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Disgruntled Fan Arrested, Indicted For Spam Attacks
An anonymous reader submits: "A *very* interesting precedent here might get set here. A California man has been arrested by the FBI for sending spam spoofing the From: email address of several Philadelphia-area newspaper editors and writers. The charges relate to the damage caused by having the bounces sent back to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, with a total of more than 160,000 bounced emails. Maximum penalties: 471 years in federal prison, $117 million in fines." And not just arrested, either -- Reader red_dragon points to the indictment (PDF linked from this U.S. Attorney's Office release).
Thus the old maxim:
Never tick off people who buy paper by the roll and ink by the barral.
-Daniel
Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
It's a scare tactic. They'll rub the accused's nose in his 471 years, which will convince him to take a plea bargain on only a few counts. He'll most likely serve only a few years and face minimal fines.
He did more than just spoof. According to the story, he hacked into accounts:
Meehan's office charges that from about November 2001 to December 2002, Carlson, "a disgruntled Phillies fan," hacked into computers of unsuspecting users and from those computers launched spam e-mail attacks with long messages voicing his complaints about the Phillies management.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
This is crazy - bounced emails don't cause $117 million damage.
The guy could have raped, pillaged and murdered and still do less jail time / fines.
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
You know if the guy just went on a killing spree, he probably would have gotten less jail time. Makes you think how valuable your life is in the eyes of government.
Given the disparity of penalties between, say, a mugging and this spam attack, it's clear that the government would prefer that we express our rage with assault and battery. Most murderers get off with less than 471 years. Lemme know your favorite assault weapon so I can start settling my scores the gov't approved way. note to humor impaired: that's sarcasm there. I agree with General Clark: if you want assault weapons, join the Army -- they've got lot's of 'em.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
The penalties aren't for the spam he sent, but rather for spoofing the sender's address. Many (hundreds of thousands) of the spam emails he sent out were to bad/non-existent addresses, and were bounced back to the real addresses he faked as his own. The people who received the "returned" emails are suing him, not those that got spammed.
That being said, I agree that the maximum penalties are harsh, to say the least. Then again, they are maximum penalities, and I'd be surprised if he goes to jail for more than 5-10 years, if at all. There's no doubt that he caused damages, but not 117 million dollars worth.
"Carlson faces a maximum sentence of 471 years imprisonment and $117,250,000 in fines."
Well damn, I'm heading out to the gun store, gonna rob me some banks, shoot me up some people up and still get out of prison faster than this guy.
Is it just me or has the US Guhvumment been totally hijacked by corporate interests to the point where the US Constitution is just a minor inconvenience?
What happened to no cruel nor unusual punishment, the punishment fitting the crime, our inaliable rights?
The only time I have heard of such a possible maximum has been in the case of multiple-murder and serial child molestation. And even if they give him say... 5 years, he will be financially ruined forever at even a fraction of the proposed monetary damages. So his life might as well be over.. quite lliterally made a slave to the corporations he will have to pay this "restitution" to...
And wasn't slavery constitutionally abolished over 100 years ago? Well as long as he isn't black I guess it's all ok.
Why did the article authors mention the guy being a possible white supremacist? They say that in the first paragraph, as if it were something important, and then don't bother going on to connect that to the events described in the article.
I mean, generally speaking, most people agree that any form of racist supremacy is bad, but if it doesn't have anything to do with the charges against him, then mentioning it just incites the audience unfairly. If his political views do have something to do with his actions, then they should have let us know instead of leaving us hanging.
Prison is for people dangerous to society. Murderers, rapists, other assorted thugs. Society isn't helped because a spammer is in jail.
Well, it's not helped by leaving them out of jail. They are a public nuisance to millions of people. And in this case, cost someone money. Now, having them taken out and shot, or having their kneecaps broken, would probably be better way to deal with spammers than throwing them in jail, but we have this "cruel and unusual" clause here in the US, so jail it is.
And yes, the Media has some protected status here in the US; pragmatically, because the government desires to keep anything powerful from getting too pissed at it, but also on the principle that people interfering with First-Amendment protected organizations are Bad.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This is a civil matter. The newspapers should sue the guy, he did something wrong, but there is no point in putting the guy in jail for the rest of his life and make him bankrupt. After all, putting someone in prison will acomplish nothing, they are meant to correct people or keep dangerous ones out of society. This will just spend more of tax payers money needlessly. Putting someone in prison for the rest of his life is expensive, and after all don't we have better things to pay for like an illegal war based on lies?
-Seriv
For those of you comparing the maximum sentences for robbery, theft, arson, assualts and so on to this guy's maximum sentence, I'd like to point something out.
What's more harmful to society? The murder of a single person or 160,000 bounced e-mails?
The point here is how poorly constructed these laws are. They are built upon antiquated views that simply don't realize the limits these laws can be taken to; as we now see in this case.
It should not be a per-email offense, it should be a per-incident offense with a bit of leeway in sentencing to handle light (a few dozen spoofed mails) to heavy (a few million spoofed mails) incidents.
Did this guy do something wrong? Yeah. But does it warrant 500 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines? No way.
This should fall under existing harrassment laws and this spoofed e-mail law be nixed.
I wonder what would have happened if this guy put 10,000 letters into the mail system with a bogus address and a return address of these newpaper editors?
You are forgetting the fact that the 471 years are multiple sentences running consecutively.
Now, lets take a look at your examples again.
Disfiguring with acid
10 victims = 20 - 40 years
100 victims = 200 - 400 years
cutting someone up with a knife
10 victims = 20 - 40 years
100 victims = 200 - 400 years
Gunning down people with a machine gun
10 victims = 40 - 120 years
100 victims = 400 - 1200 years
He has 79 counts of computer-hacking related offenses and also with identity theft. Over 160,000 forged e-mails. Lets try using two years for each computer-hacking offense
79 * 2 = 158 years
That leaves 313 years for the forged e-mails.
When prosecuting someone, it is a good idea to charge the perpetrator with as many offenses as possible. I think that the cracking offenses alone are sufficient, but a little overkill definitely sends a message.
Mr. Carlson's alleged activities were definitely overkill.
"471 years for spoofing a From: email header"
Not at all. He is facing 79 criminal counts, He would only get 471 years if he were sentenced to the maximum for every count AND served them consecutively.
It's the consecutively part that makes the 471 number meaningless. This is clearly a case where sentences should run concurrently.
...but trust me, having at least linear punishment (3x the crime => at least 3x the punishment) is very useful. Here in Norway, we have a law that I'd basicly call the "quantity dicount law" which means that you'll by default get less punishment than the sum of your crimes taken separately.
Frankly, the results of it are silly. If you've got e.g. 10 outstanding shoplifting charges already, your 11th will add almost nothing to your punishment because even though there's one more charge, you get less for each. In other words, once you've become a criminal, keep up!
Of course, I don't think this guy is concerned about the 472nd year in prison, so it has pretty much lost its effect. But for punishments inside a normal lifespan, I'd say it's fairly effective. Then you can use common sense (what judges and juries are for) to do reasonable corrections, as I'm sure they will in this case.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"Maximum penalties: 471 years in federal prison, $117 million in fines."
That's the fine and penalties when your spam hurts some high-profile, moneyed public figure. If the guy had forged the e-mail address of some average Joe, we wouldn't be reading about it here. If he had caused you or I to get 160,000 bounces and numerous angry e-mails, we would have been lucky to get his ISP to issue a warning -- much less get the FBI investigating and prosecuting.
I'll be impressed when the same level of interest is shown when some poor sap at home is the victim. But I'm not holding my breath.
Although in America not much critical thought is given to the best way to punish criminals (not much critical thought given to laws either) with non-violent crimes such as this one a wider range of options are available instead of prison. Maybe Ethics courses, extremely restricted computer access, public servitude, or strictly monetary fines would be better. Why throw away $40k a year to keep a spammer away from a computer in prison (i don't think they have those yet) when you could just force him or her to tell all future neighbors with an email address of their past history?
Posthuman since 2001.
I can't say I blame them for arresting this guy (although the idiotic federal multipliers for sentencing are almost silly), but isn't this just another lame PR exercise? This guy was just pissed, not a deliberate long-term spammer -- it was a one off offense, and while deserving of punishment it unfortunately will give the impression the FBI is doing something about it, when it clearly isn't.
When will we learn that you can't apply traditional laws that are designed to scale in a linear way to the Internet where you can effect such different orders of magnitude?
/.ers have been saying...
It just doesn't work. How do you apply traditional laws to some hypothetical situations...
If I send 10 fake emails but they cause all 10 computers to erase themselves.
If I sent 100 fake emails? 1,000,000? 1,000,000,000? If i managed to send a billion emails its certainly worse than a million, but do I deserve 1000x the punishment?
What about if I send a 1Million but they all bounce off of some well setup server, which barely notes a blip in the logs and it doesn't really effect it? What if I send 10,000 but they all have huge attachments that crashes a server? Is this the same?
My point is what many other
#1 The punishment should fit the crime.
#2 Jail time is an outmoded punishment for non-violent internet crimes.
But, is the punishment fitting for the crime? What punishment will the CEOs/CFOs of Enrons, Worldcoms, etc. get compared to this misguided fool? Sure this Phillies fan sent out tons of spam, but unlike Ken Lay, he didn't bilk people out of billions of dollars.
Do you really think that rape is an apropriate punishment for any crime, if so why not make it at public spectacle. Then I'm sure it will really scare all the criminals into law abiding citicens.
It is sickening the way people on slashdot seem to find the barbaric conditions of the american prison system one big joke. Do you really think that you are immune to the justice system, and that you never ever could end up in prison yourself - The same way every heroin addict never believed that he could be addicted, when he tried that first fix.
Rape is not a joke, no matter what the sex of the victim!
it is exactly that kind of thinking that leads to subjective sentencing and state extortion. If you've been following Ashcroft, you know that they're trying to force the courts to follow the law when sentencing and mandating minimum sentences.
If it is ridiculous to be sentenced to 471 years in jail for whatever number of disgruntled emails sent, then it should NOT BE IN THE LAW. It is the same with contracts and leases, etc, when there are wholly one-sided clauses that are just their for one party's 'protection', 'the lawyers make us put that there' -- It is the people's fault for not complaining when things get added or signed into law in the first place.
The point is, for a system of law to be effective and respected, it has to be consistent and fair. If the sentencing is the judge's discretion, then you deal with issues of race and sexuality & politics, etc. But if they are included into the law in the first place, and everyone agrees, then everyone can agree later to accept the punishments or work to change them again. If you want room for extenuating circumstances, think of what they could be, and add them into the law. It may make for a wordy penal code, but the clarity will help prevent discrimination and promote a sense of equality in the people.
It is ridiculously simple to influence the politicians, as you saw with the Do-not-call registry. All you have to do is contact them. They even make it easy for you, they give you their phone number, address, and email address. If a large enough amount of people want something, they do it, because above-all, they don't want to lose their seat.
That our laws are not just for punishment. They are also to deter. Think about it this way; lets say I have a 50% chance of getting caught if I mug somebody (hey, there are cameras everywhere and the victim can make a positive ID).
If the penalty is (I'm making stuff up here) $10,000, then I'd only want to rob somebody if I can make off with $5,000. Thus, I'd only be on the lookout for blind billionares.
But, spamming is much harder to catch. You don't have to be anywhere special to spam (you don't have to reveal your identity unless you're an idiot). So let's say there's a 1% chance of getting caught. Thus, if the fine is $10,000, then I'll only spam if I can get 100 back. Not so hard.
So, we can either increase the probability of getting caught (pretty hard) or increase the fine (just pass a law - very easy). So if we make the fine $500,000, then I'll spam only if I can get $5,000 out of it.
Thus, you deter spammers to the same extent as you deter muggers. It just sounds strange when it's applied to an idividual.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Geez, buddy ... I hate spam as much as anything else but equating one spam to one murder is a bit extreme, don't you think?
... we're still looking for Saddam Hussein.
Besides
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm glad they finally shut down this annoying person, as I was one of the people who kept getting his rants. [So if 100,000 messages bounced back, how many of them went through?]
Here's a sample of one of his rants ...
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.