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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.'"
So of course the guy goes nuts.
Now I see that they are able to send you animations/videos that get past Mozilla's image-blocking feature. Saw the first one yesterday, trying to sell me a Sony VAIO. How long is it going to be before I get one featuring erotic acts with barnyard animals?
The only thing that surprises me about this is that it wasn't a father who went nuts when seeing his little boy or girl subjected to some of this crap. Yeah, the penis ads are truly obnoxious... but to see your kids exposed to this some of this stuff? I could really sympathethize with someone going postal because of this.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
It still sounds like the potential penalty is probably a little severe, but this isn't the type of reaction most of us would have.
If you're thinking of threatening savetrees.com (or whomever) with death threats, go and drink some chamomile tea, relax, and decide, in a rational way, what you're going to do about it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I must say, I am disppointed that no one is allowed to be legitimately pissed off without getting a lawsuit. Back in the late 1800's, people who were annoying were called out in the street and shot at. I'm not saying that shooting people is the answer, but we should be allowed to vent frustrations so long as they don't include actual, specific assault against someone. 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.
stuff |
What kind of help? I'll loan him a gun or two. Can any /.'er surreptitiously provide the anthrax spores?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's more information (including the company name, which Wired withheld) here.
You threaten to do harm to someone, for whatever reason, its a crime.. you should goto jail...
If that's true, then can we please send the government and police to jail?
Booker threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.
Hmm, nothing wrong with that, lets look at it a little differently. The company in question -
1. Insulted him repeatedly about his penis size. Thus making the internet a hostile and intimidating place.
2. They made his computer unuseable causing a loss of income.
3. They intruded into his home and refused to leave his personal property alone.
And the government did nothing about it. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all of these were infringed by the spammers. I think the defendant has his atitude wrong. He need NOT apologize, instead change his defense to "I was being harmed, pursued, harassed and the government refused to come to my aid. What options were left I was was to continue on with my life?".
Now THAT would be interesting, instead, all that we see is another story about hwo bad spam is. It will drive you crazy.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Only Reliable, Medically Approved Penis Enhancement.
poor guy if he finds one of those enlarged pennis in jail...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Yeah, but it was a very minor crime. It's the equivilant to me yelling, "I'll tear off your head and shit down your neck if you ever come near my wife again!" if I caught you kissing her at the bar.
1. I was provoked
2. There's no real evidence I have the strength to tear off your head so it's probably not serious
3. I make no actual agressive moves toward you
It's just blustery anger, the guy doesn't deserver, and probably won't get, jail time.
TW
Oh, so a corporation making ridiculous claims and flouting numerous laws in doing so is just fine, but when someone replies with empty threats, the judicial system brings down the hammer.
Yeah, this guy is obviously a total moron, but the case shows both how stupid the laws are with regards to spam, and how angry it makes people. It's like the kid on the schoolbus who gets poked and needled every day and nobody notices, but when he finally snaps and slugs one of his tormentors (or worse) it's a terrible thing.
I've done this in the past. Threatened spammers, that is. Nothing so dire nor graphic as this fellow, but I was angry enough that I wanted to get back at them somehow. I know someone who's said that he wants to torture and kill all spammers, and he's a totally meek, mellow guy for the most part. The anger people express about spam is very surprising, even more than telemarketing. It's surprising also that the bastards can make any money at all on a practice so universally reviled.
I used to care, back when I got maybe 20 spams a day. Now that I'm up above ~500, I don't care anymore.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Then he'd only be facing about a year in jail.
--- Ban humanity.
- He is an American
- He resides in the US
- He made the calls and sent the email from the US
- There are laws in the US and in the state in which he resides against making threats.
Any other questions?There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"I will hunt down and castrate your employees unless you take me off your e:mail list".
Now can anyone tell me what on earth is so unreasonable about that?
But seriously. The fact that the Canadian company failed to take him off their e:mail list the first time he complained / threatened could surely be seen a provocation. (At least in terms of lessening the guys sentence)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
All of what you say above is true.
But consider what would happen to an individual pervert who sent out hundreds of thousands of sick emails talking about penises, and continued to do so even after the recipients told him in no uncertain terms to stop?
He'd be thrown in jail, that's what would happen.
Why are businesses allowed to do things that individuals aren't?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
This guy should be nuts. I mean, come on, why would anyone even say NO to an offer of 30% of US$10,000,000 ( Ten Million US Dollars only ) and FREE Pills(TM) to improve Sex Life(TM) ?
getSexySig();
" Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business. "
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
It is exactly for that reason that I am now pushing to have internet access removed from local classrooms. The spam and popups have gotten so bad that my second grader sees these messages come up on their classroom computer several times a day. The school has a good IT department, lots of filters, and policy with the best intentions but they just can't keep up with it.
I used to be one of the most vocal about getting/keeping internet access in schools and public libraries. All that has changed now that the spammers have turned the net into the cesspool that it is.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
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.
Charles Booher, the man who became frustrated with penis ads popping up on his computer, received no satisfaction when he used civility in his attempts to pursuade whom he thought was the source of the email and popups to quit sending them to his PC. Their rejection of his requests moved him to higher levels of insistance, and finally to threats, even though he obviously had no means to carry them out.
He was merely venting his anger at the helplessness of his situation. Being powerless does that to people. People in power don't seem to understand this basic fact or, in their arrogance, they have forgotten it.
Congress may finally inact legislation that outlaws spam, giving Mr. Booher, and millions of others, relief from that plague. But, there is something you can do to relieve a plague of another kind: an overly agressive prosecutor who lack common sense or is looking for stepping stone in his/her political career. As a criminal forensic investigator for 15 years, I understand the directive to 'ferret out crime', but I know that prosecutors have their own counsel on whom they choose to prosecute, and why. Work loads, budget limitations, friendships, influence from above, and many other reasons affect whom prosecutors finally choose to prosecute. Many times the choice is arbitrary. Mr Booher probably can't afford a high profile attorney, so he is easy pickings. If the prosecutor in this case would only step back a moment and see how ridiculus this action makes him/her and the department look, perhaps they would reconsider. Considering the circumstances this assult could be dismissed with a 'warning', which I think Mr. Boohers' has already become fully aware.
I can understand his rage. At work, where I am a professional programmer, we have trained IT staff that maintain the interface between my PC and the Internet, and filter out 100's of viruses, trojans, and spam email daily, and their effects on my work PC are greatly reduced. Also, Microsoft Windows environments are extremely susceptible, as you are proabably aware, to such malware and Mr. Boohers' is not the only one making threats to spammers. You can Google the internet and see millions of messages venting the same rage, many of them probably from SF itself. In the age of Radical Extremeists blowing up buildings and murdering thousands of innocent people, prosecuting Mr. Boohers' is like an elementry school principle expelling a first grader for 'possession of a weapon' because he brought fingernail clippers to school, or a girl for 'drug possession' because she has a bottle of asprin in her purse.
If Mr. Boohers' has committed a crime it was that he is using the wrong Operating System. You should advise him to switch to a fine Linux Operating System, like Mandrake 9.2 or SUSE 9.0, and send him out the door. He won't be plagued with any malware ever again, because Linux IS secure. It is also free. That should calm him down even more!
Thanks for your time.
jerry Kreps
Lincoln, NE.
PS. Isn't the current "Politically Correct" environment making you ill? If mind reading hardware were available I do believe that we'd see prosecutions for what we think, too. Truely, the Bill of Rights seems to be a dead
document.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
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
Here's what's going to happen after February 21:
-
You're going to get tons of spam, and from major companies. This becomes legal, even in states where it used to be illegal.
-
The headers will be correct. There are penalties for forging headers.
-
The spam won't necessarily have the company name, just some unsubscribe URL and a P.O. box for written "opt-out" requests.
-
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.
-
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.If El Rago del Spam snapped one time after asking Penis mailer to quit then I could see this guy owning up and saying, "wow, lost my temper; didn't mean it. Sorry about threating your company, spammers." and let it drop. But he did not, he continued to threaten over a period of time.
Much as I would like ot see rednecks with whichester rifles and Spammer tags, I think it's probably best if we continue to pretend we live in a society governed by the rule of law.
Cheers,
- RLJ
I got one of those, and placed it in the trash. And I pay my bills!
Somehow I ran across it later, and to my suprise it was with a company I had done business. Upon checking, I was given credit for a return but I only assumed I was later charged for the replacement.
My assumption had been incorrect.
It is best to get the best spam filter you can get, because I am now getting more spam where I work on assignment than work related emails.
At home, on Linux - Mozilla has been doing an excellent job. Recently I had been wondering why I was seeing so few appearing in my junk email directory. [I got my first one in weeks just today - but I am assuming labeling it and transferring it will spare me].
Another source are companies you have done some sort of business with in the past - that forever more send emails. Hence, I no longer provide my email address to most requests. On these latter, I tend to ignore their emails unless they have something about a 24 hour sale - that gets an immediate deletion. Others can sometimes be of interest, particularly for information that does not enhance their attractiveness. For example, I had been dealing with a company that while priced higher than some others I order through has been extremely reliable. Moreover, they had a good return policy. With their ads I see that have been acquired - though I sometimes check their prices on items it is very unlikely I will chance another order from them. Anyone remember Fat Brain? I only began to noticed the difference that the shipments arrived using USPS (which can be excellent though usually slower). Only later did I learn they were acquired after encouraging my son to place an order with them that was nearly botched.
So the above my be viewed as my SPAM rage - so much easier to take with pretty good filters. Also I never respond to any of the junk.
$250k and 5 years in prison for making fictious threats? Jesus we can't allow ourselves a moment of rage nowadays.