Spam Kings (20 page)

"Anyway," she said, "I never wished you any ill will. But my dad is sick and I can't
have him upset."

Richter became philosophical. "Susan, when you are on your death bed, you have two
choices..." he began. Then Richter switched gears somewhat. "I believe in karma. You can fix
a lot of the damage you have been associated with. I would hope your dad wants you to do
that and make him proud," he said.

"You may not believe this, but I really was on your side," Shiksaa admitted. "I wanted
to help you go the right way. I never hated you or anything like that."

Richter ignored her olive branch. "Then you have the power [to remove] what I asked on
my record," he insisted.

Shiksaa fired right back. "You have the power to tell me where my info came from. I gave
you my word that I would not tell a soul," she said.

Richter bristled. "I haven't posted your family info all over Nanae. That says a lot for
me having class," he said. "[But] it doesn't stop you from blasting the world with my
info...my damn mom's info for Christ's sake. You're worried about your info—imagine your
dad's info all over Nanae for the trolls to use."

Shiksaa read that as a veiled threat, but she tried to remain calm.

"I'm sorry it came to this, Scott," she said.

Then Richter said something that puzzled her. "Leave it there," he said, suddenly
feigning nonchalance about his Rokso record. "I'd rather make a site of antis' info and run
it, maybe like a hobby for me. I need some thing to do," he added.

Shiksaa was startled by Richter's reply. She broke off the conversation at that point,
after criticizing him for his decision to "cop an attitude."

The next morning, Richter sought her out over AIM. He revealed that he had gotten her
street address from Steve Hardigree, head of Boca Raton-based Internet Media Group, Inc.
Hardigree had been in the bulk email business since around 1996 and had been listed on Rokso
from day one. Shiksaa knew Hardigree frequently did deals with Eddy Marin and other south
Florida spam kings.
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"They're serving you for some crap...I'm sure that soon enough you will know what their
suit is for," said Richter.

"Serving me for what?" asked Shiksaa. "Calling them spammers? They are spammers."

Richter said Hardigree had revealed his lawsuit plans on a secret Internet mailing list
for an elite group of spammers. For years, spammers everywhere had been driven crazy with
desire to unmask the mysterious operators of the Spews blacklist. Hardigree and his Boca
Raton spamming buddies seemed to believe that she, Shiksaa, was behind Spews. Richter said
he was planning to travel to south Florida later that month to meet with some of the men,
and he'd try to get the details of their lawsuit plans.

"Can I see the letter? Please send me a copy," she asked.

"I would be killed for that in this industry," Richter replied. He added that he would
continue to feed her information gleaned from the list.

"Why are you associating with a secret spammer cabal if you're cleaning up?" she
asked.

"Because, thanks to Spamhaus and Spews, I'm forced to host with them and pay high rates
not to get shut down."

Shiksaa paused before replying. "I have nothing to do with Spews, Scott, and anyone who
thinks so is insane," she said.

"I know you're not Spews," said Richter. "I'm also confident that who is Spews and
associated with it will be well known shortly."

The idea of being sued by spammers seemed ludicrous to Shiksaa. But while the threat of
a lawsuit in and of itself didn't bother her, she did worry about the attention it would
bring.

"I have had threats made against me, Scott," she told Richter.

"Yes, in Nanae maybe," he replied. "You cannot call someone every name in the book and
not expect them to call it back."

"I have never advocated anyone doing anything abusive to a spammer," said
Shiksaa.

"Ruining someone's life could be taken to heart I guess," he replied.

"Ruining? How the hell did I ruin anything? I posted information that is publicly
available," said Shiksaa.

Richter contemplated her question a moment. "Let me ask you this," he said. "If someone
hid and posted bad things about your dad's realty company, would you be pissed if he lost
his license over it and had no business left?"

"That's apples and oranges, Scott. If he was violating a law or something, then he would
deserve it," she replied.

Rather than continuing to debate the point, Richter returned to the subject of his Rokso
record. He asked Shiksaa who was responsible for compiling it.

"I need to know. Whoever does it is obsessed with me. I'm worried that they're watching
me like Karen [Hoffmann] used to do to [Thomas] Cowles. I mean, whoever is in charge of me
has gone overboard," said Richter.

"Yeah, I feel the same way about me," she replied.

When their conversation was through, Shiksaa contacted the other members of the Spamhaus
team. After explaining the situation, she was able to persuade them to remove references to
Richter's mother from his Rokso listing. It would have been the perfect opportunity to
announce to the group her plans to retire from spam fighting. But Shiksaa held back.

Instead, a few days later, Shiksaa announced on Nanae that rumor had it she would be the
target of a lawsuit aimed at revealing her role in Spews. Shiksaa said she was flattered
that Steve Hardigree thought she possessed the knowledge to run the blacklist. "Alas, I am
not Spews," she wrote. Then Shiksaa added a comment directed at the Boca spammers.

"Gentlemen, wrap the tinfoil more tightly, please, because you are all becoming far too
paranoid." (In Internet culture, those who act paranoid are often derided as believing that
a tinfoil hat can ward off mind-control rays.)

Two weeks passed, and no news on the legal front for Shiksaa. But then a strange note
appeared partway into a Nanae discussion about Spamhaus. The "From" line said the posting
was from "Susan Gunn" at email address
[email protected]
. To the few
anti-spammers who recognized her legal name, the message's content clearly wasn't from
Shiksaa.

"The fun has started," said the note. "The fallout will be long and hard. Iraq may not
be the main stage any longer. Antispews.org will dominate soon!"

The anonymous "Spambusta1" appeared again later, posting another message on Nanae using
an AOL account. Again, the "From" line listed Shiksaa's real name, Susan Gunn. The post's
subject line read "Shiksaa Tells All about Spamhaus to BB." The acronym at the end
apparently referred to Bulk Barn, the spammer site.

In the message body, the author wrote, "To all the ones who have suffered damage from
Spamhaus and Spews, this is your information that you paid for by joining BB." Then
Spambusta1 listed Shiksaa's real name, along with the street address of her condo in
Stanton. The message also included information copied from the State of California
Department of Real Estate site. It was her father's broker license, listing their
condominium complex's street address as his main office, along with other data about his
realty companies. Below that, Spambusta1 offered this explanation:

Shiksaa was mortified to see her father's name on Nanae. He didn't even own a computer,
let alone work as an anti-spammer. She wasn't sure what Spambusta1 hoped to accomplish by
posting her dad's real estate broker information. There was nothing embarrassing about the
record, contrary to what Richter had implied in their recent chat.

Spambusta1 may have hoped the posting would finally drive Shiksaa out of the ranks of
anti-spammers. But it had the opposite effect. After reading and rereading the message, she
was more determined than ever to fight back. She hadn't wanted to dignify Spambusta1's
posting with a response, but she couldn't resist. Around noon on March 30, she posted a
reply:

Spambusta1's original message drew more than 400 replies over the course of several
days. Most were from anti-spammers ridiculing the author's investigative skills. (Spamhaus's
Steve Linford said—incorrectly—that the home address posted for Shiksaa was actually an
office building.) But a couple responses also appeared from people cheering Spambusta1's
work. "It's about time someone outed this cunt," wrote an anonymous person who used a Yahoo!
return address. The message, from someone listing his name as "Give Us An Out,"
continued:

Spambusta1 was back the next day, ready to rebut Linford with threats to publish
photographs of Shiksaa's condominium. "It is a very nice Condo. Nice dead end street. Did
any one notice the brown van? We moved it today per direct orders as we are staking out a
member of Spews currently and will begin with the posting of information on who is behind
them next," he wrote.

Shiksaa and her supporters tried to determine who was behind the postings. Short of
getting a subpoena for AOL, there was no way to unmask Spambusta1 directly from the Internet
protocol address listed in his messages. Studying the language of the messages for telltale
characteristics was unproductive as well. Shiksaa knew it probably was the work of
Hardigree, Marin, or the group of south Florida spammers she began to refer to as The Gang
That Can't Shoot Straight. But it could just as well have been any of the dozens of spammers
she had tangled with over the years.

Richter tried to distance himself from the postings. In a note on Nanae, he admitted
that at times he "might not see eye-to-eye with Susan, but I try and have some class."
Richter claimed that people close to him knew he wasn't a violent person. Then he added a
note addressed to what he called "high-deployment mailers," chiding them not to resort to
the same tactics anti-spammers used to harm them. Richter concluded his posting by saying he
hoped Spambusta1 wasn't somebody he knew.

That Friday evening, Spambusta1 was back on Nanae with news that he had created a site
at the Tripod home page service. The site was entitled "Shiksaa Shakedown" and included
three photographs of the outside of her condominium. One showed the gray gatehouse, with its
locked, eight-foot fence, at the entrance to the complex. Another was taken a few steps from
her garage door. The third was shot from the ground just below the deck outside her
second-story bedroom window. Someone had doctored each of the photos with digital
image-editing software. The picture of the condominium complex entrance included the words,
"The Gates of Hell?" The shot of her garage was altered so the white door appeared to be
covered with graffiti, above which were the words "Does this say Shiksa?" On the photograph
of her deck, someone had circled some drink cans on the railing and a table, and added the
word, "Beer?"

But what bothered Shiksaa the most about the Shakedown site weren't the photos. It was
the publication of her latest unlisted phone number. Since Bill Waggoner had called her in
December on her old unpublished number, she had been extremely circumspect about the new
one. She knew someone must have tricked or paid off an employee at the phone company to get
the number. She downloaded a copy of the Shakedown site to her computer for use in the
police report she would file Monday.

But the online attacks on Shiksaa continued that weekend. An unidentified person began
pumping out emails to people all over the Internet in an effort to Joe-job her. The messages
were spoofed to appear as though she had forwarded them from her AOL account. They carried
the subject line, "How to Boycott America, the Global Bully" and encouraged support for a
boycott organized by activists running a site called AdBusters.org. The boycott was aimed at
undercutting America's role in the world by weakening its major corporations.

The bottom of the note included instructions on how to be removed from the boycott's
mailing list. "Please contact Susan Wilson, Islamic Peace Activist" it stated, followed by
Shiksaa's street address, with her country of residence listed as "United States of
Aggression." (The use of Shiksaa's married name, which she had accidentally published in the
alt.test newsgroup in 1999, suggested the Joe-jobbers were not affiliated with
Spambusta1.)

As Shiksaa mulled over the events of the past few weeks, she realized this was not the
time to quit spam fighting. It didn't matter how tired she was of battling vindictive
spammers. If they thought they could drive her out, they had very badly underestimated her.
If anything, they made her more determined than ever to get in their faces.
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Shiksaa increasingly came to place the ultimate blame for her troubles at the feet of
Scott Richter. He had painted himself as her confidant and defender against The Gang That
Can't Shoot Straight. Yet he had also taunted her with her confidential information weeks
ago, and he did nothing to stop its dissemination by others. Shiksaa decided it was time to
abandon her naïve allegiance to Richter and her other spammer sources.