Jon Atherton was one of porn's biggest spammers. Operating out of Brisbane,
Australia, he spammed millions of people (many of them children and
many of them not wanting his explicit pictures and copy) with emails
advertising bestiality, Paris Hilton's sex video and other forms of
pornography.
Atherton is worth over ten million dollars.
He has a brother with a colorful, sometimes frightening, personality.
Jon moved to Vancouver in 2001 to escape Australia's anti-spam laws.
Much of his web hosting was done out of Brazil.
His adstats.com webmaster program paid out millions of dollars and
Jon raked it in with his Paris Hilton sites. That crashed to a halt
in early 2004 after Paris Hilton's family took down all his Paris-related
sites (and Adstats would not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars owed
to its affiliate webmasters). Since then, Jon's sent what's left of
his traffic to Adult Friend Finder.
Jon Atherton's Porncash.com Closes
2003-04-03 10:34:17
XXX writes: "If you know a big Canadian webmaster
group about to buy the porncash.com rebilling database off Mike Dunkley
and Jon Atherton aka Johnston (in Brisbane), then you should let them
know it’s a total scam."
In
late 2001, Jon Atheron persuaded l-keford.com to remove its devastating
profile of him.
49th
parallel writes on GFY: "And they will probably be scratching their
heads again in a few months when their next venture goes belly up. Strange,
but true...the average person doesn't like be scammed.
"Yipee!! Let the industry clean-up begin. I still wonder how webmasters
can promote absolute crap like this. I couldn't meet a person on the
street and reach into their pocket and take their money. So why in the
adult industry is it alaright to scam and steal...and then call it "good
conversions." I personally will cheer the day that VISA shuts down all
of the scamming scum out there."
Donnie writes on GFY: They had a $1.95 transaction fee, and they billed
people $40 after 30 minutes, and didn't give them their promised "free
DVD" until after they were rebilled, per their terms.
Lenny2 writes: "There's no way any of you that were promoting porncash
can be surprised by this. It was only a matter of time."
Backov writes: "Obviously the Visa regs are working. Porncash was one
of those "f-ck the surfer as hard as you possible can, sans any lube
whatsoever" companies. They also were criminal f-cks who would fail
to pay you if you looked at them funny.
Good f-cking riddance."
Money@porncash.com emails to its affiliates: Over the last 3 years Porncash
has grown into one of the largest webmaster
programs in the world, all along it has been a struggle to maintain
banking relationships. Unfortunately due to the aggressive action taken
by some card associations Porncash will cease to operate today.
All final webmaster payments have been dispatched.
Login for stats will still function for a short time so you can review
what we have paid you over the last few years, but all websites will
be removed very soon.
I must say at this point that all of us at Porncash are immensely disappointed.
We built a business worth in the order of 50 million dollars and worked
very hard to keep it going. In the end we have lost the lot because
of a break down in what should be the most fundamentally stable part
of any business - the ability to bank money from customers.
We are all working on a terrific new web based business that will be
released in a few weeks, and those of you that we think might be able
to assist us with promotions will be contacted in due course.
....................
"Here's a tip - don't piss people you don't know off too much, you never
know how some weirdo people might retaliate." Jon Atherton.
Bob Blaylock replies: "Jon Atherton was quoted as saying this to a person
who was taking him to task for sending large volumes of pornographic
spam. One has to wonder if Mr. Atherton has ever considered the applicability
of this advice to himself. Surely, sending highly offensive and obscene
material to large numbers of people who do not want it is likely to
piss many of them off, and who knows how some of them might respond?"
..................
Nick at Ilynx writes: So lets see......
We sell adult entertainment.
And some purveyors of porn are critising the tatics of other purveyors
of porn.
ahahahahahahahahahaha
Come on!! LOL Who brings a knife to a gunfight? LOL
As far as the straights are concerned we are all scum.
So,the way I look at it,and have for 7yrs is, if you are gonna be a
bear.Be a f-cking grizzly.
Backov writes: Bank robbers that know what they are doing often make
off with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why would another variety
of thief (spammers) be any less successful.
Bottom line to you deluded spammers: You are costing US corporations
billions of dollars. US Corps OWN the US Govt. Anything that costs US
Corps that kind of money WILL be stopped. Wait for it.
Before then, expect to have a few of your colleagues executed by anti-spammers.
I give that less than 5 years.
Gothweb writes: Didn't a pretty big biller recently say that the reason
they have been behind on payments is that a major program screwed up
their relationship with their banks? Hmm.
............................
"Australian Porn Mafia" is a term used by many pornographers to refer
to their "mates" in Brisbane, Queensland, who control a disproportionate
amount of the planet's internet porn trade.
This phrase does not mean that Brisbane's porners have been convicted
of belonging to an organized crime syndicate. In this instance, the
use of the word "Mafia" refers to a group of businessmen in one locale
who largely work separately.
Queensland's main porners (Dean Shannon, John Atherton, Greg Lasrado,
Scott Phillips) no longer do much business together. But they live near
each other, socialize with each other, and frequently imitate each other's
business methods.
Brisbane's porners are accused by their peers of massive spamming -
transmitting millions of emails advertising pornography and bestiality
to people, including children, who did not request such filth. The Aussies
counter by saying that their spamming has been overstated, and that
all adult internet operators do this. (See the AOL vs CEN suit.)
The other main accusation against the Aussie porners is that they frequently
used stolen content. Most if not all of these issues were resolved with
porn content providers in the year 2000.
Lasrado and Atherton are infamous for the amount of dollars they earn
through internet bestiality sites.
8/16/00
The big Australian porn webmasters are known as masters of spamming,
sending out millions of unsolicited and unwanted emails advertising
porn websites, including bestiality sites.
Perhaps the biggest spammer is John Atherton, who's lives in Brisbane
along with his peers Dean Shannon, Greg Lasrado and Scott Phillips.
Sean writes: "Jon Atherton is the next largest with Scott Phillips,
Jon is building a 8 Million dollar house in the same street that Greg
Lazrado lives in. Jon is one of the largest spammers in the marketplace
he runs a small office down in milton, but also uses servers out of
Shannon's operation."
Luke: I believe that Shannon and Atherton are both hosted by Global
Centre. But Shannon does not host Atherton. Jon and Dean are friends
but they both claim they have no financial connection beyond sending
each other traffic.
Jon Atherton sent out over three million spam emails this weekend advertising
Farmsex.com in this manner: "DIRTY FARM BITCHES Ed's got the biggest
cock on the farm & the girls just love to help him show it off ! This
guy really is impressive & shoots a gallon when handled right. Join
the girls giving Ed a regular handling..."
Raw Alex writes on Netpond: "Chris, funniest part is that the page in
that spam has been taken down and replaced with a cyberotica link on
a fake 404 page.
Creed writes on Netpond: Millions of people around the world received
multiple spams over the weekend from a program called click-for-sex
run by Jon Twilite. His twilite is coming as we speak. Please send a
copy of the spam to abuse@ibill.com. DO NOT mail the RBL. We have the
power and opportunity to police ourselves by ostracizing those who imperil
our business. Shame on Cybererotica if they take that traffic. Conservatively
that spam went out to 3 million homes probably many more.
The registered name is Spotwire jon@spotwire.com Company: Spotwire Address:
PO Box 1240 MILTON QLD 4064 Phone:01161419779239 Country: Australia
Luke: I called the number and asked for Jon Atherton. A man answered
the phone, then hung up on me.
Creed: Jon Atherton YOU f-ckING LYING SICK STUPID ASS MUTHERFUKER! I
CAUGHT YER SPAMMING SCAMMING ASS AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET AWAY WITH
ANYTHING YOU DICK! I SAVED THE HTML SOURCE CODE AND SCREEN CAPTURED
EVERY DAMN WEBPAGE DOCUMENTING AND PROVING IRREFUTABLY YOU, SACK O sh-t
SPAMMER, SENT THE SPAMS ADVERTISING YOUR SICKO BEASTIALITY CRAP SITES
YOURSELF! THAT URL IN THE SPAM HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR
PATHETIC WEBMASTER PROGRAM. THOSE SPAM URLS GO TO A SEPERATE IBILL JOIN
PAGE COMPLETE WITH A NON EXISTENT CUSTOMER SUPPORT EMAIL ADDRESS, m-dunkley@hotmail.com.
LIAR, MAGGOT, SICK SPAMMING PRICK!!!
Jon Atherton replies: Chris, Headers might not mean squat, but I am
stuffed if I know how you can send thru so many different servers....
if you want to find out ask the guy that did it: clickmail1@yahoo.com
Anyway - I think a few people missed the point - I am not complaining
about Ron dropping the account - I couldn't care too much about it really,
it was only 5000 hits and 29 signups in an hour or so.... I sent it
from a 404 page after deleting a url that had been spammed to, so I
wasn't spamming the CE link, I guess he should have been asked given
the circumstances. I am also not trying to justify spam, but when someone
says they have an opt-in list and they can send you 1000 signups in
a few days - NORMALLY you'd listen. If I see one more full header of
an email....! geeez I might just post all the spams I have got advertising
just about every site in that list of links at the top of this board!
Jeff Miller: Jon/Twilite... Rarely do I find the need to swear in any
of my posts to get my point across, but seriously dude, shut the f-ck
up already. You are full of sh-t and everyone knows it. It wasnt an
opt in list that happened to have a few webmaster email addressess on
it. I for one got about 127 of the stupid things, addressed to email
addresses that exist ONLY on webpages deep within my site(s). You harvested
e-mail addresses from the web, or bought a list from someone who does
and you spammed. Admit it and move on. Or dont admit it, it doesnt really
matter. But, the more you deny it, and the more you lie about it, the
more you look like an even bigger dumbf-ck.
Creed: I know you sent the spam yourself. Even in the best light you
knew and did everything possible to facilitate your anonymous spammer
which is the SAME f-cking thing. Only Ibill would let a webmaster get
away with that bullsh-te. Jon take your lame excuses and go away. No
webmaster in his right mind wants to do business with a quick buck artist
spammer with poor judgement like you. Old Net proverb "Guy who takes
shortcuts getting traffic takes shortcuts paying for it".
Jon Atherton responds: Quite frankly - I couldn't give a rats arse what
you *think* you fund out about the email that was sent. The facts are:
1. It was sent to just over 7 million people.
2. It was sent to an old opt-in list that was run with remove links
for years.
3. Some webmasters got the email - but to be honest you probably saw
it more on this freaking board than in your inbox
4. It created about 1400 signups in 2 1/2 days @$25 per signup that
is not too bad [I prepaid for 1000 after a test run]
5. If you want to keep posting about it 3 days after the mail was sent
fine, but stop posting the whole f-cking thing.
6. hahahahahaha go f-ck yourself creed - you are a screaming *anon*
mental case.
This is my last post on the matter - and Creed - I can bet that I'll
be around longer than you, and have been around longer than you....
you only just popped up in the last few days anyway as far as I can
make out - go crawl back into your hole...
Raw Alex writes on Netpond: I think we can all agree: There is no way
to tell (without asking) if a mailbox belongs to a child or an adult.
We need to "opt in" people to confirm their addresses, and their willingness
to receive adult materials. We have to avoid sending stuff to children.
We have to avoid sending stuff to people who don't want porn. Blinding
sending messages to culled or made up addresses is the most dangerous
thing that our business can do. The chance that at least 1 of your mails
is misdirected is just about 100%. I am all for opt-in lists. Heck,
I have one.
I think opt-in is great, I never bitch about confirmed opt-in spam that
I get - I asked for it. But I do object to people scanning a chatroom
and culling addresses, assuming I want their commercial missives. In
canada, if I put a "NO ADMAIL" on my mailbox, the post office is required
to NOT deliver anything that is not personally addressed. Further more,
door to door flyer delivery people are suppose to (they don't always)skip
my door. The phonecalls must be done within set hours. There is a huge
difference between an opt in list and spam - opt in is great, spam is
just bad for our business.
A fellow porn webmaster writes Luke to defend Jon: i know jon spent
about 18 months building an email list through his opt in service he
in fact bought alot of traffic from eureka ( opt in email that was run
by robin nixon ) for many months on he invested heavily - i guess his
strategy was since these people opted into eureka then they would opt
into this email list and it was in fact the case he got a very high
conversion rate from eureka traffic to his own opt on email list.
i am certain that his list is not 7 million strong. so clean was his
list that at one stage he had the endorsement of his old isp ( exodus.net
) to send it as complaints were minimal because of the way the list
was sourced - this was until he moved over to global centre. i dont
think it is bad marketing to people via email that have opted in , i
think it is bad only when the email is unsolicited and worse when it
is sent unsolicited to people that dont want adult material.
jon gets about 30-40 sign ups a day ( hardly the result of a 7 million
spam list ) , he runs a very cost effective operation and has a very
high margin , mixing his emailing traffic in with purchased traffic.
he is a decent person who tries to operate smarter than his opposition
and tries to stay a step ahead , he is innovative and is always looking
for that competitive edge.
8/17/00
Australian Porn Mafia
The Australian Porn Mafia has taken to spamming the net in my name,
leaving my phone number as the place to call to remove oneself from
this spam list.
Here's what they're sending out:
From: INTERNET:luke@mediaone.net, INTERNET:luke@mediaone.net
Date: 8/16/00 4:53 AM
RE: Subscriber Update WWW.l-keford.COM
Dear user, Your email address was obtained from an opt-in list of adult
webmasters, this is a one time message to build traffic to the best
site on the web for PORN INDUSTRY NEWS AND GOSSIP http://www.l-keford.com
Every day I post the latest gossip from the porn industry, and my personal
philosphy. http://www.l-keford.com
If you wish to unsubscribe from this list please leave a message at
1-310-xxx-xxxx with your email address stated clearly. Many thanks,
L-ke F-rd luke@lukeisback.com
Sender: luke@mediaone.net Received: from saephir.agmasys.net ([216.15.202.2])
by sphmgaad.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) with ESMTP id HAA20032;
Wed, 16 Aug 2000 07:52:58 -0400 (EDT) From: luke@mediaone.net Received:
from mediaone.net ([203.166.249.26]) by saephir.agmasys.net (8.9.3)
id NAA15205; Wed, 16 Aug 2000 13:50:44 +0200 Subject: Subscriber Update
WWW.l-keford.COM Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 22:00:18 Message-Id: <23.830738.316400@mediaone.net>
CJ writes on Netpond: Luke, do you honestly think the only enemies you
have made are australians??!! I think most of the adult internet hates
you so it could be one of 50000 people with much more time on their
hands than the Australian Porn Mafia. Don't flatter yourself that scott
or any of the other guys have the time to waste on sending advertising
for you.
Scott Phillips writes on Netpond: Hey Luke, is there anything in that
mail which points to an Australian doing it? Is it an Australian mail
server, or anyone you know? Go f-ck yourself asshole, the list of people
who are sick of your self-important drivel is WORLDWIDE!
Hey f-ckhead Luke Just read your site. Is there the slightest bit of
evidence that any of this comes from one of my compatriots? Please tell
me what you base your suspicion on? As far as I can tell we are one
of only about of half a dozen webmasters you have unfairly and illegally
defamed in the last few weeks. Go look up your own ass for the spammer,
f-ckhead.
Next time use some common sense before you go attacking the "Australian
Porn Mafia" When will you get it through your head? There is no such
thing. I simply live in one small city in Australia which has a lot
of successful net porn businesses. Frankly, I'm sick of having my integrity
questioned by a weasel like you.
Oh, seeing you are too stupid to figure it out for yourself, let me
help ;-) The mail server it was sent from was saephir.agmasys.net Registrant:
AGMA Systems (AGMASYS3-DOM) Via Bruno Zauli, 24 Formia, IT
Justreading writes on Netpond: I do not like L-ke F-rd (not because
i am fishing for some credibility like many who attack him... but because
he is a sloppy and irresponsible journalist)
<< Luke beginning copying here>>
Luke posted your comments about him on his site (so i heard... i never
read it... honest i dont!!) You may succeed yet in debunking the myth
of the Australian Porn Mafia. I think he did the mafia story to create
controversy... Duh..
THEN he added fuel to the fire, here and everywhere else...
THEN he arranged to spam his site from an Australian server to drive
both traffic and more controversy to his site.
THEN, he again pointed the dirty end of the boomerang at you guys (with
his post here today) to get everyone pissed off and talking about it
and him and he quietly lets the cycle repeat itself.
It was like when Al Gores wife wanted to censor music in the States.
The more they attacked certain "offensive" rap groups, the richer those
groups got from the publicity and the more children wanted to listen
to them.
This is why he constantly creates situations where people will openly
attack him. When people bitch about him, they empower him and make him
stronger.
If all the people that do not like him would never mention his name
again, he would drift silently away, like a pigmy fart in the outback.
;-))
<< Luke, finish copying here >>
Perry writes on Netpond: Luke, I ran those headers through http://www.spamcop.net
and it came back that person responsible for the email host is benno@edge.net.au.
That second Recieved line: has a forged hostname in it. 203.166.249.26
shows the real IP of the spammer. Using dig to track down the owner
of the IP doesn't work. So try whois 203.166.249.26@whois.apnic.net
and see what ya get. inetnum: 203.166.224.0 - 203.166.255.255 netname:
EISA001 descr: Edge Internet Services descr: Located in Australia. country:
AU admin-c: BR3-AP tech-c: BR3-AP remarks: Internet Service Provider
mnt-by: EISA-MANT-001 changed: hostmaster@apnic.net 19980924 source:
APNIC person: Benno Rentinck address: Lvl 6 459 Collins street Melbourne
address: Australia 3000 phone: +61-39-677-9677 fax-no: +61-39-887-3806
country: AU e-mail: benno@edge.net.au nic-hdl: BR3-AP mnt-by: EISA-MANT-001
changed: benno@edge.net.au 19980831 source: APNIC
Justreading: Perry, Luke has an e-mail address which is not this board.
You should let him do his own legwork. Ahh sh-t, nevermind... he does
not even do his own journalism. ;-)
CJ: woo hoo!! the aussie porn mafia stretches to melbourne!!! (other
end of the country, about 3000k's away, for those of you who think australia
is the size of hawaii)
just reading, you are right... completely 100% totally... if we ignored
him he would go away... quite the opposite of toe fungus but with similar
qualities... but he's just so damn funny!! He brings out anger and childish
teasing in all of us and its hard to stop... plus, I don't get much
time to play and luke provides that entertainment for me within my working
hours... but, alas, you are right... *trying really really hard to ignore
luke from now on
Creed: I was feeling really quite depressed last evening. IBill has
chosen to ignore my documented abuse reports about JON TWILITE AKA THE
SPAMMER [Jon Atherton] even including his confession here that he sent
out his beastiality spam to over 7 million addresses. So I'm sitting
there bummed out considering whether to cause sh-te with the RBL when
the wife says to me 'Stop being such a sourpuss over inconsequintial
nonsense. Do something nice for yourself'. She's a bright girl. Nothing
cheers me up like good porn. When I joined Jon Spammerz click-for-sex
program I have to admit his sites looked like they kicked arse. I really
wanted to see his http://www.sexamateursex.com site badly. Amateurs
is my favorite niche and Spammerz site has over 250 Personal Webcams!
And thousands of dirty home amateur movies. I was sure he had leased
those excellent Homegrown Video feeds.
My problem was that as bad as I wanted in that site I would NEVER EVER
EVER give Jon Atherton the Spamming sh-t 50 dollars for anything. So
I went to Undernet on IRC and joined #xxxpasswordz and begged for a
sexamateursex password. Three hours later finally some cracker got me
one and I traded five passwords to my own paysite to get inside Spammerz
site. For 50 dollars a month a site coming from an industry giant with
a MILLION dollars in programming alone I was really expecting the MOTHER
of all Amateur paysites. I've seen them all. AmateurPlayground, AmateurAvenue,
SexyNoelles, KarasAmateurs, AmateurBeaver. I didn't want to get my expectations
too high and be disappointed. I admit that a part of me wanted to find
Jon the Spammerz site full of stolen MikeAI content. But I was hornier
than a rhino and at the time just wanted great amateur porn pix videos
and webcams and LOTS of it! I know this board isn't the place for paysite
reviews so I won't describe what I found inside unless somebody asks
Creed: My post was...aimed at the Australian spam and scam f-ckker Jon
Atherton of Click-for-Sex. No processor should give this asshole service.
I know CCBill wouldn't nor Epoch. IBill would gladly process for a mass
murderer selling off body parts imho. My next post will show you what
kind of sites Twilite runs. He's a parasite.
3/26/01
howardk@cts.com writes on news.admin.net-abuse.email: Aliases used by
this spammer: Jon Atherton, Jon Patterson, Peter Powell, The Tech Guy,
Mr. Ins.
E-Mail addresses used by this spammer: jon@ATHERTON.NET.AU, admin@SPOTZZZ.COM,
jon@SPOTZZZ.COM, jon@SPOTWIRE.COM, internic@INS-WEB.COM, JON@INS-WEB.COM,
jon@SAFECARD.NET
Company names used by this spammer: Supabill Services Inc. (or just
SUPABILL), Shervale Pty Ltd, The Atherton Family Trust, Interative Network
Services
Addresses used by this spammer: PO Box 1240 MILTON, QLD 4064 AU, PO
BOX 48953 595 BURRARD STREET VANCOUVER, BC V7X1A8, 1/1 Fort Lane Milton
QLD 4064 AU, KEIZERSGRACHT 12 N/A AMSTERDAM, CS 1015 NL
And who's currently harboring (aiding and abetting?) this parasite:
Global Crossing (abuse@gblx.net)
Ken (kwh0@hotmail.com) writes: gblx.net:
You apparently host the spammer's website www.teenisex.com:
You apparently host the spammer's website : www.teenshave.com:
You apparently host the spammer's website www.sickanal.com:
You apparently host the spammer's domain SPOTZZZ.COM
This was apparently relayed through your mailserver