America, beware. Robert Soloway is free to e-mail again.
After three years, eight months and 27 days, Soloway -- the internet villain dubbed the "Spam King" by federal prosecutors -- is allowed back online.
In his first interview since release from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Oregon, Soloway swears his spamming days are over. "If I send out spam e-mails, that's a violation of my probation. End of story," he says. "I'm being very careful. If I send out an e-mail, I'm not even going probably to CC it. I'll send a unique e-mail to each person."
Soloway, in a tech time warp since his 2007 arrest, is looking forward to getting up to speed. 'I've never logged onto Facebook before but I hear it's nice.'And the government will be watching. As part of his plea deal, Soloway agreed to allow probation officers to monitor every e-mail he sends and every webpage he visits for the next three years. He's been in a tech time warp since his 2007 arrest, but all that ended this past weekend (his freedom began last Saturday) when his custody with the Federal Bureau of Prisons expired. MySpace ruled when Soloway was first dragged away in handcuffs.
Now that he's free, he’s looking forward to getting up to speed. "I've never logged onto Facebook before but I hear it's nice. In terms of e-mail, Facebook has it built in," he says.
Soloway, 31, was once the scourge of the internet, an arrogant menace who seemed to relish filling inboxes with junk and defying government investigators to stop him. He didn't just sell Viagra pills like most spammers; for $149, he taught thousands of spammers how to sell their own Viagra. Spamhaus began consistently blacklisting him in 2001 and later posted evidence "of Soloway hiring virus authors to create networks of spam zombies."
Soloway admits he sent more than 10 trillion spam e-mails in his career. He refuses to discuss the mechanics of how he operated but, when pressed, won’t deny using bots -- remote-controlled software that takes over the computers of thousands of unsuspecting strangers.
"I'm just going to say I tried all kinds of different methods," he says. "I cut corners and did things I shouldn't have done. I passed that gray line and was just out of control."
Soloway's victims may be relieved to learn that the Spam King no longer lives like royalty. Gone are the Porsches and Mercedes, the extravagant flings to Vegas, the $20,000-a-day spamming proceeds. The Feds confiscated his 27 pairs of designer shoes and all his Armani and Prada jackets. Soloway no longer owns a car, and claims he only has a few hundred bucks to his name. Today he lives in a tidy Seattle studio apartment and works in a nearby print shop for $10 an hour.
All those hours behind bars have made him contemplative. "There's no excuse for it. What I did was completely self-centered. I would use the word sociopathic activity," he says. "I was living a double life and was just a very miserable unhappy person."
For years, spamming enabled Soloway to buy houses, extravagant parties and friends. They pretended not to know what he did, and he played along.It started with a miserable childhood. As a young teen growing up in Palos Verdes, California, Soloway says he had no friends, few social skills and even less self esteem. He was overweight, had tics from Tourette syndrome and suffered from depression and anxiety. His refuge was an Apple IIc computer and a dial-up connection. "I never went to a football game or a dance," he says. "I locked myself in my room."
But online Soloway was popular, and no one knew the identity of the boy who logged on as "The Guardian." Newsgroups were growing, and one day Soloway tried selling his collection of Star Wars toys and Super Nintendo parts to gamers online. Some modest money orders came in, and he was hooked. "That’s when my addiction began," Soloway recalls.
When he couldn’t cannibalize his own toy collection any more, he began sending out e-mails to strangers, asking for collectibles to buy and resell. He started pulling in hundreds of dollars a week, and was barely shaving. "That type of money was intoxicating for someone that age," he says.
Soloway's business grew, and so did his spamming prowess. At age 17, he figured that other people would probably pay him to learn how to be "internet marketers," too. He cobbled together some software, wrote a marketing letter and began hawking his spam package online for $149. "In the late '90s it was still the Wild, Wild West," Soloway says.
His business took off, and the money taught Soloway a dangerous lesson. "I realized that when I had money people were nice to me," Soloway says. For years, spamming enabled Soloway to buy houses, extravagant parties and friends. They pretended not to know what he did, and he played along.
But as spam filters improved, internet service providers and online security firms began targeting Soloway. He was driven increasingly underground and suddenly was paying thousands of dollars a day to keep his websites active and the e-mails flowing. He says he received death threats and fake anthrax powder in the mail. Angry words were scratched on his cars.
Soloway says he reacted by spending more, spamming more, hiring more lawyers and alienating his paying customers. "If people are going to act this way to me, well screw everybody. Screw the world. I kind of I guess got a black heart," he recalls." I thought I was invincible. I was untouchable."
Kathryn Warma, an assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle, proved otherwise. She and her team indicted Soloway and ultimately got him to plead guilty to spamming, mail fraud and tax violations. Soloway once had more than 400 friends programmed on his cellphone. Almost overnight, he says, they abandoned him: "You find out who your friends are when you go to prison."
Now that he's free, Soloway says he wants to devote his life to teaching consumers and businesses -- wait for it -- how to avoid the evils of spamming. "I would like to assist in some way by basically revealing what went on inside the cybercrime industry," he says. "If you don’t know who you’re up against, like in any war, you don't know what you're facing."
He says he's learned his lesson but knows his critics will remain skeptical. "I don’t expect anyone to trust anything I say until they see me making good," he says.
That includes Warma, the federal prosecutor who finally cornered the Spam King. "You always hope that people seek redemption," she says. "If that has happened to him I think that's great. But I'll reserve judgment."
