Zardon

A British man has been threatened by a gang of spammers after reporting its activity to his ISP.

The man, who asked to remain anonymous, is so concerned he fears for this own safety.

"These people are nasty," he told The Register.

"They said they were going to make my life 'not worth living'. If you complain then they retaliate in a very vicious way.

"I'm worried that I could be subject to physical violence. It is a genuine fear - I fear for my own safety," he said.

The man in question has been mail-bombed a number of times and on one occasion received 250,000 emails within just a couple of hours.

His Web site has also come under sustained attack which eventually led to its closure.

Worryingly still, he's also received menacing silent phone calls which he believes are from the spammers.

The harrassment began around five months ago when he first reported the spammers' activity to his ISP.

However, the ISP is powerless since the spammers set up anonymous pay-as-you-go accounts to send out the emails. If they're shut down, they simply set up new accounts using different false details and the cycle is repeated again and again.

By Tim Richardson