Spammer Tells All - Like Why It's Hard To Fight His Kind

Meet Duncan Shiels. He could be Duncan Hines for all you care, but perhaps you should. Until late last year, he was one of cyberspace's champion spammers, pulling down as much as $1,000 per week. And how he got away with it illustrates one major problem with fighting spam: As you might have suspected, he had multiple computers to do the work - without his even having to hit the "send" button" - and he had several softwares designed and operated to end-run any and most spam filters and blockers. Not to mention, he knew who harvested e-mail addresses and how to use those harvests. And he's told an Oregon newspaper his story.

"All the little punks in their garage who are trying it are not getting anywhere," Shiels told the newspaper. "The ones sending you all the stuff are the big boys, the ones who do it for a living."