Robby Todino

Robert Todino Jr, of Woburn, Massachusetts, was a prolific spammer in the early years of the 21st century; however, in addition to advertising, he also apparently solicited time travel equipment, earning him the nickname The Time Travel Spammer.

Initially, Todino's company, RT Marketing, sent spams for products such as "free government grants" and "detective software", but in 2001 the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts handed down a US$5,000 fine and an injunction to cease all fraudulent advertising. Following this, in November 2001 he began his campaign to obtain time-travel equipment, sending nearly 100 million emails.

His messages, usually from false names such as "Bob White" and "Tim Jones", and up to three pages long, solicited urgent help from "the very, very few beings with the ability to edit the universe", specifically "time travelers or aliens disguised as humans". They claimed that the sender was "cursed", after having been drugged and poisoned by his father's girlfriend when he was a child, and that aliens were now interfering with his life. He claimed to need to revisit his own childhood to "take back... MY LIFE", as others had apparently done, before he died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

These emails attracted great curiosity due to their highly unconventional nature and the degree of detail in their descriptions of time travel. Many considered the emails to be a joke, an attempt to garner research for a science fiction novel, or a means of harvesting working email addresses for further spamming; however, people who replied reported that the sender engaged them in apparently genuine discussions, holding firm to his story.

An online investigation, made in part by "Wired News", led in August 2003 to Todino, who admitted to sending the messages. He was reportedly upset at his identity being revealed to the "anti-spammers" and claimed he had failed to obtain time travel equipment due to "the people who are monitoring my every move". However, he also admitted having resumed his commercial spamming shortly after the 2001 injunction through a new company, PK Marketing, which offered (amongst other things) "free cash grants". The Attorney General did not comment on whether he was now in violation of the injunction.

Following the "Wired" exposée, Todino was allegedly responsible for a Joe job against three websites linking to the article. A series of spams were sent advertising anti-spam software from a company called Quickeasysolution.com, registered in October 2003 at the same false address in Woburn that Todino had used. The company was later confirmed by the Card Cops [http://www.cardcops.com/] anti-fraud service as an attempt to steal credit card details. The spams used the three websites as domains for false return addresses, causing the sites to be flooded with complaints and notifications of undeliverable mail. Todino himself had stated his next bulk mail venture would be for an anti-spam product, but has not confirmed or denied his involvement in this campaign.

Although he insists he is "perfectly mentally stable", Todino's father, Robert Todino Sr., claims he has psychological problems and sincerely believes in time travel, and that a few people have taken advantage of his problems for financial gain. In some cases, people sold Todino assorted junk such as broken hard drives and other equipment marked as "time travel devices", frequently through eBay auctions.

External links

* [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60141,00.html "Turn Back the Spam of Time"] at "Wired News" (2003-08-29)
* [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61026,00.html "Time-Travel Spammer Strikes Back"] at "Wired News" (2003-11-01)

ee Also

*List of spammers