LOS ANGELES, CA — Jeffrey Brett Goodin is facing the possibility of up to 101 years in a federal prison for his crimes. Given that they include running a phishing scheme, some may consider the sentence to be too short.Goodin is the first person to be successfully prosecuted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act and he’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that he was a simple hacker who went astray. In addition to violating the federal anti-spam law by luring people to a mock-up site that looked like a legitimate business but was actually an information trap designed to fund his shopping habit, the 45-year-old Azusa man also enjoyed using other people’s credit cards without their permission, wire fraud, misusing the AOL trademark, and trying to harass witnesses.
Although many poke fun at AOL and the technical savvy of its users, few would condone how Goodin took advantage of either. Prosecutors successfully showed how the man took control of other people’s internet accounts and wrote to AOL users, pretending to send correspondences from the company’s billing department and insisting that AOL customers must visit a website and provide billing information or lose access to AOL services. Visitors to the site ultimately provided information not to their ISP but to Goodin, who used it for his own personal gain.
Such emails clearly violate the intention of the CAN-SPAM Act, which makes it a crime to send false or misleading messages to recipients, as well as provide an opt-out option for those who do not wish to receive further messages.
The anti-spam conviction is only a part of Goodin’s legal misery, what with another 10 convictions. His sentencing date is scheduled for June 11th.
