AOL worker arrested in spam scheme

Here is an interesting way of making money.

A software engineer at America Online was arrested Wednesday and charged with stealing AOL’s subscriber list and selling it to someone sending spam e-mail, federal prosecutors in New York said.

According to the criminal complaint, Jason Smathers of Harpers Ferry, W. Va., used his inside knowledge of AOL’s computer system to steal a list of 92 million AOL customer account “screen names,” and then sold them to Sean Dunaway, who is not an AOL employee.

Dunaway, of Las Vegas, NV., was accused of using the list to promote his own Internet gambling business and also sold the list to other spammers for $52,000, according to David Kelley, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.