Standing in a small conference room on Microsoft's vast campus earlier this spring, Mr. McBride, 38, explained how the techniques he learned in tracking down prison escapees have come in handy finding spammers. He unfurled a giant piece of paper covered with hundreds of tiny symbols - faces, trucks, computer screens, telephones - connected by a spider's web of multicolored lines.
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"The real key is trying to figure out how to connect the virtual world" with "someone you can hold responsible for this," Mr. McBride said. Once you have the link, he said, "you can use all the tools of a normal investigation."
What's also interesting is the way this kind of tracking maps social networks across communications media, locations, and business entities. Yet it returns at the end the physical body of the spammer: it's not enough, is it, to have an email address? No, for real legal accountability, you still need a warm body at a mail drop.
From an NYT article on making spammers accountable.
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