Slashdot Mirror
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).
A *very* interesting precendent here might get set here.
This might *not* have been read by a slashdot editor might *not* have read this.
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
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.
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Forged canadian emails are only worth 5/8ths of a day in a US prison.
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.
Let's look at California penal code.
How about throwing acid in someone's face?
OK, let's see, what if I attack someone with a knife?
Hell, given that Arnie is now governator of California what happens if I start spraying machinegun fire around?
So, four years in jail for permanently disfiguring someone, four years for cutting somebody up with a knife, twelve for machinegunning people and... 471 years for spoofing a From: email header.
Ah, yes, justice...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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.
Prison is for people dangerous to society. Murderers, rapists, other assorted thugs. Society isn't helped because a spammer is in jail
Research shows that many inmates tend to become even more hardened criminals once they are sent to prison.
When he gets out in 2471, society better watch out.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
News Flash: China, in a desperate attempt to keep up with the United States has introduced a wave of new registration including the death penalty for spamming. A seperate bill, also introduced, proposes 30 years hard labor for trolling Slashdot.
Uh, unless something happened recently that I'm not aware of, the United States has yet to annex our neighbors to the north.
54'40" or fight!
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Give him some webmail account that he can access over dialup from prison. Publish that email far and
wide so it'll end up on every spam list in the world.
Then, tell him that once a year he'll get an email with a password that if he gives the prison guard, he can leave at any time.
This email can come in any form, with any subject heading, very likely disguised as spam. His webmail account will also have a 5Mb limit, and if the email bounces because it just happens to come when the mailbox is full, he'll have to wait for the next year.
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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!
Don't forget that's the MAXIMUM penalty. For every bounced e-mail there is a certain penalty, they add up and form a maximum penalty. A judge will set a MUCH MUCH lower penalty based on the crime and the damage done. The only reason the penalty was so high is because everything is automated, it's a lot easier for a computer to commit a crime 160,000 times.
If you made a script that raped or murdered 160,000 people your maximum penalty would be quite high too. I think it's about 4 million years in prison for 160,000 second degree murder charges. And I think the minimum sentence for 160,000 rape charges would be a bit under 3 million years. It wasn't that the penalty for this persons crimes should be over 400 years in prison, it's just that the maximum penalties add up to that and the fines also just happen to add up to over 100 million.