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Man Arrested for 'Spam Rage'
Mirkon writes "We've all gotten frustrated at some point with spam. Perhaps we've even been motivated to send nasty, threatening messages back to the spammers, just to vent some frustration. Wired reports that 44-year-old computer programmer Charles Booker did just that, and 'now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.'"
There's more information (including the company name, which Wired withheld) here.
Email is not an assault, unless the person says they're gonna hurt you, and you have some reason to believe that they are not kidding around.
According to the article, that's exactly what happened here. There were threats about "disabling" employees with bullet, ice picks and anthrax. Talk about getting medieval.
If the neighbor's dog craps in my lawn every day and no complain of mine gets the owner to react, that doesn't empowers me to make threatening phone calls to his house.
No sig
From directnic.com
And a pissed guy:
The fact that these people do Joe Jobs also doesn't help.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Here is a california law about WMD's and electronic threats (Anthrax is a Biological agent, so I beleieve it's covered here)
California Penal Code 11418.5 Threat to use weapon of mass destruction
11418.5. (a) Any person who knowingly threatens to use a weapon of mass destruction, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety, or for his or her immediate family's safety, which results in an isolation, quarantine, or decontamination effort, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year or in the state prison for 3, 4, or 6 years, or by a fine of not more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "sustained fear" can be established by, but is not limited to, conduct such as evacuation of any building by any occupant, evacuation of any school by any employee or student, evacuation of any home by any resident or occupant, or any other action taken in direct response to the threat to use a weapon of mass destruction.
(c) The fact that the person who allegedly violated this section did not actually possess a biological agent, toxin, or chemical weapon does not constitute a defense to the crime specified in this section.
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent punishment instead pursuant to any other provision of law that imposes a greater or more severe punishment.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Registrant:
Leading Edge Marketing Inc.
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Domain Name: ALBIONMEDICAL.COM
Administrative Contact:
Leading Edge Marketing, Leading Edge Marketing domains@leminternet.com
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Technical Contact:
Leading Edge Marketing, Leading Edge Marketing domains@leminternet.com
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Record last updated 06-20-2003 03:25:11 PM
Record expires on 05-23-2008
Record created on 05-23-2001
Domain servers in listed order:
UDNS1.ULTRADNS.NET 204.69.234.1
UDNS2.ULTRADNS.NET 204.74.101.1
Gee...that was tough.
And what kind of retarded programmer is this that he doesn't even know how the internet works in this day and age? You don't reply to spam. Of course it's going to get worse. You simply launch a ddos attack on their mail servers while talking to their ISP and forcing them to stop hosting the wankers. And if they don't, then ddos them and talk to their ISP. Etc.
Here's a start...
Starting nmap 3.48 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap ) at 2003-11-22 12:23 Ea
Interesting ports on 65.39.243.197:
(The 1650 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
443/tcp open https
587/tcp open submission
801/tcp open device
873/tcp open rsync
Device type: general purpose
Running: FreeBSD 4.X
OS details: FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE
Uptime 123.792 days (since Mon Jul 21 18:24:33 2003)
Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 20.954 seconds
FreeBSD. Good. More of a challenge =)
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
Flash Click-to-View helps get rid of those stupid blinking flash ads. These are the ones that get around most ad-blocking software. Combine this with adblock and you have a very effective combination that gets rid of almost every ad out there with minimal configuration (just add the offending domains or some keywords to adblock's list, like "*.doubleclick.*" "*.atdmt.*" "*.x10*" "*ads.*", you get the idea).
Here's what's going to happen after February 21:
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You're going to get tons of spam, and from major companies. This becomes legal, even in states where it used to be illegal.
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The headers will be correct. There are penalties for forging headers.
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The spam won't necessarily have the company name, just some unsubscribe URL and a P.O. box for written "opt-out" requests.
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You can go through the motions of "opting out", but it won't do much.
"Opt-out" is interpreted narrowly, on a "per sender" basis. "Sender" is defined narrowly - "The term `sender', when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means a person who initiates such a message and whose product, service, or Internet web site is advertised or promoted by the message." (from S.877) Note the "and"; it's not there by accident. Each combination of spammer and advertiser may be considered a different "sender". That clause could even be interpreted to completely let third-party spammers off the hook.
So advertisers get to throw away the opt-out list every time they change spamhauses. There's even a "separate line of business" exception to make this explicit - spammers with both "Viagra" and "refinancing" spams don't have to use the opt-out list from one with the other.
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You can't sue. Only the FTC and the U.S. Justice Department can sue.
This was all carefully crafted by lobbyists for the Direct Marketing Organization, who will be celebrating as soon as they get some sleep, having been up all night getting this through the House.