government grants, and pornography. According to
the hacker, Garst ran the business out of her home in Clarksville, Tennessee, coordinating a
handful of associates located around the U.S. Over the course of a couple of weeks, the
hacker "spread like a silent wildfire through Rodona's computer network" and hacked his way
one by one into the company's computers.
"What I wanted," he explained, "was unrestricted access to the data on their hard
drives, and computer by computer I got it."
The Man in the Wilderness uploaded over six megabytes of the purloined files to his
Behind Enemy Lines site, including over two megabytes of log files of online chats between
Garst and her five spamming associates. At first, many of the more technical readers of
Nanae were skeptical. Something about the hacker's account of events stuck in their craw. He
provided no details about how he had managed to break into Garst's computer but instead
glossed over it with what sounded to them like a Hollywood account of hacking: "I silently
came across the Internet from thousands of miles away and hacked my way into the spammer's
computer." [ 3 ]
But the copious details in the stolen files convinced many that Behind Enemy Lines was
not fiction. Included was an incriminating exchange of emails in late 1999 between Garst and
a Texas man named Mark E. Rice. The messages discussed a stock pump-and-dump deal under
which Garst would be paid $1,500 per million junk emails to send spam touting the stocks of
four microcap companies. Rice authored the spams, which typically included fraudulent press
releases about the companies and their prospects. Soon after Garst sent off a load of spam,
Rice would sell large blocks of the stocks, hoping to profit from the uptick generated by
the messages.
"The thing I like about emailing at night is that the rush in the morning is very good
for a stock...And if we can keep the momentum going through out the day, we win," wrote Rice
in an October email to Garst The email exchanges also indicated that Garst wanted to reap
more from the scam than Rice's regular payment checks, sent to her via Federal Express. At
one point she asked his advice in setting up a brokerage account so that she too could trade
shares of the manipulated stocks.
"Since I have an inside of sorts it seems it would be wise if I purchased some stock
that we are promoting. Do you have any recommendations?" she inquired.
Rodona Garst puzzled many spam fighters because she didn't fit their trailer-trash image
of spammers. Garst and her associates lived in middle-class neighborhoods in three-bedroom,
two-bath colonials. Like other white-collar office workers, they chatted about work,
relationships, chocolate, their hair, and family. Shattering that veneer of normalcy,
however, were the women's conversations about ways to defeat ISP spam filters or about
places to find pirated ("cracked") spamware programs. They also freely traded tips on
stealing ("fishing") AOL accounts from gullible users and on fudging their income tax
returns.
The Man in the Wilderness acknowledged that the information he found could be quite
embarrassing if made public. He also noted that he'd done some soul searching before
deciding whether to post the files. But ultimately, he concluded, Premier Services had
abandoned its right to privacy by conducting its business so unethically.
"So, without further delay, let's get brutal!" he wrote.
The Man in the Wilderness proceeded to post revealing photographs of Garst apparently
pilfered from her computer. One depicted her from behind in a bathroom, wearing nothing but
a T-shirt. The hacker had captioned the photo, "The Number of Freckles on Rodona Garst's
Ass."
The second shot showed Garst in her office, pulling her shirt up to her chin and baring
her chest. "Rodona's Breast Size" was the hacker's title. Another set of photos, labeled "A
Date with a Spam Queen,"
the hacker, Garst ran the business out of her home in Clarksville, Tennessee, coordinating a
handful of associates located around the U.S. Over the course of a couple of weeks, the
hacker "spread like a silent wildfire through Rodona's computer network" and hacked his way
one by one into the company's computers.
"What I wanted," he explained, "was unrestricted access to the data on their hard
drives, and computer by computer I got it."
The Man in the Wilderness uploaded over six megabytes of the purloined files to his
Behind Enemy Lines site, including over two megabytes of log files of online chats between
Garst and her five spamming associates. At first, many of the more technical readers of
Nanae were skeptical. Something about the hacker's account of events stuck in their craw. He
provided no details about how he had managed to break into Garst's computer but instead
glossed over it with what sounded to them like a Hollywood account of hacking: "I silently
came across the Internet from thousands of miles away and hacked my way into the spammer's
computer." [ 3 ]
But the copious details in the stolen files convinced many that Behind Enemy Lines was
not fiction. Included was an incriminating exchange of emails in late 1999 between Garst and
a Texas man named Mark E. Rice. The messages discussed a stock pump-and-dump deal under
which Garst would be paid $1,500 per million junk emails to send spam touting the stocks of
four microcap companies. Rice authored the spams, which typically included fraudulent press
releases about the companies and their prospects. Soon after Garst sent off a load of spam,
Rice would sell large blocks of the stocks, hoping to profit from the uptick generated by
the messages.
"The thing I like about emailing at night is that the rush in the morning is very good
for a stock...And if we can keep the momentum going through out the day, we win," wrote Rice
in an October email to Garst The email exchanges also indicated that Garst wanted to reap
more from the scam than Rice's regular payment checks, sent to her via Federal Express. At
one point she asked his advice in setting up a brokerage account so that she too could trade
shares of the manipulated stocks.
"Since I have an inside of sorts it seems it would be wise if I purchased some stock
that we are promoting. Do you have any recommendations?" she inquired.
Rodona Garst puzzled many spam fighters because she didn't fit their trailer-trash image
of spammers. Garst and her associates lived in middle-class neighborhoods in three-bedroom,
two-bath colonials. Like other white-collar office workers, they chatted about work,
relationships, chocolate, their hair, and family. Shattering that veneer of normalcy,
however, were the women's conversations about ways to defeat ISP spam filters or about
places to find pirated ("cracked") spamware programs. They also freely traded tips on
stealing ("fishing") AOL accounts from gullible users and on fudging their income tax
returns.
The Man in the Wilderness acknowledged that the information he found could be quite
embarrassing if made public. He also noted that he'd done some soul searching before
deciding whether to post the files. But ultimately, he concluded, Premier Services had
abandoned its right to privacy by conducting its business so unethically.
"So, without further delay, let's get brutal!" he wrote.
The Man in the Wilderness proceeded to post revealing photographs of Garst apparently
pilfered from her computer. One depicted her from behind in a bathroom, wearing nothing but
a T-shirt. The hacker had captioned the photo, "The Number of Freckles on Rodona Garst's
Ass."
The second shot showed Garst in her office, pulling her shirt up to her chin and baring
her chest. "Rodona's Breast Size" was the hacker's title. Another set of photos, labeled "A
Date with a Spam Queen,"
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