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January 31, 2006
MyFriendBot author threatened with lawsuit
In an apparent effort to nip a spamming threat in the bud, the online community site MySpace has sent a cease and desist letter to the developer of a software program for sending advertisements to MySpace's millions of young users.
The California company is threatening legal action against Anthony Lineberry, 20, a resident of Boise, Idaho, over a $20 program called MyFriendBot. According to the software's homepage, MyFriendBot is designed to "seek out [MySpace users] and send them your custom message. You can let it be random, or search for friends by Zipcode, Age, Gender, etc. You can choose to add only those who are online, or everyone." A list of frequently asked questions at the site says the program is limited to sending around 400 messages per day.
In its December 14, 2005 letter, MySpace's legal department said that MyFriendBot "constitutes an activity which is expressly prohibited by Section 5 (i) of our Terms of Service and damages the integrity of the MySpace website." The company wants Lineberry to stop distributing the program or he will be "liable for the damages suffered by MySpace, and will be subject to penalties, fines and even criminal imprisonment." Lineberry has posted a copy of the letter at his personal web site.
MySpace is a big phenomenon with younger Internet users and has something like 42 million users. Such a big population is of course attractive to spammers. But I think a lot of the hand-wringing over spim is unwarranted. 
I wasn't able to interview Lineberry yet, but he doesn't appear to be intimidated by the legal threats. (He released a new version of MyFriendBot two weeks after receiving the threat letter.)
Lineberry has got a rep as something of a whiz kid in the security community. In recent years he has given presentations at various hacker conventions. Last summer, he got some fame at BoingBoing for posing nearly nude.
According to PayPal records, MyFriendBot has over 270 verified buyers. A note at Lineberry's site says "its doing pretty well. Whenever sales slow down to a stop, I will release all the code as opensource."
But Lineberry claims he has lost lots of sales to pirates. For example, in recent days someone at the SpecialHam spammer site was offering a "cracked" version of the program for sale.
Other copycat programs are being marketed under similar names such as MySpace Bot, Mass Comment Bot, and Friend Bot .
Last year, a New York man named Anthony Greco was arrested for spamming MySpace members and then trying to extort money from the company. Following a plea agreement with prosecutors, Greco was sentenced last October, but the sentence is under seal.
Posted by brian at January 31, 2006 11:44 AM
Comments
Actually, you might want to edit that post and list www.myfriendbot.com as a *copycat* or lets just say, we shared Ideas, with my ideas being the *spark* of this whole thing. Ask Anthony himself. Lets also include www.codeuber.com - who's bot is available for download on various websites such as Cnets Download.com - Way before Myfriendbot. Without me contacting him that day about how a bot like this could make big bucks, he wouldn't be in the position he is now - able to afford a new BMW or have all of that extra money, and he realizes this and has stated that he is grateful for this. In the earlier stages, Myfriendbot was sold on Whoreme.com.
Also, the owner of Myspacebot.com works with Myfriendbot.com and was up way before Myfriendbot.com was. The same goes for whoreme.com so if you care at all that your site be as factual as possible, it'd be best to learn facts and not make assumptions like this. Check out the who is information for these sites.
Posted by: Anonymous at February 2, 2006 7:00 PM
You do forget, I had that code at http://dtors.ath.cx for quite a longgggg time as a free open source piece of software. I do give you credit for telling me that i should sell it. But dont give yourself too much credit. That is really the only major role you played in the whole thing, is that you suggested that i sell it. Don't forget to mention that you also stole the software and started selling it on your own behind my back at one point. And you were also the one to give out the registration key algorithm code for the 1.x versions to some other site.
And yes, myspacebot.com does sell my bot, because he realized that the one i wrote was the best one available, and contacted me about reselling it. Our partnership has worked out quite nicely. He is a great business parter.
Posted by: anthony at February 2, 2006 8:11 PM
I'm the author of the newest and best myspace bot. You can find it on myspacebot.com. There's an even better one I'm working on now. Make me an offer, anthony. paulhw8769876@hotmail.com
Posted by: Paul Walton at February 16, 2006 5:09 AM
This program is USELESS. If anyone reads this page. DONT PAY MONEY FOR THIS. All the ones I have seen above I have seen. I paid for one of the three offered on myspacebot.com and when it didnt work, I got no response for help until I made the promise that I was going to expose them as frauds and have them investigated for a refund. Then the only response I got was saying they were not going to tolerate threats. There was stil no help. These people should be locked up for stealing peoples money and giving them crap to put on their PC. IT DOESNT EVEN ATTEMPT TO WORK AT ALL.
I even made them the offer to send me a working version instead. But the one I got that doesnt work even took 2 weeks for them to stop being lazy and send me the link to get the registration key TAT DID NOT COME WITH THE PURCHASE.
Posted by: Brian at March 20, 2006 8:36 PM
Not working for me hear. Program automatically accepts friend requests, but does not automatically leave a 'comment' as advertised. No response after asking for help
Posted by: paul jones at March 24, 2006 7:08 AM
Yeah myspacebot.com ignores you once you send your money thats is all they care about
i recently bought a friend adder from www.massbots.com and have gotten great prompt service ever since.
i have seen others around the net but im happy with the one ive got
Posted by: JOhn at April 26, 2006 2:32 PM
