This summer, Dave Hill got a refreshing break from the run-of-the-mill spam that routinely invades his e-mail inbox. Instead of hawking mortgages, penis-enlargement pills or weight-loss products, a message arrived that seemed straight out of a science-fiction novel.
The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of far-fetched gadgets for conducting time travel. Among the mysterious devices sought by the message's author were an "Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement" and an "AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor."
Hill, a computer programmer living in Iowa, said he normally deletes a couple of dozen junk e-mails every day with hardly a glance. But this time, he hit the reply button instead.
"It was just so weird, I had to respond. I sent him a message saying I could get him what he wanted," Hill said.
In so doing, Hill, like numerous Internet users since late 2001, was drawn into the strange world of a mysterious man some refer to as the time-travel spammer.
With a little deft Photoshop work, Hill created an online store offering a range of the sci-fi items sought by e-mailer "Bob White." In July, Hill even shipped by UPS an old hard drive motor disguised as a "warp generator" to an address provided by White.
But when White gratefully acknowledged receipt of the parts a few days later and earnestly asked for help obtaining others, Hill decided to end the stunt.
"I expected him to tell me at that point that it was all a joke, and he'd give me the punch line," said Hill. Instead, Hill began to worry that White was "a person challenged by reality and as such deserves our sympathy and support."
Hill's hunch, it turns out, was correct. An investigation has revealed that the time-travel spammer is dead serious about his quest for technology that can rewind time.
A trail of Internet clues has fingered Robert "Robby" Todino as the source of the time-travel messages. In a telephone interview last week, the 22-year-old Woburn, Massachusetts, resident admitted that he has sent nearly 100 million of the bizarre messages since November 2001.
"It almost feels worthless now because the people who are monitoring my every move always seem to win. But it's the only form of communication I have right now," Todino said.
His father, Robert Todino Sr., worries that malicious users have preyed on Robby's "psychological problems" and bilked him out of money.
"What bothers me is that some people are trying to sell him equipment and take advantage of him," said Todino Sr. "He's invested a lot of money into it and has been hurt by it."
But Robby insists that he is "perfectly mentally stable," and that the time-travel technology he seeks is out there somewhere.
"A lot of people will say the stuff I talk about is crazy and out of this world. But I know for a fact that it is true and does exist. Untrained minds may disagree with me, but they don't have access to the sources that I do," he said.
Be that as it may, Todino's recent spam not only appears to violate the laws of science, but some may also flout a 2001 legal action against him by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In August 2001, the state's attorney general ordered Robby Todino's company, RT Marketing, to stop sending fraudulent e-mail advertisements for "free government grants" and "detective software."
Under an "assurance of discontinuance" deal -- the first antispam action ever taken by Massachusetts regulators -- Todino agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and halt "misleading and deceptive" spamming practices.
Shortly thereafter, Todino's first wave of time-travel spam hit the Internet. In November 2001, using the AOL screen name Robby0809@aol.com, he sent thousands of anonymous e-mails with the subject line, "Time Travelers PLEASE HELP."
The messages appealed to anyone who was a "time traveler or alien disguised as human" and stated that the sender's life had been "severely tampered with" and he needed "temporal reversion" to correct it.
In December 2001, a three-page, single-spaced message signed by someone named "Robby" began appearing in many Internet users' inboxes. The e-mail described how the author had been drugged and poisoned as a child by a woman his father had dated. He said he needed a "time traveler" to help him "take back what was stolen from me in the first place. MY LIFE."
Over the years, many netizens have posed as time-travel vendors in online conversations with the spam's sender, who has referred to himself by aliases including Bob White and Tim Jones.
Some Internet users have speculated on discussion lists that the sender is a sci-fi author in search of material. Others have suggested the time-travel messages are just a cunning way for spammers to harvest working e-mail addresses.
The more common assumption is that the unidentified author of the e-mails is just out for fun. To play along, a few pranksters have created fake eBay auctions in response to the bizarre messages.
Officials with the Massachusetts Attorney General's office said they have been monitoring Todino's online activities to ensure compliance with the 2001 agreement. However, they could not comment on the information they have gleaned.
Todino acknowledged that, soon after being busted by authorities in Massachusetts, he resumed sending commercial spam messages in the fall of 2001 under the company name PK Marketing.
PK Marketing's spamming reached a peak late last spring, when Todino broadcast millions of messages advertising "free cash grants" at its site grantgiveawayprogram.com.
Despite a stated desire to conceal his identity "to avoid the anti-spammers," Todino has done puzzlingly little to separate PK Marketing from the time-travel spam.
For example, the company's federalfundingprogram.com site was listed as a contact address for more information in the July messages seeking a dimensional warp generator.
A subsequent e-mail message broadcast across the Internet instructed recipients to "teleport" the DWG to a set of geographic coordinates in Woburn at 3 p.m. on July 28. The message apparently prompted several people to convene near the drop-off spot, but no paranormal phenomena were reported.
Todino believes that if it hadn't been for an intervention by "the conspiracy," he might finally have laid his hands on a time-travel machine.
"There are forces that are constantly monitoring, and anyone who tries to send something to those coordinates will get it blocked," he said. "But certain intergalactic couriers have the means to deliver the stuff to me. And I'm sure if I pursued it I could get something out of that."
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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.
