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Big Time Spammer Bites Bullet

Take a good look, boys and girls.

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Take a good look, boys and girls. This is what happens when you try to exploit holes in quality Microsoft products.

Eddie Davidson is no more. He was serving a 21 month sentence for spamming in a low security facility in Florence Colorado and he simply walked away. He seemed to be a man with a mission.

Davidson turned up four days later at his home in Bennett Colorado, shot his wife and child, wounded a teenage girl, and turned the gun on himself.

Eddie Davidson is no more.

Based in Bennett

Davidson's most recent spam business (Power Promoters) was based in Bennett.

Arapahoe County Undersheriff Mark Campbell said the bodies were found laying near a Toyota Sequoia SUV in the driveway. Davidson's body was beside the driver's door, a pistol nearby, and his wife's body fell near the passenger side. The 3 year old girl was found dead in the vehicle; a seven month old boy was found unharmed in a car seat in the SUV.

A teenage girl was shot in the neck by Davidson but escaped by running to a neighbour's home.

The infant was taken to the Children's Hospital in Aurora; the teenage girl was taken to University of Colorado Hospital in Denver.

Davidson Forced Hill

Davidson's wife Amy Hill alerted the police only hours after Davidson's escape, telling them he had forced her to take him from Florence to Denver in the same SUV, slapping and backhanding her all the way.

Davidson dropped off in Lakewood and got a change of clothes and cash before disappearing again.

Low Cost, High Risk

Davidson pleaded guilty in court to tax evasion and sending spam for low cost high risk stock investments. He was sentenced to 21 months at the federal camp in Florence with his sentence beginning in May. Since then he'd become a 'consultant' to the FBI in their spam investigations.

Gunshots 'n' Bodies

A neighbour living half a mile from the Davidson household in Bennett said he heard gunshots carried on the wind. After the shots he heard intense screaming. He drove to the house immediately.

'"I didn't have any idea what I was driving into', he said. 'I just saw the vehicle in the driveway with bodies.'

He was reluctant to get any closer however. 'I didn't want to be the next victim.'

Another neighbour who helped the teenage girl called 911.

'What a nightmare and such a coward', said the first neighbour.

Possibilities

Spam wouldn't be possible anymore today without Bill Gates' crappy software. Other forms of crime would but spam would not.

When is Bill Gates going to do time in Florence Colorado?

Whatever. Take a good look, boys and girls - this is what happens when you use Microsoft Windows.

An estimated 95 per cent of all email is spam. If nobody responded to spam the tactic wouldn't be commercially viable but a recent survey conducted by Sophos revealed 11% admit to having bought goods in response to spam messages.
- John Leyden, The Register, 1 May 2008

Using compromised gateways which are relatively quickly blacklisted is a thing of the past. Junk mail miscreants have moved over to using networks of compromised PCs.
- John Leyden, The Register, 1 May 2008

Trying to flog knocked off boxes of Viagra is passé. Instead we see criminals extorting tens of thousands of pounds out of web retailers by threatening to overwhelm their sites with a flood of spam that prevents real customers from getting through. At Cable & Wireless we've seen the scale and number of these attacks climb 50 percent over the past six months.
- Mark Hanvey CSO, Cable & Wireless, 24 January 2006

Don't use Microsoft Windows. Buy a Macintosh or use Linux.
- Bruce Schneier