E-mail-borne-phone-based-scam… What The … ?

I've just heard of a new type of scam that involves spam e-mails as well as telephones. It's a bit bizarre and I have no idea how efficient it is, but it's bound to work better than PDF spam-scam. So here's how things go: the spammer sends a lot of messages including a telephone number. If the receiver should call that number, surprise, surprise, it's a premium call, so instead of paying standard per minute, he is charged with lots of dollars, which go straight into the spammer's pockets.

The Police can do something about commercially-intended spam, but can't do anything about the fact that you called willingly to a premium number. Nobody forced you to call, you willingly dialed the number. So, if they can't prove that the spammer is the same person as the one that owns the premium line, then they've got nothing. And think just how hard that is, if the spammer used a botnet. He just has to go and infect one computer, and then that will infect another and another and so on, and so forth. So, bottom line is that even if such a crook gets busted, I don't know for what he could get charged, except perhaps spamming. In any case, if he does not directly hack a computer, but the user gets infected by himself, well - then the Police will have a problem prosecuting him.

All programs have a EULA that no one really bothers to read. Some will even state that they are spyware or that they are mailer-bots or stuff like that. That is a smart move for hackers that want to avoid some consequences. So, let's imagine the worst case scenario: people download some software that does one thing, but is also a mailer-bot (fact stated even in the EULA). Then, others get spam messages with the premium phone-number. People call and fill the hacker's pockets with dough. What do you accuse the hacker for?

This can be a pretty smart technique, but if people treat it like they did with PDF spam, than it isn't going to be much of a problem.