stores of being deliberately deceptive, saying that stores planning to close after Christmas are still selling gift cards "even though the cards will be worthless January 1."

The stores attacked are varied in type and size:

• AnnTaylor Stores Corp

• Lane Bryant

• Pacific Sunwear of California

• Gap Inc

• JC Penney Co Inc

• Future Shop

• Best Buy (Canada)

• Eddie Bauer

The problem is that none of it is true.  As a matter of fact, many stores in bankruptcy continue to take gift cards because it encourages more shopping.  Unfortunately, the stores in question had to respond with statements to re-assure shoppers.  I received the following in the email I use for my Eddie Bauer frequent buyer card:

"Eddie Bauer has been in business since 1920 and operates 376 retail stores throughout North America. We also have a robust online and catalog division. ... Eddie Bauer remains committed to providing our customers with outstanding quality, value and service, now and for many years to come."  

So, what is the point?  Is somebody trying to hurt a class of stores?  Are they looking for 15 minutes of fame?  I can't find any store that would benefit from this kind of spam. 

Will $873-Million Award Bring More CAN-SPAM Suits?

The largest judgment in the history of the CAN-SPAM act could be just the thing to spur on more legal action against spammers.

Notorious Montreal spammer Adam Guerbuez to pay Facebook a whopping $873-million in damages for breaking in to the social networking site's email server and bombarding its members with "sleazy" spam emails (according to Canada's National Post and Reuters).

Facebook accused Guerbuez and his apparently fictitious company of sending more than four million illegal messages to members in March and April offering "male enhancement" drugs and other products.  Also under Facebook's complaint, Guerbuez managed to get Facebook logins and passwords of many members, sometimes taking them to phishing sites. Computers would then automatically log into Facebook profiles and send out more spam.  The court found that Guerbuez illegally accessed Facebook's user profile information to start his spamming activities. (Beta News)

Judge Jeremy Fogel did not elaborate on how he reached the $873 million total, which includes about $437 million for statutory damages and $437 million for aggravated statutory damages, but the CAN-SPAM Act allows for damages of up to $11,000 per violation. The fines were was doubled because of aggravated circumstances, a Facebook spokesman said.

But, is this award large enough to be a deterrent?  I hope so.  The award comes to more than $218 per email sent.  If only one in a thousand purchased, then the cost per sale would have been $218,000 -- which one hopes is a lot more than the price of the product he was selling.

It is my sincere hope that it would be large enough make a difference in the only area where the spammers seem to care -- profits.

Gmail Security Flaw May Put Your Privacy At Risk

Can somebody log into your email account without a password and steal confidential information?  I hope not.  But, recent buzz on the Internet shows a hacker's trick that tricks you into giving away precious information.  There are reports of people who lost control of their domains due to this flaw.

The trick is to create a filter that forces some mail received by Gmail to be forwarded to another account,  You can even have the same filter delete the email from the Gmail account after forwarding it.  Then, there is no record in email of the message.

The hack is to exploit a security flaw that enables filters to be created without the need for a password.

"When you create a filter in your Gmail account, a request is sent to Google’s servers to be processed. The request is made in the form of a url with many variables," said the blog Geek Condition.  The hacker just needs to reverse engineer the variables - a time consuming, but not difficult, task.  (More details at Geek Condition.) 

What can you do?  Check your Gmail filters often.  Look for anything that you did not put there.

Arrested For An Email He Never Sent

New York City agreed to pay $25,000 to an ex-librarian at an exclusive Bronx private school busted who was wrongly arrested for reportedly sending bizarre emails to his boss.  The problem is, the ex-librarian never sent the message.

William Hallowell, was working as a library assistant at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx in April 2007 when he had an innocent exchange of email messages with his boss, Robin Berson, the library director, the New York Times reported.  (A report in the Daily Newssaid that Hallowell was resigning.)

Berson sent the reply to an email address that was nearly identical to Hallowell's. The person who inadvertently received the email sent it back with the bizarre note:

"We could do it in the library," the e-mail said. "I could spank you with a vintage copy of Finigan's (sic) wake."  (News)

One line in the response said, “I want your sweet body against my skin!” The response also included a racist reference, a mention of using prostitutes, and a statement that the sender had bought a gun and had considered suicide.  (Times)

Soon, Hallowell was arrested, questioned and held for 30 hours.  Charges of harassment were filed and he became the subject of local news articles.  He said in the suit that the officers “deliberately and maliciously ignored a mountain of evidence” that proved that he did not send the offending message.  He even invited the police to check his computer to prove that he did not send the message.

In the end, charges were dropped and the city settled to avoid litigation.

One can hope that the City would add some police training on how email works.

Emails Show "A Stain on (Missouri) State Government That Cannot Be Ignored"

In a major success of state Sunshine Laws, the media was able to press for the release of emails that document just how government worked.  Unfortunately, people in Missouri should be distressed on what they saw.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch finally got a chance to review emails that Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's office claimed were deleted.  The newspaper concluded that the governor's office has issued misleading statements on a host of issues during the past year. The report said Blunt's staffers falsely claimed the administration did not regularly conduct state business out of public view on campaign emaill accounts.

Even worse: "As chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, Ed Martin turned the office into a political operation, using his position to galvanize special-interest groups on issues such as abortion and the judiciary," the Post-Dispatch said.

"Just-released emails from Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt and his underlings show they caused a stain on state government that cannot be ignored.  Fortunately, Missourians now know how lucky we are that Blunt and his team will vacate the State Capitol in less than two months," editorialized the Kansas City Star.

We should all be thrilledthat the open government process worked -- although it took more than a year.  The emails were delivered to The Associated Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Starin a stack of 22 boxes Thursday evening. A team of 12 reporters spent two days examining each of an estimated 60,000 pages of documents, generally covering a span of time between July and October of 2007.
The records include e-mails sent and received by six people -- Blunt; former chief of staff Ed Martin; communications director Rich Chrismer; former general counsel Henry Herschel; former legal counsel Scott Eckersley; and Rich AuBuchon, formerly the legal counsel and acting director of the Office of Administration.

On Friday night, the governor's office supplied the three media organizations with a list of about 1,400 emails that the office said were not subject to full disclosure. The office cited exemptions under the Sunshine law. As part of the agreement, the three organizations can now contest those exemptions to a special master.

Obama To Give Up His Beloved BlackBerry

He had almost 130,000 friends on Twitter.  He communicated regularly via Facebook.  And, he planned to be the first president to bring a laptop into the Oval Office.  But, Barak Obama plans to surrender his BlackBerry.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt, the New York Times reports.

Why?  Aides say it is the risk of hackers, as well as the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, under which all of his correspondence enters into the public record.

"For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive," the Times reported.

Need Cash In A Downturn? Try Spamming.

No -- don't do it.  People hate spammers.  But, you can now rest easy knowing that scientists from two top universities have shown what you already know -- spamming can be profitable.  I do not know what the study cost or if they took money from the government.  Yet, we have a conclusion.  The analysis suggests that even with a tiny response rate, a big spam operation can turn over millions of dollars in profits every year.

Scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) determined that even with an incredibly small response rate -- spamming can be quite profitable.  As if you didn't guess that.  What you may not know is that it is profitable if you get just one click for every 12.5-million emails.

How did they measure it?  Over seven months, the researchers sent 469-million email messages using a zombie network of 75,869 hijacked home computers as relays for junk mail.  (BBC)

"The best way to measure spam is to be a spammer," wrote the researchers in a paper describing their work.

Two types of fake spam campaign were run through these machines. One mimicked the way viruses spread and the other tried to tempt people to visit a fake pharmacy site and buy a herbal remedy to boost their libido.  (The fake pharmacy site always returned an error message when potential buyers clicked a button to submit their credit card details.)

"After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted," wrote the researchers.  The response rate for this campaign was less than 0.00001%. This is far below the average of 2.15% reported by legitimate direct mail organizations.

"Taken together, these conversions would have resulted in revenues of $2,731.88—a bit over $100 a day for the measurement period," said the researchers.

Scaling this up a full-sized zombie network, the researchers estimate that the controllers of the vast system are netting about $7,000 a day or more than $2-million per year.

British Government to Collect Every Email

Every email and web visit in the UK will be collected and stored by government-owned "black boxes" under the British Government's grand plans for a giant "big brother" database, The Independent newspaper reports.  This is a latest step in a country where there is extensive monitoring via closed circuit television and other methods. 

Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and Internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry.  Nevertheless, government ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year.

The newspaper's information is based on discussions held between Home Office representatives and leading figures in the IT and telecommunications industries.  Further details of the technical aspects of collecting the informationemerged on Monday at a meeting of Internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal, the newspaper said.

What is not known is what the government will do with the information, who will have access to the information, and what privacy protections -- if any -- will be afforded.