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Tech Podcast: Tackling Cybercrime and Spam

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See this man? He may be responsible for some of the thousands of spam emails that have hit your inbox over the years. His name is Shane Atkinson, and he lives in New Zealand. He and his brother Lance, along with some help from Texan Jody Smith and some distributors in India, were supposedly the masterminds behind a bunch of websites touting, ahem, “herbal enhancements.” Officials say that at their peak, this crew may have accounted for as much as one-third of all the world’s junk email. Two years ago, the BBC’s Simon Cox tracked down Shane. We talked to him at length about that in WTP 177.

Little did Simon know that he was about to become part of the story. In this week’s podcast, we’ll check in with Simon again, and hear about how Shane, Lance and Jody are faring these days. Read more on that here.

It’s all part of our special podcast on spam and cybercrime. We also have our yearly cybercrime round-up with Graham Cluley of the British anti-virus firm Sophos, and we’ll check in with Susan Brenner, a law professor who says the only way to secure ourselves online is to take a whole new approach to protection. Look out: it will require you to take personal responsibility for your online security!

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