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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.
I wonder which kneecap to shatter first...
"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
How about "drawn and quartered" as a fitting punishment?
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
Their prison mates should have used generic viagra, have their penises enlarged and are looking for a relationship
...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,
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.
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.
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>>
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Force feeding them Viagra and Penis enlarging pills???
;-)
Gods sake man - talk about cruel and unusual punishments!
To cap it off make them watch Paris Hilton getting it on.
And the spammers die from sudden loss of blood flow to the brain.
Worst
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.
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.
Spammers are people and some of them have a family and kids, too.
Sure, but spam generates a lot of emotion, frustration, and hatred because of the unrepentant nature of the crime. If you deal with spammers at all they tend to be self-righteous and have an attitude of "I'm doing nothing wrong and I'll never be punished", even as they steal resources and damage reputations.
Spammers shouldn't be killed, tortured, raped, or any of the other things many posters here are suggesting (and those suggestions are mostly joking) - but those kinds of sentiments are a natural reaction on the part of those who are victimized with no recourse. Spammers need to go to jail and make reparations.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
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
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.
he's disagreeing! he must be a spammer! get him!
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.
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.)
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.
Thats why it is a firing squad, 4 blanks that don't kill, and one real bullet that does.
According to most of the references I've found, it's the other way round. One person gets a blank, everyone else gets live rounds (sometimes everyone gets live rounds and there are no blanks). The idea is that even though an experienced shooter can tell the difference, there are psychological reasons not to pay attention or to believe that you truly drew the blank round. Also, no one person can stop the execution by failing to fire.
Execution by firing squad
Firing Squad Protocol
Death by firing squad
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?