Gotcha! DNS Popup Scammer Fined $1.9 Million

Mister B writes: "A scam artist who trapped surfers mistyping their URLs (including those for children's websites) and barraged them with popup ads for pr0n and gambling has been busted to the tune of about $2 million. Apparently the FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows! The FTC has a sense of humour nevertheless: the case name is 'Cupcake Party' (the scammer did business under 'Cupcake') :-) . More details at MSNBC and the FTC."

Comments

The best is yet to come?

[00_NOP]

Can they be jailed if they refuse to pay?

Re:The best is yet to come?

[DustMagnet]

Although the article doesn't exactly say if this was a civil or a criminal case, this appears at the botton of the FTC page.

(Civil Action No. 01-CV-4854)

You can't be jailed for failing to pay a civil penalty.

Of course it's not to late to charge this guy with a crime. There has to be some law against intentionally showing pOrn to childern.

Re:The best is yet to come?

[PepsiProgrammer]

Yep, would probably fall under 'Contributing to the delenquincy of a minor' then you just have to check his weblogs, and see how many thousands charges to bring him on :)

Re:The best is yet to come?

[spike hay]

I use Opera, and I am not familiar with these "pop-up windows" of which you speak.

Re:The best is yet to come?

[fatphil]

For those not within easy reach of the Bible - here's the text your .sig refers to. (King James Authorised version)

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Brilliant! MS Passport all over. The following verse is of course the famous one...

Let he who has wisdom program for Linux :-)

Anyway, back on topic - in these cases there's usually a cap per day in the penalties, so if the number of hits per day exceeds that the fine doesn't further increase.

FP.

Re:The best is yet to come?

[fatphil]

The cynic in me says:

"He served pages with other addresses in them, the lame users then (by dint of the configuration of their lame browser) went off and _requested_ the porn adverts. And they got what they asked for."

In which case - suffer them.

It's not just Opera that can disable pop-ups. _Any_ browser that lets you disable executable content such as JavaScript does the job.

FP. (User of Opera and w3m)

Re:glad

[coene]

because they start quickly and come with the O/S. Oh, and cuz mozilla does not let them go forward/backward through history using mouse4 and mouse5 buttons!!! :)

Sweet

[mrgoatCEO]

Finally, justice served... I've been waiting a long time to see this hapen.

Re:Sweet

[dattaway]

Justice servced? I don't think so.

I was hoping to read it as 2 million lashes. Except these lashes wouldn't be served automatically by a script, but administered by real people who just don't like spam.

Re:Re:Sweet

[mrgoatCEO]

I conceed that not enough has been done, but I have a feeling that this is only the beginning.
There may be too many spammers out there to beat, maim, or boil, but I think that this is still the start of something good.

Re:Sweet

[wsloand]

Except these lashes wouldn't be served automatically by a script, but administered by real people who just don't like spam.

This has nothing at all to do with spam. What the man was doing was domain prospecting and using popups. Maybe the whipping should be done by people who don't like popups.

Also, it is relatively easy to block this sort of thing with popup zappers or just settings in mozilla. I realize that Joe Q. Public doesn't know this, but the tools are there. When I went to the site, I was redirected about 3 times then just hit back and was back where I started-- no popups.

He's scamming the scammers

[puckhead]

He must be getting paid per impression. What good is a pr0n or casino ad targeted at cartoon network fans? The don't have any money.

Re:He's scamming the scammers

[qqtortqq]

The court also has barred the defendant from participating in advertising affiliate programs on the Internet, and has ordered him to give up more than $1.8 million in ill-gotten gains.

And they said you couldn't make any money on the internet...

-1, troll!!!! It's karma fucking with him

[Jacer]

If only the entire world were avid slashdot readers, we may not ever have to hear another annoying person

1.8 Million ...

[fire-eyes]

The court also has barred the defendant from participating in advertising affiliate programs on the Internet, and has ordered him to give up more than $1.8 million in ill-gotten gains.

People like this will always keep doing shit like this as long as there are enough morons out there to manage to give this dude $1.8 million.

Come on people, wake up.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[brinticus]

The article noted that the guy "FTC nvestigators said Zuccarini makes from $800,000 to $1 million per year by charging advertisers whose ads appear on the browser windows." So he got banged for two years salary. If he's been at it for three years, then given the huge payoff, I'd say it was worth it. FTC needs to put more bite into its rulings.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[egreB]

> You do remember your business partner, Marcellus Wallace, don't you?

Actually, the phrase is "buisness associate," not "buisness partner." Nevertheless, it's a great movie! Probably the perfect B-film..

Re:1.8 Million ...

[tkr]

Let's see if I got this right: the guy buys some domain names. When people type in one of his URLs they get advertisements they don't want?

And this is a violation of what, exactly?

The other day, intending to buy some Dr. Pepper, I accidentally picked up some Mr. Pibb instead. I am so scammed!

Re:1.8 Million ...

[Fishstick]

>The other day, intending to buy some Dr. Pepper, I accidentally picked up some Mr. Pibb instead. I am so scammed

More like...

the other day, intending to call my friend on the phone, I dialed the wrong number and got 42 phone calls from telemarketing companies trying to sell me phonecards.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[belsambar]

up til now, i would make typos just to be one of the morons that managed to give this dude $1.8 million. i mean, your solution is so fucking simple... i should just wake up!! brilliant!! maybe the court should use the $1.8 to sponsor a "come on people, wake up" typing class, so that we wouldn't be morons anymore. so smrt...

Re:1.8 Million ...

[belsambar]

pulp fiction was not a 'b-film.' it was a high-budget hollywood production. i mean, as long as we're pointlessly correcting people.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[n9hmg]

More like...

I flipped the DirecTV to "Mick" instead of "Nick" and suddenly, my tv began showing my kids "Hot Shemales who love Goatsex - Part XVII", removed all my programming restrictions, tried to subscribe me to all the pay-per-views, and every time I tried to change the channel or turn off the TV, it came back.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[Compenguin]

More like you need to get a better TV like Mozilla or Galeon where that feature can be disabled

Re:1.8 Million ...

[HD Webdev]

It's not fair that uncoordinated people and those who aren't literate have been targeted by this man!

Re:1.8 Million ...

[fire-eyes]

You'd think I'd change it, since I already knew heh. I'll do that after this post. HONESTLY!

(offtopic!)

Re:1.8 Million ...

[plumby]

If the Mr Pibb cans looked too much like the Dr Pepper cans, so that it was difficult to distinguish them, the I believe that they could be done for "Passing Off" which is the use of someone elses marks. However, as Mr Pibb is made by Coke, who also have a licence for producing Dr Pepper in many areas, I suspect that Dr Pepper won't be suing them.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[Jonny 290]

More like it shouldn't matter if you're watching TV on a 5" black and white portable or a 4000 dollar Sony Wega - you shouldn't have to pay to avoid being attacked by shit like this.

And yes, it is an attack. I got hit with one of these at work, and it completely fucked every browser setting on my machine, for EVERY USER ACCOUNT. Bad NT architecture notwithstanding, it cost us lost time on the clock to go fix everything, not to mention time to check for possible installation of tracking spyware, which could release business-related information (we use a Perl/Oracle frontend, with calls through CGI scripts with some submitted data as parameters on the HTTP request line). That's a possible intrusion attempt, and malicious use of our company resources.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[fatphil]

"you shouldn't have to pay to avoid being attacked by shit like this."

You don't.

"And yes, it is an attack. I got hit with one of these at work"

You're lame then, and for some reason you want to publicise this fact. Strange.

FP.

Re:1.8 Million ...

[mickey knox]

FTC and every other government agency in the US is given their power by congress... the legislative body that is *supposed* to be the voice of the people. Yeah, so... write your congressman or go become one. Please. Unless congress gives them the power to "bite" they can only lightly gnaw on this person's liberties (note, I didn't say he was right, I didn't say they were taking away his rights... just that his liberties were being infringed upon... much the same way that we take the liberties of a buck fifty away from people that run Stop signs in most metropolitan areas).

Re:1.8 Million ...

[Jonny 290]

Lame for not having consistently 100 percent perfect typing? I misspelled a URL, that was all.

How is this illegal?

[Clue4All]

Sure, it sucks that you get hit with a bunch of pop-up ads, but what did he do that's illegal? You typed in the wrong URL that led you to a perfectly valid site and pull down data from it. Be more careful typing next time.

Re:How is this illegal?

[smart.id]

How about because it is illegal showing pornography to children under 18? There were porn pop ups on websites that children mistyped. You have to ask if the person is 18 before you can show them that content.

Re:How is this illegal?

[smart.id]

Well if you are a 10 year old walking down the street, find a VHS tape labeled "Scooby Doo Cartoon," take it, then watch it, you have just stolen something which is a crime.

And, what do you think, these 10 year old kids know what JavaScript is? Even what "pop-ups" really are? Give me a break, the majority of the people who get these popups don't know a thing about computers, HTML, JavaScript, popups, or even the Internet in general.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Huogo]

Thats exactly the point. They don't know. The pages should have asked if they were over 18 before showing them adult only content.

Re:How is this illegal?

[cyberlync]

You guys dont seem to get it. Its not the fact that it was porn pop-ups or any of that other stuff. Its the fact that he misrepresented himself to the consumer. I think the nail in the coffin for him was the fact that he would forward them to the actual site they were looking for. This type of misrepresentation is illegal no matter the media or venue.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously he is under 18 and shouldn't be looking at this channel, so this means I should sue Playboy? No. I fail to see your argument.

No. The person who is responsible for this would be the person who did not take the necasary steps to ensure that the minor in question could not access the adult material. In this case, that would be you. In your other example with the Scooby Doo tape, it would be the person who knowingly mis-labeled the tape, or whomever knowingly supplied the tape to the minor. In this case, it was the guy who knowingly placed pornographic adverts on a domain with the express intent of showing it to people who had mis-typed another domanin. In many cases, the advertising was pornographic, and the domain names were targeted at minors. Therefore, the person who was running the domanin name was responsible for showing adult content to minors.

Whats so difficult to understand here?

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

The first illegality is trademark infringement. The defendant, in many cases, used registered trademarks of companies in order to bombard people who attempted to visit a web site related to a product that they owned or were considering the purchase of. He had already lost 200 such sites through court cases.

The next illegality is the use of malicious code to bombard people with pop-up windows when they did things as innocuous as hit the back button. Many people were reduced to restarting their computer to escape from the mess that the defendant created. Exploiting a weakness in a computer, whether to spread a worm or pop up dozens of unwanted windows, is illegal.

It is illegal to display porn to children. That's why porn sites have an "I-am-over-18" button (so I am told). The defendant's web sites had no such protections.

Finally, "typosquatting" is illegal. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act became law in November of 1999 and made it illegal for a person to register or use, with a "bad faith" intent to profit from, an Internet domain name that is "identical or confusingly similar" to the distinctive or famous trademark or Internet domain name of another person or company. No one should know that better than John Zuccarini, against whom the third district court upheld that law in a decision rendered in June of 2001.

On a side note, I spoke to John Zuccarini (the defendant) about a year ago. I tracked down his phone number after being pissed off about being hit by his scam when I typed in a URL in the form of "www.{product name}.com". I informed him that the URL contained a registered trademark. He was a rude asshole and I am just sorry that he's being fined rather than jailed.

Re:How is this illegal?

[sjames]

Yeah, and if you are 10 year old walking down the street and find a VHS tape labeled "Scooby Doo Cartoon"

Actually, The trademark owners have a good case against whoever made the tape if it was for commercial gain. The FTC has a good case for fraud if the confusion was deliberate. The parents and DA have a good case since if they can show that the tape's maker was aware that children would likely find the tapes and watch them.

Then, there's the fact that a mechanism in the browser is being knowingly misused to prevent the user from simply clicking back or close to rid themselves of the offending material. For your analogy, the tape would have to be somehow rigged to disable stop, eject and power off on the VCR as well.

Re:How is this illegal?

[cicadia]

...I typed in a URL in the form of "www.{product name}.com". I informed him that the URL contained a registered trademark.

And what, exactly, is wrong with that? (Please tell me you're not one of those people who believe that such domain names should automatically go to the owner of the trademark?)

Re:How is this illegal?

[scrod]

Many people were reduced to restarting their computer to escape from the mess that the defendant created.

Haha. Stupid Windows users.

Re:How is this illegal?

[cicadia]

Well, first off, we'll have to assume that I not only created the product, but I have registered the trademark 'Cicadia' in the relevant domains.

Now, please correct me if necessary, but I thought that the only way to infringe on a trademark, even a registered one, was to use that name, or something confusingly similar, to compete against me in the same trade domain. Unless I am in the porn industry, and have registered my trademark in that domain, I don't think my trademark is being infinged.

Similarly, you could create a new line of network switches called 'Matrix', and Toyota (or AOL-TW) couldn't do anything about it. You could create a new clear softdrink and call it 'Windows', and Microsoft couldn't dispute it. You could even register those words as trademarks. No infringement.

Perhaps, being the capitalist person I am, I would consider my best course of action to be to offer Mr. Zuccarini enough money to sell me cicadia.com. My solid belief in capitalist economic principles suggests to me that there must be some amount I could offer which would be more than he would expect to gain by keeping the domain to himself, and he would sell it to me.

Re:How is this illegal?

[bmajik]

You mean like DVDs that dont let you stop, eject, fast forward, or anything else while they display 5 minutes of fucking bullshit warnings ?

Sometimes i just shut the DVD player off, because thats the only permitted operation. Does _anyone_ make a DVD player that doesn't suffer from this complete bullshit ? It is _ridiculous_ that the DVD spec seems to include the ability to say "you cannot fast forward this".

Maybe Apex or someone lets me retain control of my own property. Anyone know ?

Re:How is this illegal?

[DJPsychoChild]

Actually, it depends on if it creates intentional confusion. If I create a softdrink called Windows, that would be legal, although stupid, but if I create a new OS called Pepsi, they could take me to court for T.I. and would probably win. Also interesting: if I create a softdrink called Windows 98, they could also sue me for T.I. (as could the consumer, as it would probably cause stomach crashes when consumed with other non-Windows 98 approved beverages and food.)

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

My solid belief in capitalist economic principles suggests to me that there must be some amount I could offer which would be more than he would expect to gain by keeping the domain to himself, and he would sell it to me.

Ah, the capitalist beauty of cyber-blackmail: buy the domain from me, or all of your customers will be bombarded with smut when they try to find you online. Maybe there is not "some amount [you] could offer Mr Zuccarini" given your financial situation and the income he derive from the domain.

Fortunately, we have wise people in the legislature that recognize that capitalist greed does not provide an answer to every problem. In this case, it is what caused the problem.

Re:How is this illegal?

[cicho]

Not users: stupid Windows, period. On Windows 95/98 (maybe ME too, don't know), there is a relatively limited amount of system resources, and they're poorly managed too. Three, five IE windows on screen, no problem. Ten windows, no big deal. Twenty, and the system begins to creak. Sixty, and it _will_ go down, especially if each of these windows has an animated .gif, some looping JavaScript and whatnot.

To make things sweeter, as you close these windows, the original max amout of resources used remains in place, i.e. closing each window does not release the resources it allocated. You have to close _all_ IE windows: when you close the last one, you get your resources back (minus whatever was leaked, IE 5.x still leaks resources with each window opened).

Re:How is this illegal?

[zaffir]

Mind posting his phone #? I'm sure there are quite a few people here who would like to share some of their feelings with him.

Re:How is this illegal?

[epsalon]

How is "showing" content legally defined?

Lets trace back the process of images being shown to the minor from this site.

• Photons emitted from the monitor reach the childs eye. Is the manufacturer of the monitor responsible? Unlikely, because it was not advertised as to prevent that.
• Computer hardware sends a signal to the monitor to show given explicit image. Is the manufacturer of the hardware responsible? Unlikely, due to the same reason as above
• Software running on the hardware manifets an image of the explict data and commands hardware to display given information on the screen. Is the manufacturer responible? Depends if it was advertised to be suitable for unattended use by minors. My guess is - no.
• Software retrieves data from misspelled address as requested. No complaints to software here.
• Minor requests misspelled site from software by typing the address. The minor is assumed not to be responsible.
• Parent allows minor to use internet-connected PC unattended. The parent is clearly responsible, as the internet connection and the PC are not advertised to by suitable for unattended use by minors!

Notice that nowhere in this chain of responsibility do we see the website owner. If I own a porn site called http://qwerty.com/ (not actually a porn site), and some child decides to type some characters on the keyboard when unattended, it's only the parents' responsibility.
So, why regulate misspellings and not all short names? It's better to make sure parents understand that the Internet is not "safe" for children (if they see viewing porn as an unsafe activity for children, which I don't).

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

Haha. Stupid Windows users.

Just because some people are not expert in the use of computers does not make them "stupid". Nor does the fact that they use the same OS (family) as the vast majority of computer users on the planet. What *is* stupid is judging a person's intelligence based solely on their computer expertise and OS choice. I have worked with absolutely brilliant people who just view the computer as a tool. They learn enough to make it work for them and concentrate their mental prowess on things that interest them more. You may well be more skilled in the use of computers than, say, Stephen Hawkings, but I assure you that you are not his intellectual better.

Grow up.

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

Mind posting his phone #? I'm sure there are quite a few people here who would like to share some of their feelings with him.

If I had saved it, and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was still his, I would do so. It was available through domain registry lookups on some of his domains and you might still be able to find it, but please don't post it until you have verified that the number you found is his. I would not want to see some innocent bystander being called 24/7 by Slashdot readers.

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

And what, exactly, is wrong with that?

Because Mr. Zuccarini was using the name in "bad faith" and in violation of Federal law to tar-pit people's browsers once they entered the domain.

Please tell me you're not one of those people who believe that such domain names should automatically go to the owner of the trademark?

If the domain is being used in a legitimate manner, I do not believe that someone should be forced to give it up. For example, if someone is using www.firestone.com to provide information about volcanic rock, I do not think that it should automatically go to the tire company. If they are using it to tarpit someones browser with endless pop-up windows and capitalizing on the trademark's recognition, then I do believe that the trademark owner deserves to get the domain.

This reasoning was the basis of the ACPA (see link in earlier message) and I think that law is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the common good.

Re:How is this illegal?

[cicadia]

...given your financial situation

I considered that, but I was replying to an AC who began by asking me to assume that "your product is making you lots of $$$" which I figured would be at least enough to offer Mr Zuccarini more than he would make from one measly domain name (considering that he only makes $800K - $1M annually from all his domains combined).

I was further asked to take the position of a 'capitalist person', and purchasing the domain name, at whatever cost necessary, seemed like the ideal capitalist solution. Interference from your wise people in the legislature certainly seems contrary to my (assumed) capitalist ideals :)

Re:How is this illegal?

[jxs2151]

I would not want to see some innocent bystander being called 24/7 by Slashdot readers.

Beautiful.....a new form of slashdotting.

"Jeez, I've been answering this phone for the last five hours and it's nothing but a buncha pissed off geeks looking for some zuchinni fellow."

Re:How is this illegal?

[cicadia]

I was worried that your only beef with Mr. Zuccarini at the time was that he held a domain name with someone else's trademark in it, and "you can't do that -- some nice company owns that word!" (not your words, obviously, just an argument I've heard here before, and one I was concerned you were making).

I agree completely that he was using the name in bad faith, and that's the point that needs to me made against him, not just that he was using the name at all.

Re:How is this illegal?

[ffatTony]

Just because some people are not expert in the use of computers does not make them "stupid". <snip>

You're absolutely correct, assuming of course the original poster was speaking frankly. I am of the opinion that his intent was to be humorous; and that your sense of humor needs a little overclocking.

Re:How is this illegal?

[nanospook]

The difference is, you subscribed to playboy. After that, it's up to you to supervise the channel. You can even block it in many cases. However, in this case, someone mistypes a valid URL with 100% intent to go to that site and is instead directed to a site that shows porn. How would you like to hop a plane from LA to Boston and get redirected to Las Vegas without your consent (might be fun but you are now late for your business meeting :)

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

I am of the opinion that his intent was to be humorous

Calling all Windows users "stupid" hardly seems to be what I would consider funny and I don't believe that it was intended to be humor. If it was humor, it was only so in the most crude and nasty senses of the word. Here is another gem from "scrod":

Isn't it child abuse to force a kid to browse the web on Windows machines?

The guy is a frequent poster on the Mac stories here and has a long history of unpleasant, mean-spirited postings.

and that your sense of humor needs a little overclocking.

Actually, I've gotten enough +5 funny moderations to know that my sense of humor is quite intact.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I've gotten enough +5 funny moderations to know that my sense of humor is quite intact.

*snicker* ah using /. moderations as a metric for such things :-)

Re:How is this illegal?

[fmaxwell]

We are discussing humor on Slashdot, so what better metric to measure with than Slashdot moderations?

Re:How is this illegal?

[shepd]

>if they see viewing porn as an unsafe activity for children, which I don't

Well, that's pretty sick if you ask me. No 6 year old should be exposed to that kind of content uncessarialy.

Anways, now that's out of my system, the job of controlling access to pornography falls on the provider of it.

Playboy, for example, is only responsible for children viewing its content if they knowingly subscribe a minor to their service. They would not be liable if a child phoned DirecTV (for example) and the channel was turned on.

The same with these people running smut domains. It isn't their fault for the children running into the advertisements unless they are purposely targetting minors. If a DNS stealing sleazebag forwards children to pornography popups without permission from the porn sites then he is at fault.

However, should the porn sites be explicitly providing the porn ads in an attempt to attract minors (in their country) then they are also at fault as an accomplis.

Just as the TV can be unsuitable for minors most stations in civilised countries are required to warn the viewer of anything that would be illegal for minors to view. By doing this they shift their responsibility to the parent who should be supervising the child.

Since the porn ads did not warn of impending pornography, either the DNS artist or porn companies (or both) are at fault.

Or, to make it more clear, if a video store opens the doors to their pornography section wide open and has no one watching people going in and out whatsoever, they are as much (if not more) at fault as the parents allowing their children into the store.

Again, this depends on the country, but most civilised countries make it a crime to knowingly provide access, by a minor, to pornography.

Why is this? Because, quite simply, there are freaks out there who would purposely design a site for children that would (at some point) subject kids to extreme pornography. And, as with so many other things, a parent won't get to the power switch quick enough to turn off the pornography to return the child's innocence.

All I can say is I really hope you aren't serious that you consider it perfectly fine to destroy a child's innocence in such a strong manner.

Re:How is this illegal?

[epsalon]

About destroying innocense- The world is not an innocent place. You must accept that. Children will run into pornography sooner or later, unless the parent does not allow any interaction with the outside world. One of the best ways to get a child interested in something is make it taboo. For example, why do children swear? Children swear because that makes their parents and other adults react in a certain way attracting their attention, thus inducing more swearing in the future.

It's better thae children be given the tools to correctly treat pornography and other smut on the net, than to let them be exposed (which they surely will be) and have a much stronger influence, as the facts are not given and the whole subject considered taboo.

The solution cannot be by legal means. The DNS artist can easily register cartoonnetwork.tv outside the US, where these laws do not apply and put the porn ads there. And what about goatse.cx? I don't see anyone suing them!
Don't want your kids to see pornography? Lock them in their room and don't give them internet access. However, they will see porn from friends sooner or later, so good luck.

Re:How is this illegal?

[bR00n_0k]

You're right, there's nothing illegal about it. But it's way over the top on the 'pain-in-the-ass' scale. Ya, sure you can say 'be more careful' when typing. But face it man, even you (yes...YOU) can make mistakes... Meat makes mistakes...we're all meat. (Yes, even you.) I say nail the bastard. But after this one there's going to be more...consider 1.8 million reasons why they'll keep coming, even this goit will be back at that price. So, no. Nothing illegal, just one stupid nutter taking advantage of a whole bunch of other idiots willing to cough up to the tune of 1.8 million bux.

Re:How is this illegal?

[shepd]

>The world is not an innocent place. You must accept that.

I do, and that is (partly) why one must slowly introduce children to it.

The other reason why young children need a slow introduction to the world is because their brains are only developing and young children (such as a 6 year old) have difficulty with the concept of right and wrong, not to mention difficulty with the concept of self, and especially the concept of valuing other people.

Part of this slow introduction is to make something taboo. This way the child will (normally) only explore that part of the world when they are ready.

To lift the taboo is to prematurely expose children to ideas which they aren't prepared to handle.

To bring it into perspective, why is it that kids expose themselves to a beer later in life than pornography? Having a beer when dad's not home wouldn't be very hard for a 6 year old, I mean they're usually just sitting in the fridge.

Its because the child doesn't feel prepared to have one.

The same with pornography. The reason why young prepubescent children aren't exposed to it is because they aren't ready. Of course, once they reach the age at which they are interested in it (puberty) they will access it.

And, IMHO, goatse.cx should have a warning page. I think its funny, but it certainly would be wrong to have a 6 year old go there. They probably aren't being sued because the server is probably not in a country that cares for young children.

I'm just so very surpised that anyone would consider it proper to force exposure of pornography to children before puberty. It should be so obvious that exposure should wait _at least_ until the child's body matures.

Next thing you know 6 year old kids will be running free on downtown streets at night because "they'll be exposed to it one day". The idea is to expose children to things when they are ready to handle it, not when it can damage them mentally, emotionally, or physically!

Re:How is this illegal?

[WWWWolf]

Any software product that doesn't support menus will work just fine - of course, there'll be no menus, but what the heck, it works...

...or move to a country where Annoying DVD Users is a capital offense - not in law, but it'll be several huge riots, storming of the corporate HQ and several cases of justice from people's own hands. =)

(I haven't really seen any annoying copyright warnings in R2 European/Scandinavian/Finnish discs... Just quick note, sometimes logos, and to the menu. No unskippable ads or anything like that...)

Re:glad

[derelict_hmx12]

> the world may never know....

1... 2... 3... *crunch*

Sorry, ask somebody else.

Derelict

Warez

[3ryon]

From the article:

The new windows returned to the screen even after they were closed, the FTC said.
"After one FTC staff member closed out of 32 separate windows, leaving just two windows on the task bar, he selected the 'back' button, only to watch the same seven windows that initiate the blitz erupt on his screen," FTC lawyers said in the complaint.

Just wait until the FTC goes surfing for warez. Maybe they'll shut the bogus warez sites down as well and we'll finally be able to download Microsoft Bob by doing a search on Google.

Re:Warez

[(startx)]

Will someone please clue me in as to wtf Microsoft Bob is?

Re:Warez

[-=Izzy=-]

Imagine if a group of drooling idiots on acid tried to make an operating system ...

oh wait .. nevermind

Re:Warez

[the_quark]

I thought that quote in the story about the back button was a little bizarre. "I loaded this page, and it popped up these windows. Then I loaded this page again and it popped them up again!"

Well, duh....

Re:Warez

[apg]

Maybe the FTC should just switch to Mozilla so they wouldn't have to deal with these unwanted popups.

Re:Warez

[Iamthefallen]

Actually, it was an idea of Bill Gates' wife.

oh Wait.. nevermind

Re:Warez

[Erik K. Veland]

Microsoft Bob was the GUI-ideas that led to such astrophies as Clippy and the Windows XP assistants.

What I fail to see is this.....

[Chardish]

This website pops up 64 popups every time you visit it. Which is likely to be once, after you realize your mistake, you won't come back.

This is considered criminal behavior. But what about companies like X10 or Casino-On-Net that you see about 30 ads an hour for, every time you try to use the web? In the end it is those companies that make you close more ad windows. I think that those are far more guilty. What about the pr0n ads that won't let you use the back button to leave, and if you try to close the window, they re-open themselves? I shudder to think how many thousands of popups from those companies I've closed in my lifetime.

Of course, it's the browsers themselves that are allowing these popups to happen. I would bet that companies like Doubleclick are paying M$ and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers. But I'm a conspiracy theorist.

-Evan

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[kkith]

I would bet that companies like Doubleclick are paying M$ and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers

Then use Opera.

1. www.opera.com

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[eggboard]

This website pops up 64 popups every time you visit it. Which is likely to be once, after you realize your mistake, you won't come back.

Note that in this case, it's a typo-net system: if you type oogle or gogle instead of google, for instance. I type about 90 wpm, but I still wind up entering gogle, microsfot, etc. Even if each of us only makes one typo every two days in entering a popular Web site URLs, that's a whole lot of mistakes.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[PepsiProgrammer]

Microsoft doesnt need any outside incentive to ignore that feature, msn is loaded with popups as well, and they are getting their fair share of income. Besides, as someone said earlier, as disabling ads becomes easier for regular users, the advertising companies will make it harder for all of us to get around.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[efagerho]

That's why I surf for pr0n using lynx...

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[dotslash]

I would bet that companies like Doubleclick are paying M$ and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers. But I'm a conspiracy theorist.

What you don't realise is that MS and Netscape are protecting the RIGHTS of advertisers. After all when you browse on the Web, you have a CONTRACT to view add supported content. If you close the poppups, that would make you a THIEF. Unfortuanately for Web advertisers, they don't have a great man like Turner CEO Keller to point out the moral hazard the masses face from such criminal technologies as the famous "X" icon on the top right corner of a window. A lawsuit is pending to have the "X" removed from windows that contain advertising, as this is a "circumvention" device under the DMCA. It's all connected...

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[akandels]

Disable javascript. Or use the security zones to block javascript on every site except for sites that you explicitly enter as trusted. Or download popup stopper. I'm no fan of Microsoft, but it's not that difficult to stop that sort of activity.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[steve_l]

MS and AOL dont need to be paid by doubleclick; their own advertising units demand popunders as they are the only on line ads that book money. the reason mozilla lets you turn them off is that they are beholden to no advertising revenue.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[jx100]

Ah, but that ad is limited to just a small portian of the whole window, and never leaves it.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[cicadia]

None of those options represents a valid MIME type, though. You may get a 406 Not Acceptable response from the web server, or you may get whatever content the server decides is best.

Try:
GET / HTTP/1.0
Accept: text/html, text/plain

For .zip files, try curl or wget, unless you want to cut and paste all of that 8-bit binary from your terminal window.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Sorry, but I do not have a contract to have to view ads. I't just happens so that many web sites uses ads to support themselves.

I remembeder the time when there was NO ads on the web.

SNR was much higher then - even if many pages was just links to other webpages.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[Restil]

Say what you like about the annoying X10 ads. Yes, they're annoying. Yes they're smutty. But they do have one redeeming feature that I have yet to find in any other popup ad. They give you the option to disable it, without resorting to technical measures that otherwise limit, even in some small way, the capabilities of the browser.

Other ad companies should pay attention here. Since X10 ads are so prevelant, its only safe to assume that X10 is profiting from them. Its also safe to say that the site owners are getting paid from the impression of them, otherwise you wouldn't see them everywhere. So X10 had a great idea to win on both fronts. For those people who most certainly do not want to see them, X10 can save impression costs. And after disabling the ads, a whole lot of people will quit bitching about those annoying X10 ads. X10 gets to keep advertising to an audience that's a more willing potential customer than those who curse the day X10 was born everytime another ad pops up.

At least this is a better form of market research than gathering random bits of private information about people. And probably far more effective.

-Restil

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[ejaw5]

I love my Gnome Desktop. If my Netscape/Mozilla/Opera gets out of hand with a neverending loop of window.open()s, I just move my mouse down to the little Netscape/Mozilla/Opera task icon on the bottom bar, right click and select either "Close All" or "Kill App". It works like a charm. If that doesn't work (haven't had to do this yet), I could just restart X (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and log in again.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[dotslash]

sarcasm: Raw and scornful use of apparent approval to express disapproval.

Check out the link under the word "THIEF", thief!

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[Tony-A]

I would bet that companies like Doubleclick are paying M$ and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers. But I'm a conspiracy theorist.
Now the monopoly status of Microsoft begins to get interesting. Seems like there are laws about doing something on a computing device contrary to the intent and desires of the owner of that computing device. The problem with being a monopoly is that "everybody does it" is no defense when you are "everybody".

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[LinuxHam]

I could just restart X (CTRL+ALT+DEL)

That's Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[Phroggy]

...and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers.

Uhhh... they did.

Re:What I fail to see is this.....

[zmooc]

So. It's considered criminal behaviour when I ask you for a document and you send it to me and then I happen not to like it? Don't open the fucking 64 popups! It's your computer opening them so don't blame this guy that put them there. That's pathetic. If you don't like what YOUR computer is doing, then have it fixed. But don't go complaining that you don't like this content which is a pretty good yoke as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Funny

[3th3rn3t]

yeah, when someone is about to make enormous amounts of money, they do tend to get a 'sense of humour' :)

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[wo1verin3]

Since when does people who can't spell count as a design flaw?

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[lucifuge31337]

Then they can strt sueing US educationall institiutions for turning out morons who can spell or typ.

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[r101]

>Since when does people who can't spell count as a design flaw?

People not being able to spell is not a design floor, the ablitiy of a web page to open 64 seperate windows however is a design floor. The ability to open one or more windows when your window is closed is just stupid.

"Cupcake Party."

[flatlineloc]

That sounds ummm... nefarious, no... scary, no.... Damnit I thought the government was supposed to have neat code names/case names, not irrelavent/inane ones. Oh well, good for them, nail that annoyance! Now how can we sic 'em on pop unders and pop ups in general?

Re:"Cupcake Party."

[eberry]

"Oh wait, busting him actually attacks democracy. Hmm."

Busting this guy does not attack democracy. Since when is advertising freedom of speech. Just ask Camel Joe.

I say add a 30 year sentence to this jackasses fine.

Re:glad

[MillionthMonkey]

They actually do, by disabling Javascript. The only you are missing is the purdy tabulations and hypertext links changing colors, oh the humanity!

Well that, and the ability to log into "dot net" sites like Hotmail so you can do your daily chore of shoveling the day's accumulation of ~100 pornographic spams into the trash. (If you don't, Microsoft will clear room for the spam by deleting the juicy old letters from ex-girlfriends you have in there.)

The advertisers are getting screwed

[Fizzlewhiff]

From the article: FTC investigators said Zuccarini makes from $800,000 to $1 million per year by charging advertisers whose ads appear on the browser windows.

In this case the advertisers are getting screwed more than the poor sap who fat-fingered the URL. My question is "Do companies who advertise on the web have any control over how their ads are used?" Cupcake is getting paid by the popup and is really sticking to these advertisers and even moreso because the ads aren't really reaching a target market. I would think the advertisers have more to lose than the person browsing. With that in mind, how hard would it be to script a browser to feed off these popups by creating false hits and start bankrupting advertisers who really don't care how their ads are used.

Re:The advertisers are getting screwed

[ZenJabba1]

You just single handledly figured out how to get the world out of recession, and bankrupt these scum!

Nobel Peace Prize for this one!

Re:The advertisers are getting screwed

[PepsiProgrammer]

that sounds like an interesting idea for some type of distributed network, donate your bandwidth to the destruction of the advertising firms.

Pandora's box is now opened even further

[philipdl71]

What's the problem with misspelled domain names? People should know how to spell something before they type it in, or if they are unsure they should use a search engine that can correct their misspellings to learn the proper spelling like Google does.

What the guy did was wrong but trying to regulate misspellings is a bad idea. Every inch you give the government to regulate things on the internet is a mile that they will take in the future.

The loopholes for this are abounding. The next guy to try this scam is going to do it in another country to avoid prosecution. There is no way you are going to stop this kind of behavior. We're better off telling people to make sure they have the name spelled correctly before typing it in or to check with a search engine first. Once these con's realize it's no longer profitable they will stop doing what they are doing.

Re:Pandora's box is now opened even further

[BerserkDog]

*What's the problem with misspelled domain names? People should know how to spell something before they type it in,*

Don't yuo meen "tipe"?!

So use Mozilla...

[Inoshiro]

Or write something yourself, yeesh. There are solutions. Life is not a conspiracy theory.

Re:So use Mozilla...

[greenrd]

As a conspiracy theorist myself, I have to say, (a) that's quite plausible as conspiracy theories go, and (b) the point is not so much about whether you or I should know about alternative browsers, but whether the average web user should be forced to switch browsers just because popup ad companies are being abusive.

Re:So use Mozilla...

[yorgasor]

This is called competition. If mozilla allows you to block bandwidth-sucking ads and prevent malicious pop-ups, that is a huge feature! I personally just visited the site to see how mozilla handled it. I was redirected a couple of times, but saw only the last page. When I hit back, I returned to slashdot.

Now go tell all your family and friends that Mozilla can protect them from having their web experience from being hijacked by malicious users, that they can save their precious bandwidth by blocking annoying ads and that it has beautiful tabs so they can multitask the web. No, they don't have to change browsers, but once they see all the neat things they can do with it, they'll want to change browsers. And then if Microsoft discovers they're losing customers because they don't have these features, only then will they change.

Re:So use Mozilla...

[Inoshiro]

Actually, it's as simple as a regex if you use the new Privoxy for Windows or UNIX.

Go check it out.

But it already comes with a few regexes for killing popups, so all you'd have to "write" is a one-line change in a CFG.

Re:So use Mozilla...

[Mr_Silver]

Or if you really want to use the IE engine try CrazyBrowser.

It uses the IE dll's for rendering and it's what IE should have been. It's also free (as in beer).

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[-=Izzy=-]

Then they can strt sueing US educationall institiutions for turning out morons who can spell or typ.

hehe i hope ya have a good lawyer!

laugh!! sheesh it was just a joke

What you say?!

[ZakkWylde]

I've been using Mozilla for a year now. What are these things you speak of called "pop ups"??

Some of the scamms

[loconet]

Here are some of the scammed domains they are talking about ..

http://www.caroonnetwork.com
http://www.cartoon networ.com
http://www.artoonnetwork.com
http://w ww.cartoonnework.com
http://www.cartoonnetork.com
http://www.cartoonnetwrk.com
http://www.catoonn etwork.com
http://www.cartoonnetwok.com

Re:Some of the scamms

[neonstz]

Here are some of the scammed domains they are talking about ..
...
http://www.cartoonnetwok.com

Damn, I was going to grab that domain for my new business. Bugs Bunny-themed wok's with built-in ethernet and modem.

How ironic

[corbosman]

What's funny is that MSNBCs website actually pops up an ad when you go to that URL ;)

Rather ironic.

Cor

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[philipdl71]

As much as I would think it would be funny for the FTC to fine Microsoft, consider the ramifications of what you are saying. Now that the FTC has extended itself into regulating this stuff what is to stop them from fining other companies that provide this technology?

Happens all the time....

[BerserkDog]

What's wierd about this is that whenever I, er, my friends go to pr0n sites, loads of windows pop up in much the same fashion as described in the article...heck, I, my friends I mean, think it's just more quality content than they truly deserve.

Re:glad

[alphaseven]

I'm glad only a few people use browser's that block pop-ups. If everyone blocked pop-ups, then advertisers would just use harder to get around schemes, such as putting the content of the page in the pop-up and the ad in the page your browser goes to, or larger ads in the page.

Slashdot knows a lot of their users block pop-ups so they put their ads on the pages they serve, plus they serve them from images.slashdot.org so that people can't block it on their hosts file.

As long as only a small percentage of people block pop-ups and use hosts files I can surf the internet without seeing X-10 ads ever, so you should tell people that they shouldn't block pop-ups and that it hampers their web surfing experience.

A Day In The Life Of Cupcake's Lawyer

[Bowie J. Poag]

Cupcake's lawyer: "Good news, Cupcake. I just got back from a meeting with the prosecution.

Cupcake: Ok, and what did they say? I'm anxious to know just how bad off I am. Fill me in."

Cupcake's Lawyer: Sure thing. Here's the deal -- The have decided to SEE HOT CHIXXX WITH YOUR NEW X10 CAMERA!!! FREE!!!!!!!!! HOT!!! FREE!!

Cupcake: Yeah, very funny. Now get serious, i'm paying you by the hour. What happened at the meeting?

Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT NOW!!!! FREE HOT!!! NOW FREE!!!! NOW FREE HOT!!! "

Cupcake: "Stop it!!"

Cupcake's Lawyer: "So, we're not going to have to worry about the fact that the judicial process in these sorts of matters can tend to take HOT XXX HORNY SLUTS!!!!! "

Cupcake: "STOP!!!!"

Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT HOT FREE HOT NOW!!!! NOW!!! NOW!!!!!!!! FREE NOW!!!! so, you wont be going anywhere for a while. In the meantime, i've asked the presiding judge to look into the prosecutions CASINO ON-NET!!!!!!"

Cupcake: "STOP!! STOP IT!!! JUST STOP IT!!!! NOW!!"

Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT FREE XXX!!!! XXX NOW!!!! XXX NOW FREE!!!! FREE!!! HOT CASINO!!! HOT CASINO FREE!!!!!!!!!! FREE HOT XXX NEW CASINO!!!! FREE CASINO!!!, so gimmie a call when you decide what to do, and we can go from there. Talk to ya HOT!!!! XXX!!!! FREE HOT!!! then."

Cupcake: But wait a minute! You havent told me......

Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!!!!!!!! HOT XXX CASINO!!! FREE CASINO HOT!!!"

Cupcake: "But!.... But wait!! Dont go yet! You havent..."

Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Re:A Day In The Life Of Cupcake's Lawyer

[phoxix]

this is one for the records!!

There IS protection from popups in Mozilla

[marat]

Doubtly they'll strip it in Netscape thus you'll soon have it in Netscape 7 or whatever. BTW why not to install mozilla right now?

Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[t_allardyce]

No, i'm sorry but i don't see the crime here. Sure the guy is a complete f*cking asshole, but thats still legal (unfortunately, as there are many many assholes around). If you type in the wrong url, thats your fault. If he was spoofing other sites or using they're graphics, thats a copyright issue. But opening pop-ups no matter how many is the fault of the browser.. and seeing as most people use IE, its Microsofts fault, just like with vbs virii (funny how its always their fault)

"Victims of the scam should contact the commission"

What victims??!? the stupid users who used stupid browsers that have bad security? (yes pop-ups are a security issue when they start eating your resources). What about the stupid advertising companies? he was in breach of their contract, they should have cancelled it.

Apparently the FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows! - judging by the use of the word "task bar" lets assume he was using MS Windows

Well thats what you get when you use MS windows and IE. I would be pretty ticked too, but not at the site, at the appalling software design of Microsoft who hand the responsibility off saying "ohhh trusted system" no it isn't, its simple. Don't let sites spawn 100's of windows with your browser. Put in the necessary function to filter this, let the user say yes or no, let them close all the spawned windows at once, make the browser scan the script for this stuff. stupid developers.

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[beanyk]

If you type in the wrong url, thats your fault. If he was spoofing other sites or using they're graphics, thats a copyright issue.

But how would you feel if Slashdot started directing extra pop-up ads at posters who can't spell "that's" and "their" correctly?

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[t_allardyce]

I blame MS Word... And the fact that i can't edit posts... and "thats" wasn't that bad (if geeks can get away without capitals they can get away without " ' ".

"they're" was un-acceptable. I did beat myself several times though, and now i will retract the whole post, just on those two mistakes. It was his fault, he is a criminal, he should get the electric chair and so should I.

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[Jucius Maximus]

"If you type in the wrong url, thats your fault. If he was spoofing other sites or using they're graphics, thats a copyright issue."

People tend to get bothered when kids who look for back street boy and brittany spears sites get porn thrown at them.

Have you ever seen a TV setup where channel 28 was the cartoon network and channel 29 was playboy? One wrong button press and the kids who are looking for scooby doo would get a porn show. If this ever happenned on TV, parents would madly be calling the stations and regulatory authorities and it would be changed within a day.

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[pjrc]

No, i'm sorry but i don't see the crime here. Sure the guy is a complete f*cking asshole, but thats still legal

As a matter of fact, it IS A CRIME. Laws have been passed with very specifically make it illegal to do register domain names in bad faith and deceive users for commercial gain.

This particular criminal lost other cases and appeals and there was slashdot coverage (well, linking to real news sites, who themselves just rehash the AP wire). If you search, you'll find those articles and the linkage to the appeal court's findings of the specific law that was broken. (If I cared more about slash moderation, I'd go to the trouble to find the old article and links, but you can easily do this yourself)

The point is that there is a law against this specific actitivity. He broken it. It IS as crime. It's about time the FTC finally got around to persuing criminal charges (he's lost dozens of civil cases and knew very well he was breaking the law).

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[Black Perl]

But how would you feel if Slashdot started directing extra pop-up ads at posters who can't spell "that's" and "their" correctly?


Then there'd be no more Slashdot, as Cdr. Taco and crew would be too lost in pop-up windows to post any new stories!

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[AussiePenguin]

If the domain happens to be a registered trademark then taking that trademark and changing a few letters around would still be a trademark infringement.

Re:Not a troll, or a flaimbait, but..

[Kanasta]

What's worse, getting 64windows popup when typing in a wrong URL, or , actually buying something from one of the 64 windows and being scammed?

Re:Warez Bob?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it was released today in the era of millions of AOL idiots it would be the world's record selling GUI.

using ie

[dollargonzo]

well what can we say if he was using ie:
he was ASKING for it!

QED

Re:How can internet stuff be a crime?

[the grace of R'hllor]

And I laugh at whatever hellhole you crawled from and its stupid citizens.

The Internet is an aspect on real life. People send other people money over the internet. If you send me money and expect me to send you an item back, and I don't, that is a crime. Same as in other aspects of real life.

Come on, there are far better reasons to laugh at Merkins. Dealing with immoral business practices on the 'net should be lauded.

When you know what you're doing is very wrong...

[erroneus]

...you should be punished to a VERY VERY high degree and with severe criminal penalties.

It is inexcusable for people to be able to perpetrate such fraud and deception against people and expect to get away with it through denial and clandestine methods.

He KNOWS he was doing something wrong and took extensive measures to hide himself from prosecution. These are not mistakes. These are not errors of judgement. These are not crimes of passion nor momentary lapses of reason. This is an evil bastard who, without remorse wanted to turn a buck at everyone's expense.

People who unintentionally kill someone are more severely punished than this malicious person. It just seems to me that people don't "hate" crime enough to care about really addressing the problem.

And it's also sad that with the millions of complaints by millions of citizens (and consumers) that it takes some annoyed government official to really get the ball rolling to address the problem of scum on the internet.

So the message is that it's okay to piss off anyone except the people who can personally do something about it. The government doesn't represent the people any more... the government just represent themselves for their own purposes.

Re:glad

[Vuarnet]

(If you don't, Microsoft will clear room for the spam by deleting the juicy old letters from ex-girlfriends you have in there.) Wow, and I thought I was the only one who kept those mails for years.

Excellent. This guy is a scumbag.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few weeks ago, my boss' 8-yr-old daughter was at school, in the computer lab. She went to go to Yahoo's kid site, Yahooligans, but mistyped it - www.yahooligons.com. She got the porn ad page. So, to her credit, she backed out. To her ANTI-credit, though, she went back, called a friend over to check it out. I can imagine this girl going "Look! BOOBIES!" *laugh*. Another nearby kid saw this, and told a teacher. The principal wanted to suspend her for a week - the parents (who rushed to the school when they heard about this) managed to talk them down to a day.

A couple of days later, I start sniffing around WHOIS records, and whose name do I find attached to the domain? John Zuccarini.

Glad to see this scumbag getting what he deserves.

Re:Excellent. This guy is a scumbag.

[wolf-]

Naw, in our law suit happy states, parents need to threaten the school, despite the "release" forms all kids/parents are required to sign.

Re:Excellent. This guy is a scumbag.

[dmomo]

Funny thing is, this still happens. The guy got bagged, and still, I just tried typing in that URL, and sure enough, was still bombarded with porn. A f'ing kids site?!? Legal or not, that guy is a jerk. I hope HE doesn't have any kids.

And ironically, I probably just made him a half cent. But maybe I am eligable for returns on a class action suit!!

Re:Excellent. This guy is a scumbag.

[Reality Master 101]

The principal wanted to suspend her for a week - the parents (who rushed to the school when they heard about this) managed to talk them down to a day.

The parents allowed the student to get suspended for a day? That's just ludicrous. If it was an honest accident (and there may be more to the story than we see here, like using it to make a big disruption in the class), then there should be zero punishment.

If it was me, I would have said something like, "Tell you what. How about NO punishment, or I sue the school for not having the proper blocking software to prevent my daughter getting exposed to porn." :)

Re:Excellent. This guy is a scumbag.

[stephanruby]

The principal wanted to suspend her for a week - the parents (who rushed to the school when they heard about this) managed to talk them down to a day.

A good school would have had the kid come to school an extra Saturday.

Legal Stuff

[ltsmash]

Can they be jailed if they refuse to pay?

INAL

If the case is criminal, absolutely. If you think the fine is excessive (which is unconstitutional), you could appeal it to a higher court. If you don't get the appeal and you don't pay the fine, you definitely could be jailed.

If the case is civil, you can't be jailed for refusing to pay. However, they can send deputies to collect any property you have an auction it off. (remember OJ Simpson) However, some of your property is protected by law, for example, your house, and they can not take that.

As stated before, this case is civil.

Re:Legal Stuff

[6169]

helpful and informative, thanks

FBI

[Skyfire]

Agent K: No, ma'am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of. May we come in?

Actually it is already happening.

[aepervius]

I was browsing and tryed to downlaod a patch. And guess what ? My window suddenly resized down and all I saw was a casino ad...

After I re-enabled popup in opera Is aw what was happening : they loaded in the main window the ad, then make a popup resuming the old content of the mainwindow in a freaking pop up.

Clever. If it becomes mainstream you can forget anti popup software and opera special feature.

Re:Actually it is already happening.

[Jucius Maximus]

"they loaded in the main window the ad, then make a popup resuming the old content of the mainwindow in a freaking pop up."

"Clever. If it becomes mainstream you can forget anti popup software and opera special feature."

At this point I would expect to see site by site javascript disabling in mozilla.

http://www.slashdor.org/

[towaz]

I hope the webmaster of http://www.slashdor.org/ doesn't get any funny ideas from reading this.

Re:glad

[Anonymous Coward]

you ever tried tweakxp program? it has popup blocker and ad blocker feature under internet tweak bar? it works for me i was so sick of damn ads and popup that it waste my time
on 56k modem!

Only 32 windows....

[ngtni]

From the article mentioned,

"After one FTC staff member closed out of 32 separate windows, leaving just two windows on the task bar, he selected the "back" button, only to watch the same seven windows that initiated the blitz erupt on his screen, and the cybertrap began anew,"

Although the /. post mentions 64 windows, this article only mentions 32. Although another 32 were opened, nobody said the staff member bothered to close them. Perhaps he used his reset button... probably faster that way ;)

Better Idea: We Beat the Crap Out of Them

[Nintendork]

Anyone who has read Greg Bear's book, _Queen of Angels_ will like this one. We start up list that isn't maintained in any one location to avoid being shut down. This list will consist of the real physical addresses of known spammers/con-artists and the crap they're peddling. Business addresses as well as their home addresses will be listed. We post this list on several web sites and newsgroups so anyone who wants to beat the shit out of these bastards can have their way. The law is never going to be able to keep up with technology, so we take it upon ourselves to make life as a spammer dangerous. I'd be willing to bet that spam would decrease considerably after a few smackdowns.

I love Mozilla

[rawg]

I have been using Mozilla for so long, I have forgot what POP[up|under] ads are. I dont even see banners any more (for the most part).

Mozilla Rules!

this guy isn't high on my list

[wrinkledshirt]

Maybe it's just common sense to me, but if you mistype a URL, it only makes sense that you're not going to go where you think you're going to go. So some spammer capitalizes on this and puts up porn pop-up ads for mis-typed URLs.

Big whoop. Annoying, but $1.8 million worth of annoying?

How about a company that asks you if you want to receive email spam (eg: Microsoft with Hotmail), and then changes your answer from no to yes later on down the road, without ever telling you about it? To me, that sort of thing is much more sinister. Of course, THEY'LL never get in trouble for it.

Re:this guy isn't high on my list

[wrinkledshirt]

Except that this is what you have parental controls for. It may seem like this is a question of taking a moral high ground, but the main reason that this guy is getting hit for that money is because a large media corp. is involved.

Great idea!

[Troller Durden]

Let's do the same thing with abortion doctors and homosexuals next! Us Slashdot readers are so smart -- we know some stuff about computers! -- that naturally we have the right to pass mortal judgement on everyone.

Re:Great idea!

[Nintendork]

A Slashdot reader putting him/herself down by putting down Slashdot readers. I find that very interesting. However, I am curious as to why you would think that computer geeks in general would feel morally superior. For someone who seems to be a right wing extremist, you sure come off as being prejudice against computer geeks.

Mortal judgement, huh? Do me a favor and go back to school. Once you realize your idiocy, feel free to debate issues of MORAL judgement with me. On second thought, never mind. I wouldn't want to waste too much time arguing with a hippie piece of crap such as yourself.

Re:Great idea!

[Troller Durden]

No, not a "moral judgement", a "mortal judgement" -- a decision on terminating a life.

mozilla prevents this...

[josepha48]

it prevents someone from using javascript to open widnows by giving you the option not to allow this. I guess IE does not have this functionality. Ever since this came in mozilla I no longer get ANY popup add at all.

Re:mozilla prevents this...

[josepha48]

That is bad design. NO WEB SITE SHOULD EVER popup a window on a clients machine without the user specifing that it is okay. Visiting a site does NOT mean it is okay to resize or popup a window. The design of mozilla is such that a window will not automatically open up without the user clicking on a button to open a window.

Read 'websitesthatsuck.com' and it will tell you that popups make a website suck!

Registrars should bear some responsibility

[h00pla]

The whole registry thing should be much more tightly controlled as well. You shouldn't be able to register domains like this. VeriSign et al should all be asking for more information from people who register domains that are suspiciously similar to other ones. They should prove that they have a company by that name or some other legitimate reason for wanting that domain. Registrars should be earning the money they get for doing more than just putting domains into the DB.

Re:glad

[MillionthMonkey]

You actually use hotmail for something other than a "convenience" email address for registering for web sites that you don't want spamming your real address?

Back in 98 I did, before the Borg took it over and promptly messed it up with their spammer-friendly systems that leak valid usernames to anyone with nothing of value to sell.

That's business with dot NET.

Re:Better Idea: We Beat the Crap Out of Them

[Dynedain]

Someone did do this for abortion doctors. Many were harassed, a couple were killed.

The guy who set up the list on his web page went down for manslaughter and accomplice to murder.

Its not a matter of being shut down, anyone associated with this list would be prosecuted.

Re:Better Idea: We Beat the Crap Out of Them

[Nintendork]

You have a very good point. I certainly wouldn't want anyone dead. However, it's important to acknowledge that abortion is a very controversial subject. SPAM and aggressive online marketing on the other hand is a definite no-no. I would find it hard to believe that the people that create this crap truly believe that what they're doing is justifiable. The only justification they have is the lack of laws which allows them to continue intruding our computers. I've talked to so many parents that feel helpless. They want their kids to have access to the wealth of information on the internet, but they know that there is no silver bullet when it comes down to blocking inappropriate material. It would be no different if someone hopped in a plane and dropped hardcore porn over a city knowing that schoolyards would be hit.

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This Guy Gives Legitimate pr0n People Bad Names

[Not The Real Me]

I've accidently run into this turd's pop ups. Having to reboot my stupid Win98 machine because of this jerkwad is not something I enjoyed. He gives legitimate suppliers of adult entertainment a bad name.

Re:Funny

[jx100]

I've never found Hillary Rosen to be funny at all..

New and Innovative way to close windows!

[consoneo]

In Windows, even though mozilla should be used over IE, hold down alt+f4 and your windows will miraculously dissappear! Wow!

I really don't think what he is doing should be illegal. Frowned upon, sure... but we're heading towards letting the government have too much control over our sovereign Nation. Little actions similar this end up with decisions like The Digital Millennium Copyright Act...!

I've seen worse

[stud9920]

FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows!

As related here, some people would really do anything to burn some karma.

Re:I've seen worse

[meringuoid]

You sick, sick bastard.

I clicked this link in high spirits, knowing full well that nothing bad could possibly happened.

Then I remembered that this isn't *my* computer, it's the university's computer.

Then I remembered that this isn't Mozilla, nor is it Konqueror, but it's MSIE.

Then I just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del damn fast. Ugh. Three hundred goatse all over the screen.

scary precedent

[g4dget]

Sure, it isn't nice to pop up dozens of pages when people mistype web addresses. But if you aren't completely clueless (like the guys at the FTC apparently are), you should be using a web browser that doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen.

I just find the precedent that someone gets fined $1.8M for having domains that are kind of similar to the domains that some big companies have scary. A figure that large seems to come out of thin air. I mean, who got harmed? The advertisers got their money's worth, and no kid is going to confuse the product of "cartoonnetwork.com" with a bunch of big breasted women.

Particularly chilling is that WIPO considered registration of "guinesssucks.com" a trademark violation in his case (trademarks are only intended to identify a specific product; they are not intended to let trademark owners control what people say about the product).

I think this is a dangerous threat to free speech. Sure, this particular guy isn't particularly nice. But what if you or I want to create a web site "sony-service-sucks.com", where we exchange grievances about Sony service and perhaps organize a class action lawsuit? What if your domain name happens to be confusingly similar to someone's trademark and they don't consider your business legitimate and have the legal dollars to "prove" it?

Trademark holders are trying to expand their right from being able to merely control that a trademark refers without confusion to their product to a right of complete control of who uses the trademark under what circumstances in any domain, and to prohibit any kind of negative speech about their product. And they are succeeding. That should worry us all.

Re:scary precedent

[Leomania]

But if you aren't completely clueless (like the guys at the FTC apparently are), you should be using a web browser that doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen.

That's a bit of an elitist position... my family and circle of friends are mostly well-educated and intelligent, but that doesn't mean they understand the choices they have in browser selection or options. John Q. Public needs to be watched out for a bit more than those of us who do know better.

But I'm afraid I rather agree that this is a threat... I don't necessarily believe that this guy is guilty of anything more than bilking the advertisers out of money, but it's also the advertisers fault for having such a stupid mechanism for deciding who to pay. Remove that and he'd be out of business in a heartbeat. That's how I'd prefer to see this sort of activity reigned in.

- Leo

Re:scary precedent

[g4dget]

That's a bit of an elitist position... my family and circle of friends are mostly well-educated and intelligent, but that doesn't mean they understand the choices they have in browser selection or options. John Q. Public needs to be watched out for a bit more than those of us who do know better.

I dunno--I find your position a bit more elitist than mine. I mean, it doesn't take a CS degree to select an option in a dialog box or to use a different browser. If popup ads annoy John Q. Public too much, then John Q. Public can figure out how to turn them off easily (maybe by asking friends). And both the popup ads themselves and the mechanisms for turning them off are entirely under the control of software vendors, so John Q. Public can vote with his dollars by not buying software that annoys him too much. Isn't that the minimum we should be able to expect from every adult?

How can you kneejerk for 9 paragraphs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough, in the seventh you say he is a sleezebag, but what on earth does this have to do with free speech? Next thing you'll say, free speech means you can shout louder or broadcast white noise louder than anyone else; URL I dunno but there is also the argument against shouting 'fire' in a packed theatre which doesn't belong to you.

Re:How can you kneejerk for 9 paragraphs?

[CokeBear]

Its their own fault for being so gullible. If there is no fire, no smoke, what's the rush?

Some anti-spam, anti-scam FBI or FTC division...

[fortinbras47]

People like this will always keep doing shit like this as long as there are enough morons out there to manage to give this dude $1.8 million.

That's precisely the problem, people out there really do call Miss Cleo, buy "make my penis 25% larger" products etc... These schemes are nothing but looting of dumb people.

Just because there is no shortage of dumb people, I don't think we all have to resign ourselves to death by porn spam. Maybe this actually exists, but I'd like to see some online division at the FBI or FTC which aggressively goes after SPAM groups which don't honor remove requests, and scams designed just to take people's money. I'd really like to see Miss Cleo, fake human growth hormone pseudoscience, etc.... all put out of business. I wonder what percent of the American economy is just bs scams.

This may be an impossible problem, given it's global nature, but there is so much **** just in the US, there's plenty that could be done.

Re:Some of the scams

[Jucius Maximus]

Scammers:

Here are some more evil scammers sites that are out to get us:

http://www.slahdot.org/
http://www.slasdot.org/
http://www.slshdot.org/
They try to sell you domain registration and mail-shipped OS ISOs.

:-P

Re:Warez Bob?

[Phil Wilkins]

...back then, Window's was just a shell replacement for DOS.

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[Jucius Maximus]

"Since when does people who can't spell count as a design flaw?"

If this is a design flaw, then the only thing more broken than MSIE is Slashdot!!

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I've had a similar problem

[VistaBoy]

My brother was trying to see if something was being sold on ebay, but he accidentally typed ebat. That caused a bunch of pop-up ads to show up and it ended up being a website for "Hot Latino Sluts". I'm sorry, but that is bullshit.

RE: Stupid people make the world go round

[DJPsychoChild]

It's the stupid people out there that make the smart people rich. Someone once said a sucker is born every few seconds, and they were so right! If you don't believe me, look at how rich Bill Gates is off of stupid people.

Re:What a joke...

[saviorsloth]

you're right, some better answers can be found here :)

Lop.com should be next

[cicho]

They're much, much worse. Not just popups - they will hijack the browser entirely. One of the things they do is, whenever get a DNS error (because you mistyped a URL, or because of a DNS failure), you get redirected to their "search engine", which basically just serves paid-for ads. And oh, they plug themselves into the IE built-in search facility to. More here (the link is to a site that explains in detail what lop.com does; this is not a link to lop.com)

What about phone numbers

[gerardrj]

Let's say "Comfy Rest" hotels' world wide phone number is 555-1212.
Could I now get fined for purchasing all the "near miss" numbers and doing phone solicitation to those wrong number dialers?

ex: you dial 555-1211 by accident. Instead of getting "comfy rest" reservations, you get a recording trying to sell you a bottle of "Miracle Max's Life Restorer" pills.

Would that cause a $1.8B lawsuit? Me thinks not. So why this judgement?

I can only hope this gets overturned in a higher court.

Re:What a joke...

[cicho]

The FTC has regulated this person's speech.

Not speech. Commercial activity. Selling things is not speech (even in the extended, legal/US-constitutional sense of the word).

Re:What a joke...

[Kiwi]

There is a difference between making the porn in question available and deliberately marketing the porn in question to children.

It is not a question of free speech but a question of boundaries; he crossed my boundaries and violated my space when he typo squatted this domain name in a form that my nieces could easily accidently access.

I guess you don't have kids (nor nieces), so you can't understand.

- Sam

Re:glad

[pjrc]

...plus they serve them from images.slashdot.org so that people can't block it on their hosts file.

Privoxy (formerly JunkBuster Internet Proxy) does a great job of blocking the slashdot ads, and ads from most other sites on the internet. Even if you have a fast internet connection, time invested to install it is greatly paid back in not waiting and being annoyed by ads!

Privoxy is once again under active development... which is a true success story of the GPL, where a group of interested individuals picked it up after JunkBuster's decided to abandon further development (partly over concern for liability in creating derivitive works of web pages by suppressing the ads)

Re:Read the comment again.

[Reality Master 101]

When I was in high school it was like a dictatorship you have NO rights what so ever.

I should add that I actually agree with the philosophy of running a tight ship and not allowing the "inmates to run the asylum". I take a very dim view of class disruption (which is why I made the caveat that we didn't know the whole story). However, there is so much "death of common sense" in school districts where they completely turn off their brains when interpreting the rules. Things like suspensions when a six year old makes a pretend gun out of paper and things like that. Stories like that make me want to strangle the school administrators.

Anyway, that's why my kids are going to private school. :)

Re:What a joke...

[Theodore Logan]

There are no exceptions, ever. None.

*Ahem*

There are a gazillion exceptions (think child pornography, nazi propaganda, copyright...) I hate to break it to you, but the world isn't black and white. There are exceptions to every rule, even this one.

Besides, pretending like there is some profound ideological difference between a) fining this man for using pop-ups and b) removing the means for this man to use pop-ups is just plain silly.

But this rant is pointless, since the obvious point of course is this: this has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with the medium he uses to convey his "message." He is entitled to say "FREE XXX PORN!! HORNY XXX SLUTS!!" all he wants, he just can't do it this way. Very much like someone can't be allowed to go to a schoolyard where 7-year olds are playing and start screaming "HORNY TEENAGE SLUTS."

Were this not moderated to 5 it would not be worthy of a reply. Actually, it isn't now either. I should have modded you to hell instead of writing this tedious rant.

Re:What a joke...

[Tony-A]

This is not about free speech. It's more like free typos which is NOT up for grabs by sleazeballs. It's more like misleading billboards which look like hiway signs. It's more like false and deceptive advertising which doesn't look like advertising. Free speech does not include my right to sell your email address to spammers and your home telephone number to telemarketers.

Ethics (Warning, vaguely off topic)

[ffatTony]

Someone who obviously missed the CS ethics class.

It does pose a very interesting question. If you could become quite wealthy due to sleezy and underhanded action(s) which would ultimately damage your reputation and that of the Internet, would you? Perhaps this would make a good poll question.

Re:Some anti-spam, anti-scam FBI or FTC division..

[nuwayser]

I'd really like to see Miss Cleo, fake human growth hormone pseudoscience, etc.... all put out of business.

Check it out.

Americans are nuts when it comes to sex

[Snaller]

So whatm she looked at some boobies - get a life neurotics..

Depends on the country

[Snaller]

Not illegal here - what would you do if he set up show in another country?

Re:I hope they make Gates pay half of it.

[Tony-A]

The design flaw is assuming that everybody spells everything correctly and is prepared to accept the consequences of any typos.

Re:What a joke...

[diogenes57]

What about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? The one that says telemarketers can't call a residence with an autodialer and artificial or prerecorded voice messages. And that they must maintain a "Do Not Call" list for anyone who requests removal from their calling list.

This Act does not limit free speech IMHO, because it allows for non-profit or political calls, but it does protect the consumer from the nuisance and harassment of telemarketers. Now all we need is a form of the law for email and web browsers.

Re:glad

[Kashif Shaikh]

If everyone blocked pop-ups, then advertisers would just use harder to get around schemes, such as putting the content of the page in the pop-up and the ad in the page your browser goes to, or larger ads in the page.

Not quite. There is a disturbing trend of Flash-based ads becoming popular on sites like IGN and Gamespy. These ads are even more annoying that the occasional pop-up, because a) they fly across your screen and b) are difficult to close down(very,very small 'x' close button).

This isn't really a 'security' issue, and the only way to solve this problem is a) sue/fine all companies that misuse computer resource and/or b) disable Flash.

So ...

[clubin]

... What did he do wrong?

I read /. summary and the MSNBC article and have yet to find some insight as to why this is conisdered a crime.

I'm allowed to create a site with advertisements on it, but not if someone else has a website with a similar address? Really, WTH are they arguing that is winning these suits?

// No, this is not intended to be a joke.

Disable the popups

[bcwalrus]

Everyone should use Mozilla and disable the popups. Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts_and_ Windows.

*laugh*

[XO]

So, I hit the MSNBC link from the article, and it immediatly pops open two ad windows, one of which has an onClose event attached to it to pop a third window. LOL!

Re:What a joke...

[haunebu]

There are a gazillion exceptions (think child pornography, nazi propaganda, copyright...)

Since when has nazi propaganda been illegal? In fact, since when has any propaganda been illegal? I shudder to think if the day when it is, lest the US Government try to make the distinction between good and bad propaganda for the people.

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Re:What a joke...

[Theodore Logan]

People like you are ignored in any serious debate. Politics is about compromises. Get over it.

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what accident?

[hawk]

Where in calling another kid over to see it and going back forward do you find an accident?

hawk

Re:glad

[coene]

Opera reminds me of IE 2.0

Thats a good enough reason for me why not to use it.