Slashdot Mirror
Spammer Sentencing Guidelines
actaeon169 writes "The Register is reporting that the Feds are seeking public comment on a proposal to amend the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to deal with those convicted of violating the law set forth in the CAN-SPAM act. Here is what the Feds have to say."
I don't see the word 'castration' in there anywhere.
Lock them away for life in a federal "Pound-Me-In-The-Ass" prison.
Couldn't we just force them to use a mail client that gets a neverending stream of the same spam they sent? Try to find that all important meeting e-mail in the midst of all the Vi@gra@ ads...
I was led to this place, a place I can't understand. A place that demands my belief just as strongly as my disbelie
Why do the sentencing guidelines matter? The law is so poorly written as to be unenforceable.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
That means they plan to let them out eventually.
I wonder which kneecap to shatter first...
...you may see the idea in action there. ;-)
"Punishable By Death"
;)
That oughta put some fear into them...
libertarianswag.com
Make them use the products they push. Each and every one...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
One of my general bitches about Fed/State/Local laws is that the goverment fines vermin and keeps the money for itself.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Death by multiple papercuts.
How about "drawn and quartered" as a fitting punishment?
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
"Shove a living snake up his ass?"
That would work for me if it was publically televised.
Either that or "I love the smell of fresh napalm early in the morning..."
;-)
Need I say more?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
From the article
just like arguably distributing more drugs is worse that distributing fewer drugs
Correct me if I am wrong but is he saying that drugs are bad?
Free XBox, PS2
Their prison mates should have used generic viagra, have their penises enlarged and are looking for a relationship
Spammers must not be allowed to use computers or networks again. I don't want them locked away, as that would just cost our money. Just make sure they can't do it again.
Did anyone else expect this to be a guide on constructing sentences that can be used to fool spam filters?
When everday you come up with novel softwares, bugs, exploits, viruses, etc to find information about a certain user how successful would this law be? Another thing that caught my eye was act on "harboring illegal aliens" which ironically (or maybe humoristicly) seemed to me as identical problems. Getting too many unwanted things into your backdoor :-D. Ah well, as long as I am free of spam I won't complain!!!
N/t
...how long will it be before the definition of spam is extended to include not just email, but any electronic medium?
/. any time soon? :)
What I'm getting at is, will they be prosecuting people who troll on
These sigs are more interesting tha
Is it only me who thinks that calling the law CAN-SPAM seems fairly inappropriate? I'd have more faith in one called CANT-SPAM. La di da,
What happened to the death penalty? Have we become a nation of cynics?
got sig?
Tattoo "child molester" on their foreheads and put them in general population for two weeks.
If they survive, they're free to go.
Put them to Guantanamo Bay as "Unlawful Mailers"!
Why go after the spammers (ie. the bulk emailing services). It's like shooting the messenger; instead, go after the advertisers of such spam emails, since their whereabouts are easier to track down than anonymous spammers.
Read the article, it's just another 'patriot anti-terrorist' act with a fancy name tacked on.
The majority of this is about punishing drug smugglers and smugglers of people 'with an intent of terrorism'
That's an easy one...
Once a spammer is found guilty they're put into a work camp. In this work camp they're seated at a computer with a red and a green button.
On the screen will flash up an email. They're then forced to choose spam or not spam.
Hesitation will result in a cattle prod to the privates.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I'm looking for the word 'pillory,' and hoping to see mention of the guillotine.
Failing that, I'd like to see something about sharing a cell with Bubba-Lonely-Heart.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
The sellers of compounds containing Ephedra or related herbs would probably be killed if they took enough. Sounds like a fitting punishment to me!
Last, the people who hijack other people's computers for use as either spam relays or HTTP proxies for spam sites ought to have to perform technical support to clean up those problems, 12 hours a day 6 days a week, for no pay.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Honestly though, since the law took effect on Jan 1, the amount of spam I have recieved has almost doubled. It must be thanks to the part that supercedes state laws for spam.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
One proposal is a formula that would sentence deceptive spammers to more time in prison for each e-mail address spammed. Considering that spammers can get thousands of addresses in one swoop, that should put most spammers in prison for a long, long time.
The problem is that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines limit judges to a narrow ranges of sentences a court can choose from when punishing violators of federal criminal law. The guidelines work off of a point system that sets a starting value for a particular crime, and then adds or subtracts points for specific aggravating or mitigating circumstances. A convicted kidnapper, for example, starts off with 24 sentencing points which is about 5-6 years in prison.
The question is how many points should spamming get, and how many "bonus" points should spammers get for aggravated offences. These could be things like using sophisticated means to harvest email addresses or commiting more serious crimes, like identity theft or fraud, as well as spamming.
>>esr>>
CENTURION:
Quiet! Silly person. Guards! Search the house.
[clomp clomp clomp...]
You know the penalty laid down by Roman law for criminal spamming?
RALSKY:
No.
CENTURION:
Crucifixion.
RALSKY:
Oh.
CENTURION:
Nasty, eh?
RALSKY:
Hm. Could be worse.
CENTURION:
What do you mean, 'could be worse'?
RALSKY:
Well, you could be stabbed.
CENTURION:
Stabbed? Takes a second. Crucifixion lasts hours! It's a slow, horrible death!
RALSKY:
Well, at least it gets you out in the open air.
CENTURION:
You're weird.
[clomp clomp clomp...]
SERGEANT:
No, sir. Couldn't find anything, sir.
CENTURION:
But don't worry! You've not seen the last of us, weirdo.
RALSKY:
Big Nose.
CENTURION:
Watch it.
RALSKY:
Phew, that was lucky.
good show chap
I'm just a hair over slightly repulsed at the horrible things you people talk about doing to spammers. Disgusting.
They can still spam from wheelchairs; I think you ought to go for the knuckles.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Make them write a zillion times:
Gain extra 2 inches in length
Viagra and herbal pills
rebuild poor credit
in order to learn the correct spelling...
Fed them to sharks. Would PETA object?
that the words "rusty garden shears", and "offending members" are included in the guidelines.
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Make them eat a can of spam for every email, umm I mean spam, they sent out. Death by Spam, cruel!..
From now on, each spammer convicted is required to eat one slice of spam for each email that he/she has ever sent. And eat nothing else.
Let's see that slice multiplied by 200 million or so and see how the spammer likes it.
The Turgid Trolls of this web site actually gave me an idea:
:)
Lets make them perform the real-life re-enactment of famous 'Penis-Cat' ASCII!
All spammers should be having a cat use their dongler as a scratching post
First we legitimize the government's "right" to regulate our internet based communication, then we applaud them when they push for jail time based on the content of your communication.
Real bright folks, aren't we.
I dislike spam as much as anyone, but the can-spam act has done little more than set legal precident for the government regulating internet based communications based on content, legitimized entire classes of spam (that are no less irritating) as "protected" from regulation (again based on content).
I never thought I'd see the day when geeks would cheer at the idea of a government censor, but I guess I was wrong. Now that the floodgates are open, I'm sure that we can expect future laws to regulate the sending of email containing "terrorism related" subjects such as communications protocols, encryption techniques, security implementations, and basic networking technology. Of course, those who are employed by "authorized" companies will be exempted from these regulations, as only they will have the "legitimate purposes" and "need to know" to be allowed such "dangerous" communication.
Read, L
"Whack his pee-pee!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They should get the chair! They should be force fed herbal viagra and penis enlarging pills, which they'll have to pay for using the new home loans they can get approved for instantly. They should be fined $1 per unsolicited e-mail sent. Not recieved, but sent all the bounces, everything. This debt should be attached to their families and children, their organs should be sold in an effort to make good on the debt if need be. I really hate to advocate such lenient penalties for spammers, but inside I'm a big softy.
Bonus points should be given for:
- Using harvesting software.
- Not providing means to opt out.
- Using stealth email address verifiers.
- Forging headers, etc, etc.
- Using spam as an ends to break other criminal laws.
I also feel that ISPs should take some of the heat, if not criminal, at least financially, if it can be proved they had knowledge of the operation, or are blatantly spam friendly. Sure most spammers are off shore, but lots operations start off at US ISPs before they get smart, or are forced offshore.
One last thought. I swear I get more spam now than I did before the law went into effect. Anyone else have this feeling?
Having a bookmark to Google does not make you an expert on everything.
Why don't we do something similar to what was done to Alex in A Clockwork Orange. We can strap them down, keep their eyelids open, and force them to watch Gigli every day until they are "rehabilitated." Then again, maybe castration and breaking kneecaps is more humane.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
A big part of the sentences guidelines is, what is the relative harm? "Hang 'em all", while satisifying, is not realistic. How would you rank the damage done by the various things spammers do? What would you tell the federal government on the relative seriousness of various aspects of spamming?
Consider:
Joe Jobbing
Using viruses to hijack other people's computers
Attacking anti-spam websites
Using spam to sell viagra vs. using it to defraud people out of thousands of dollars
I don't work with the internet on a technical level, but there are many, many people here who do. And rather than griping about spammers or the law, it would be great if this article and discussion could actually provoke some intelligent public comment. If we want the technical community to be taken seriously in the policy world, we need to give them our input when it's asked for.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Are there enhancements that should be added to either of these guidelines...?
Of course there are! At least 6" worth...
Do the punishments also count for (former) Nigerian Kings ?
Just mandate that spammers be shot on sight. Saves paper and time, and our representatives can get back to figuring out how to prosecute 13 year old filesharers.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
I suggest we apply the Sharia-law on these cockroaches.
It would seem the uncivilized chaps over at this government office haven't yet gotten something called email. That or they're deathly afraid of getting mailbombed by spammers.
Regardless, they need snail mail, AKA a written letter for public input. Since the statistical odds are that many here have forgotten how to implement this outdated technology, I have a how to:
Write your email, explaining why the death penalty for spammers is warranted.
Instead of sending your email, print it out on your printer.
Remove printed email from printer and ask an older colleague for something called an "envelope".
Insert statement of reasoning for the death penalty for spammers into the envelope. Crumpling does not work as well as folding it 3 evenly spaced times perpindicular to the vertical axis of the paper. Make sure you seal envelope after inserting letter, avoid temptation to use duct tape to make sure it doesn't fall out.
Print an envelope in your printer with the envelope feed slot. If you can't find one of those you'll have to hand print the address on the envelope.
At the top left corner of the side without the flap write your name on the first line. Write your street address on the second line. On the third line write your city followed immeadiately by a comma. Follow this with the two letter acronym for your state or residence and then your zip code.
In the middle of the same flap of the envelope put the following in the same format.
United States Sentencing Commission
One Columbus Circle, NE. Suite 2-500
Washington, DC 20002-8002
Attention: Public Affairs
Then travel to a post office, you can locate one off the Internet by going here. At this post office give the person your letter and explain you want to buy a "stamp". This will cost you 39 cents. Pu this at the top right corner of the envelope on the same side as the writing. The people at the post office will then take care of delivery. Pop3 not available.
Spammers are people and some of them have a family and kids, too.
Fucking nazis.
As much fun as it is to vent and say "death to spammers" or even "one year in prison for every 100 spammed addresses", we have to be realistic. Prison is for hardcore criminals... eg: murderers, rapists, etc. and not for someone like spammers.
/. crowd, federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison is not the answer here. I'm not sure what the answer is, but that isn't it.
I hate spam as much as the next guy, and would surely love to vent my fury on those doing the spamming. However, and this opinion probably won't be popular with the
- c -
I like it. Give them a dial-up account they must use to contact their laywer and parole officer by signing a GIF loaded from a HTML e-mail and sending it back. Failure to keep in touch means a violation and time. It'll give them an idea that spam wastes time, effort and resources. Be sure the daily download is buried in SPAM on dial-up with all the GIF's that have to be loaded. It would be best for the officers to dink with the subject line to make it spammy.
The truth shall set you free!
The best ad yet as to why to get an account and turn on sigs, the contents of your post, and the contents of your sig provide interesting insights into the human psyche.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Now that the floodgates are open, I'm sure that we can expect future laws to regulate the sending of email containing "terrorism related" subjects such as communications protocols, encryption techniques, security implementations, and basic networking technology.
Didn't anyone ever tell you that the slippery slope argument is a fallacy? The Slashdot article you link to was rightfully dismissed by most intelligent folks as credulous fear-mongering; you're citing it as evidence that the government will seek to curb knowledge in basic techniques such as TCP/IP and encryption.
I've got news for you: that would be as futile as trying to remove evolution from current biological sciences curricula. (That's not to say that some folks haven't tried, but I expect that such re-education efforts on behalf of "security" would be met with similar derision as those on behalf of "religion".) It's one thing to review advanced research papers before publication to see if they involve potentially classified information (which our government does), but no one can put the genie back in the bottle once basic knowledge is out in the public domain.
Here is what the Feds have to say
IMHO, we need a law that is more enforceable. Feds do say a lot of things but rarely enforce them. Stricter law is welcome (and needed) for these spammers but the feds need to start using it too.
Die spammer die.
Free XBox, PS2
The actual sentencing guidlines are already set.
Basically they are wondering if the penalties should be stiffened when the spam overlaps with other illegal activity like child pornography. They are also trying to figure out what chapter in the book should hold the guidlines.
-Jackson
Umm, every transfer or distribution of money costs money. if you try to distribute $1m to 1000 people, each will get about (say) $950 after the costs of actually distributing the money are factored in. when government keeps fines, etc, this is revenue that they get to keep *instead of* raising taxes. So, if we listened to you, net taxes would be higher, as we'd lose out on the stupid anduseless distribution costs of first getting the fine money to the people, and then re-collecting it from the people in terms of taxes.
Why "mod down?" not only does the poster show lame logic that I have addressed before, but his proposed solution hardly calls for "justice"--rather, it rewards those with information. I can't see any use in that whatsoever. We want public faith and participation in choosing leaders and making community policy--not in filling out forms to collect what most would agree is owed equally to all victims, not just the most able.
Spam is only a problem because people think that its "free" advertising.
But if you sue the butt off of somebody because he caused somebody to you spam, I don't think that the problem will last long...
If I ordered Viagra from every mother f*cker out there who's spamming me, I'd have priapism.
Enough is enough. My spam box is utterly filled with it. I refuse to buy anything from anybody who sends me span (not the spammers but their CLIENTS) and I wan't the damn sh*t stopped.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
... but no amount of spam in the world is worthy of jail time. Period.
The only realistic punishment is fines. Lots of fines. There is no reason to waste more taxpayer dollars on such a petty crime as spamming. Last time I checked, didn't we also have an overcrowding problem with our penal system?
I mean, come on. Spamming is not a matter of life or death, or even personal injury. If something is so dreadfully important that you can't rely on E-mail to deliver the message then just pick up a damn phone and call someone.
<sarcasm>
Oh, yeah. What I'd like to see more than anything else in the whole, wide world are more government rules for Internet-based activities that carry jail times. Because let me tell ya -- those spammers, file-traders, and trollers sure do deserve to be put in jail right alongside rapists, child molesters, and arsonists!
</sarcasm>
Let the punishment fit the crime. If Gilbert and Sullivan (sound's like a lawfirm nowadays, doesn't it?) came up with a verse to describe the plight of spammers it would be something along the lines of spending a few years reading unsolicited manuscripts at a trash-novel publishing house.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Maybe because some spammers are female?
I'm personally liking the words "ants" "stake" "syrop"
Alternatively, the words tar/feathers have a nice ring to them also.
Who exactly are the victims? Everybody that received the spam? That's a lot of people
What they need is an "anti-spam" department. Partially gov't funded to start things off, but also supported by the proceeds of whatever spammers get busted/fined. I don't think I'd see part of the pie for nailing spammers, but I wouldn't mind donating my portion to nailing some more.
let spammers delete junk mail all day in jail.
The law needs to recognize a blindingly obvious point -- anti-spam filters are a form of computer security, and the use of filter evasion techniques is therefore a form of computer cracking. Thus, filter evasion is criminal in and of itself, and each additional enhancement to the filter evasion technique should map to a corresponding enhancement of the sentence.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Well, like all misguided youth, you need intervention. So when a script kiddy gets busted for it, they should get a month in prison. Not jail, prison. A taste of this lifestyle should be all that is needed to get them back in the right direction. If they do it a second time, THEN I agree with death :) They are to stupid to continue with normal life anyway.
Bad precedent. This creates a conflict of interest, say the Highway patrol is about to lose $25 million in funding, but ticket procedes go into their fund, thus they focus heavily on giving out tickets until their loss is replaces. Nope, can't allow that, tickets go into general funds for this reason.
So, if we listened to you, net taxes would be higher, as we'd lose out on the stupid anduseless distribution costs of first getting the fine money to the people, and then re-collecting it from the people in terms of taxes.
Geez. Ever thought about studying goverment before commenting on it? Fines should never be included in a planned governmental budget, I don't know what kind of evil regime you plan, but I want no part of it.
his proposed solution hardly calls for "justice"--rather, it rewards those with information.
You're joking, right? One of the most effective ways to stop an activity is to hit it where it's motivation lies, i.e. money. Make spamming unprofitable and people will shy away from it, after all, they're in it for money. Handing out some share of the fines isn't rewarding, to me, it's paying for the hours I've lost cleaning that shit from my mailboxes and the service problems I've endured while they plied their trade.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah. I guess that'd do...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Keeping them at it until no spam gets through.
"Studying" something at greater than a high-school level has to do with positive analysis. "should never be included in a planned governmen budget" is a normative statement. No "student" would ever make such a statement without substantial corroborating data.
As it were, your statement is tin-foil-hat bullshit. Fines for certain types of activity are statistical phenomena that can be planned well in advance and budgeted for. For example, one can make a pretty good guess, +- 10% what the new jersey turnpike total fines collected from speeders for 2004 will be and budget accordingly. you're right though--it's a bit silly when some two-bit town gets to keep the money from a major bust and the police are soon driving lexus patrol cars, but this is mostly a problem of redistrbution within government and this brings up the standard bureaucratic issues addressed by niskanen et al. but this hiccup doesn't make your analysis right or close to it.
Your last paragraph is you speaking out of your ass as you did not understand my response.
2/3 of this amendment is all about immigration, terrosits and drugs.
What the fuck? I am so disappointed every time I mistake a glimpse into our (U.S.) legal system...
--Doug
It's amazing how much vehemence against spammers is shown in the posts above. "Let's castrate them" "I hope they get raped for years on end." Yet, whenever there's an attempt to do anything to stem the tide of illegal file sharing or other content theft, the same federal government is portrayed as a bunch of out-of-control jackbooted monsters. The contrast is amazing to me.
Despite how emotional I can get about spam and spammers. I think a reasonable sentence would be maybe a year in prison but then have your computer use suspended for 5-10 years. That would hopefully at least get rid of some of the spam for a while.
If the death penalty is good enough for hackers, now labeled terrorists, it should certainly be good enough for spammers.
~~~
One lash for every spam sent out.
Sent 10 million emails? Well, then it just gotta be 10 million licks with a cat 'o nine tails...
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
It's not like those pills actually work.
Although I suppose they could be especially upset about them not working and seeking revenge...
paintball
The convicted spammer gets put in a box. For every piece of spam he's caused to be sent, a single grain of sand is put in the box.
The size of the box is determined by a carefully guarded formula taking into account the efforts to evade spamfilters, the joejobbing, the nature of the spam (adult content being more significant, for example), and how many other spammers he rats on.
The sand is put into the box at a rate of approximately one liter per hour.
Did I mention that the spammer's feet are secured to the floor of the box?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Andrew Fastow, Enron's CFO and chief crook, is finally going to jail. He just pled guilty and got a 10 year sentence and a $24 million fine. That's just the beginning. He has more charges hanging over him (over a thousand years worth), and he has to fully cooperate with prosecutors or face even more jail time. (So Fastow gives up Skilling and Lay. The big question is whether they give up Bush.)
Since they cost upwards of 20 Billion dollars in damages to the US Economy every year, label them as Terrorists and put them all in Guantanimo Bay as Enemy Combatants.
That'll remove the problem AND keep them out of the legal system. And no one has to bitch that the US is continuing it's inhumane practice of capital punishment!
I have the same gut feeling as you do, but prison is the wrong answer, at least for the first offense. Second offense, sure, they haven't learned squat. But reserve prison on the first offense for violent crimes.
What I want is for them to wear that electronic ankle bracelet and be denied all internet access. Let them have a computer, but no internet hookup. Let them use a computer at work, as long as there is no internet access.
See, I don't want to pay taxes to hold people in prison if they can hold down a job and pay restitution, or at least I don't want to support them in prison. I want them toiling away at some menial job, paying taxes, paying restitution. I'd just as soon force them to take whatever the current equivalent of antabuse is, I don't want them drinking or smoking, that wastes money that could go to restitution. I want them circulating between work and home, nowhere else, no parties, no visiting friends, no fun. Let themexplain to their friends why the friends have to come see them. Let their kids understand that daddy is a screwup and an asshole and can't go to school plays and weekend movies. I want them to do that for a year first offense, 5 years second offense. Or if the first offense is nasty enough, straight to prison, but only for exceptional cases. And the second offense, prison should be a likely result, but not mandatory.
I resent paying for prisons to guard nonviolent prisoners. But if ankle bracelets don't teach them a thing, then prison is fine.
Infuriate left and right
Nothing is going to take any affect until they incorporate at least some of these items into the CAN SPAM law
Of course these last two items also mean that the ISPs will enforce that no customer can run any kind of service on their computers. This will kill dyndns.org and others as a viable business. Nothing in here requires them to do this, but the marketing engine will. Everyone that they knock off the system is a risk mitigation at the minimum and a potential revenure generator if they sign up for static IP business accounts (that typically can run services).
No matter how you figure it, spammers will be the death of the publicly available internet.
...is seated at a chair in front of a computer. The computer is running Outlook. Html is on. The inbox contains messages equal in number to what the spammer sent out.
There is no mouse, no shift key to allow multiple selections, in fact there is no keyboard to speak of.
There is only a "delete" key.
They are not allowed sleep until the inbox is empty.
And the chair is located in Times Square.
Go.
Don't use a firing squad - bullets cost money.
Don't use the chair - electricity costs money.
Don't use lethal injection - chemicals cost money.
Hang them - then you can reuse the noose.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Have them dig their own graves; then push them in and cover up the hole, at least they'll then have done some good as fertilizer.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I think a 50 / 50 treatment of acid and then salt would do wonders for them.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Two different ballparks.
Spamming affects my rights personally. File sharing I can simply not take part in.
It's like someone standing in your driveway shooting paintballs at you everytime you leave the house. That gets annoying quick.
But if some guy is growing weed in his house that's in a different city, that is something that you can avoid being affected by it.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Providing opting out capability should not be a mitigating factor.
Even if you a spammer provides an "Opt Out" button you should never use it. An "Opt Out" button mearly means that:
The e-mail address is valid (sort of a confirm delivery ticket)
You do not filter e-mail
You are not so inundated with spam that you actually pay attention to it.
Qualities that all spammers are looking for. Your e-mail is golden and will be use for some other "advertiseing campaign" or traded with their buddies.
I would hope that even though these people are annoyances that they don't go to jail, and just have a large fine, jail is for dangerous criminals, ones that murder and rape people, and I shouldn't have to pay taxes to support someone who isn't a danger to society.
Just give them all life without the possibility of parole.
when government keeps fines, etc, this is revenue that they get to keep *instead of* raising taxes.
Wow. That *has* to qualify as a contender for the most disproved statement made this year. (includung SCO's) *NO* amount of income to the gov. has *EVER* dissuaded the gov. from raising taxes. All the gov. does is bemoan a "drop" in revenues from said income next budget cycle, (factual or not) and use it as an excuse to raise taxes further. Put the pipe down, and step away.
For those caught violating the law by trying to sell stuff to enlarge my p3n.i/s (My p3n.i/s is big enough, why won't they help me w/ my penis), the punishment should be as follows: Step 1: Figure out the total increase in length from all the emails they sent. (Will be a big number) Step 2: Divide that number by the number of individuals arrested. Step 3: Using some sort of medieval torture tool, increase their penis size by the result of step 2. The problem is that each person is responsible for, say, 30000 miles of penis extension. I'm guessing they'll probably only cover a fraction of their debt to society. To cover the remainder go to work on their friends (do spammers have friends?) and family. I still need to figure out a just solution for Mortgage, get out of debt, and viagra spammers....ahem...I mean moR-tgua//ge, ge tout of d?3bt, and v|a.gr~a spammers.
...make them write on a chalkboard, "I will never send a spam message to anyone ever again, for as long as I live."
For some of them this will be a life sentence.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I guess I didn't hear you right. Did you say that spam is not a danger to society?
Rope, tree, worked for the cowboy's, works for me!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Spammers who violate the Can-Spam law should be treated the same under the Sentencing Guidelines as are nonviolent drug offenders. For example, possession of one tab (100 ug) of LSD dissolved in a 12 oz can (355 ml) of Coca-Cola carries a base offense level of 38 (235-290 months in prison). This is because the "carrier weight," i.e. the weight of the Coca-Cola, is deemed part of the quantity of drugs. Chapman v. California, 500 U.S. 453 (1991). (By contrast, 2nd degree murder is but a level 33 offense.)
Using the same logic as Chapman, spammers should be given extra prison time if they pad their messages with filter-foiling gibberish. The extra verbiage should be counted in determining the weight of the spam, thus earning the offender the label of Spam Kingpin and a correspondingly long stretch behind bars.
I like the previous suggestion of fine, comunity service, down-time. Since they are also intentionally breaking the law, I would like to see that all their equiptment be confiscated and sold at police auction for repeat offenders.
Spammers shouldn't be killed, tortured, raped, or any of the other things many posters here are suggesting
Spammers are interfering with the proper functioning of our economy at a fundemental level. They prey on trust. The steal resources from all, using the good will that provided them to hock lies to millions of people, frequently ruining another's reputation to do it. It is a betrayal of everyone. Fundementally, economies run on the faith that other people will uphold their part of the bargain, if for no other reason that others will move to enforce a modicome of fair play. The massive scale, and unrepentant nature of spammers do much to diminish that. They profit from the harm they do to us all, with good will they subverted.
Absolutely, they should die violent deaths. Deaths where they're left wimpering for an extended period of time so they can carefully consider how they came to that unenviable end. Why shouldn't all the small evils and misfortunes they inflict by the millions, or even billions, be inflicted back upon them?
Fines for certain types of activity are statistical phenomena that can be planned well in advance and budgeted for.
Actually, more than one small town has been disincorperated for exactly that. It seems that first they were planning their budget based on fines, then they were collecting fines to support their budget. Suddenly, the cops were pulling every dirty trick in the book to GET people to speed so they could fine them. Soon after, a judge decided that the town's tax base was too small to support itself, so it was disincorperated.
In some form or another, that's the inevitable result of allowing fines to be counted as expected revenue. They just become a form of randomized taxation.
The newest tactic they are doing is using your own computer to spam other people and set up your own server as a webserver that redirects traffic. So it looks like you are the spammer, yeah, you guys will think differently when you are handcuffed and being excorted to jail because our government can't afford really technical savvy people. And even if they could even technically savvy people can be fooled.
This is a test. For some reason I always seem to get "you cannot post to this page", apparently for no reason. What's going on?
Spammers shouldn't be killed, tortured, raped, or any of the other things many posters here are suggesting (and those suggestions are mostly joking)
I am not joking. The sooner Alan Ralsky gets a bullet in his brain, the better.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
If so, where do we report things like grossly misleading subject text?
If not, when does CAN-SPAM reporting actually kick in?
No no. That' won't do at all. Bitch slap him, then shatter his knees with a collapsable baton, then his wrists. While he's wimpering roll him over and shoot him up the poop shoot with a 45 and leave him in a sewer.
I read an article about the guys who clean up grizzly murders. The employees being interviewed mentioned one of the most disturbing was a guy who was involved with a coworkers girlfriend, and mocked him about it. So the guy snapped, and with a rifle blew the victims appendeges off (all of them) and made him beg to die. Then he killed the guy, and himself. They said the pure hatred of the act lingered afterwards.
If Ralsky comes to an end so violent and horrible to contemplate that it compares or exceeds something like that, that's a hell of a statement. If someone creates a murder ballad, or makes a movie based on it, so that other people can share in a little bit of that pure rage, and unmitigated terror. His cautionary tale might far outlive him, passing him into legened. All in all, a pretty good use of his wasted space.
Horror movies are all about people's small evils being visited back upon those who are unrepentant many fold. Now this almost never happens, but those movies come from somewhere. That aspect is part of our aggragate ethical make up, so it DOES happen.
Knowing that, if I was Alan Ralsky, with my address being on the internet, with photos and directions, I would probably try to look at least a little sorry. I sure wouldn't be looking for bigger sticks with which to swat hornet's nests.
And knowing that motivated lone wolf types have been able to kill Presidents, I don't think be terribly comfortable about hanging out with him. I don't think anyone wants the end of their life to be portrayed by Dustin Diamond in a FOX made for TV movie, staring Ted McGinley, entitled, "When Nerds Attack." Your acquaintences telling stories at bars. "You know, I knew Lewis. It's ironic, he really hated Screech. If he hadn't died, I think the movie would have killed him. Life's funny. Gim'me another Rolling Rock."
if you try to distribute $1m to 1000 people, each will get about (say) $950 after the costs of actually distributing the money are factored in
What? You actually believe that it would cost $999,050 out of every $1million to cut a lousy check? Put the crack pipe down now! That stuff will rot your brain.
and the right to shoot suspected spammers using deadly force if they resist arrest.
...
hmm, I think I found my next career
> --- All Of The Above --- >