A California man is charged with breaking into thousands of PCs to install pop-up adware.
According to prosecutors, in 2004 and early 2005 Ancheta used a customized form of the "rxbot" Trojan horse program to find and take control of large collections of vulnerable PCs, spinning them into "botnets" capable of being directed as one. He then installed ad-delivery programs from two adware firms: Quebec-based Gammacash and LOUDcash, which was purchased by adware giant 180solutions and renamed ZangoCash earlier this year.
I am trying to find out if this is covered under the phishing law (as many malware programs capture personal data), as signed by California Governator Ah-nold. See “Ah-Nold says "Hasta La Vista" to Phishing in California” for details.
Wired News: “Alleged Pop-Up Hacker Busted”.