It's not in the papers yet — damn those lead times — but a media frenzy is frothing around the fresh meat of the Spam King's arrest. (The backstory: Alan Ralsky, pictured, is in the DOJ's hands, and they're grilling him for info on other hackers and spammers in a plea-bargain session.) Ralsky's quickly becoming a useless pressure point for the DOJ as reporters blow up the story, alerting everyone in the spam and hacking world and sending them scuttling out of sight. Major media contact for the hacker community, MemeHacker, sends this chat log from a conversation with another hacker:

Escher Auernheim: i just got a phonecall
MemeHacker: ??
Escher: the DOJ is pissed
and like
Meme: shit
well
Escher: sent goons to spamhaus people
Meme: reporters are calling them
Escher: to SCREAM at the top of their lungs
for like an hour
cause we
broke their whole fucking plan
Meme: what did they expect tho?
Escher: and spammers are shutting their shit down
and ralsky has already plead down
and they cant get arrests from the info
oh man vicious lols
Meme: hahah
trolling the doj

So far, the news is only out here and at tech news site infoWorld. The Washington Post will have the story soon, and press points are working on the New York Times. So either the media's saved the hip hacker crowd from the Man, or we've all just saved the spam industry. Keep tracking the news here, the first source for Fuck the DOJ News.

Hackers quaking over reported Spam King's arrest [infoWorld]
Earlier: Scoop: DOJ jails Spam King! Alan Ralsky might rat out a massive hacker / spammer network [Valleywag]

Contact information for this author is not available.