Hell hath no fury like a spammer scorned - that's what Samsung and a substantial portion of the Internet learned this weekend. A fraudulent series of threatening emails purporting to be from Samsung and its attorneys hit millions of inboxes over the weekend, creating widespread confusion and spawning misdirected revenge on the part of Netizens.
"If you have responded aversely to a recent bulk email message from our client, Samsung America Inc., or from any of its subsidiary companies, then you may be one of the people who has performed fraudulent and actionable transgressions, thereby causing severe harm to our client," reads one of the eight or nine versions of the spam now circulating the Net. "Your email name was provided as being suspected of connection to various acts of internet terrorism. Your acts are illegal...."
The email, complete with forged headers, then goes on to give the name, address, bar number, and home phone number of Russell Allyn, a lawyer representing Samsung; other versions include contact information for Samsung executives, from CEO to the webmaster. The perpetrator has been peppering the Net with spam for weeks, but began the real havoc on Friday.
Allyn says the email is a "spoof that was sent out by a disgruntled customer of Samsung" who was asked to stop using SAILAhead, Samsung's Internet service division, for sending spam. When the two companies couldn't come to an agreement, and his ability to spam via SAILAhead was removed, he decided to wreak his revenge in this manner. Though a Samsung webmaster confirmed this story on news.admin.net-abuse.email, Samsung's unwilling to comment until there is "concrete proof" of exactly who the perpetrator is.
Meanwhile, confused and angry Netizens around the world have been flooding the phone lines and inboxes of the contacts listed in the emails in order to inform Samsung that they are not spam terrorists. And outside of the privacy intrusion, some spam recipients are angrier still about the media scare that the spammer will likely leave in his wake.
"There's little doubt that the spammer will be found - and dealt with," wrote one angry recipient of the spam, "but not before we're all treated to another slew of super-hyped, breathless articles about The Evil Internet, thanks to this son of a bitch."
