Slashdot Mirror
Jail Time for Misleading Domain Names
Bootsy Collins writes "The Miami Herald is running a
story
on the first-ever prison sentencing (and, for that matter, prosecution and conviction) under the Federal Truth in Domain Names Act. This act, combined into the larger
Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT) of 2003, made it a violation of U.S. Federal law to use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive someone into viewing obscene material -- larger penalties if attempting to so mislead minors, but up to two years even if adults are the object. In the case in question, a man was convicted for registering thousands of domain names which were close misspellings of popular web sites for kids. Attempting to surf to those sites would redirect to a site entitled 'Dorm Sex Party.' Before being arrested, the convicted typosquatter made about a million dollars for the referrals." He's been on Slashdot before.
On one hand, typing a URL and getting a "BUY THIS PAGE" page annoys the bejesus out of me.
On the other hand, going to jail for setting up a website seems....excessive. Surely just taking it down and a fine would be enough?
Maybe they will finally put some goat sex up at goatse.cx?
But i would do a coupl years in prison if I recieved a couple million dollars, as long as I got to keep it when i got out. I would just write a book while in jail, and chill out. I would also lift weights, so no one would try to make me their bitch.
He's in jail for taking one million dollars from the porn industry in exchange for directing people to their sites who have no credit cards and can't make them any money.
Whitehouse.com and goatse.cx are in big trouble.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
now see, if you had put a link in there somewhere, you could have been on-topic and gotten first post to boot. How cool would *that* be?
So if I got the facts wrong, I'm going to look like a real idiot now.
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When do we get to use this law against the trolls who disguise goatse and tubgirl links? :)
Help me. I've been modbombed by a few people with entirely too much time on their hands.
Well, hopefully he'll be able to redirect Bubba...
Who doesn't like free music?
mikerowesoft
It's about time the typosquatters are getting squeezed. I'm tired of getting shipped over to some obscure "search engine" site with 45 popups and popunders. (Thank the Maker for the popup blocker in the Googlebar!) However, I wonder how long it'll be until it goes over the end the other way - we've already seen the mikerowesoft.com story, and there's always whitehouse dot com (instead of whitehouse.gov).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
What's creepy about this is how people take offense to things that are not in and of themselves offensive, such as the word "niggardly".
How can you predict what someone will find offensive? And can you be fined for "offending" someone with content that you consider acceptable ?
anata sekai o kakumei surush ga nai deshou? Anata no susumu michi wa yoi shite arimasu.
NXDOMAIN. Check those URLs!
It's just shameful how many people abuse the internet... Re-directs, pop-up ads, spam, retina-searing flash ads, and so forth-- my non-techie neighbors can barely stand to be online... until I installed Firefox for them.
Mucho Gracias to the kind folks who wrote the main apps and extensions for Mozilla and the like... people don't surf the web or use email only to be bludgeoned with it. Moz and family puts users back in control!
I really didn't intend to make a blatant ad for Mozilla, was just recalling recent trauma from using IE 5 on an unpatched Win2K machine, and I was merely trying to find a happy place...
When does this law apply to SiteFinder?
I have absolutely no problem if those sites were adult sites. My issue with these dudes is that they are delibrately TRICKING kids into viewing the porn.
Kudos to the authorities for clamping down on this dude.
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Say Janet Jackson decides to put up "obscene" pictures of herself on her website. Now, if someone else were to put up a "misleading" (ie, different way of writing Janet Jackson) and post the same pictures, would they be in violation of the law? I can see them at worst being in strongly violation of copyright law. Would having one porn site's mistyped address go to another porn site qualify?
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
You have no idea how many times I try to type in hotmail.com and my fingers slip and hotmom.com comes out. Or even worse when I try to visit whitehouse.gov and mis-spell it as goatse.cx.
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I think that this is a good thing, IMHO. When this law was first written, everyone on slashdot was against it, but when you think about it, this makes perfect sense. The feds can arrest you if you break a law related to your domain name, and in addition charge you with falsifying the domain name records. On the other hand, there are numerous privacy issues with making this info public, but in the end I guess it all evens out, I've gotten tons of spam with my domain name since I've registered it (both email and snail mail), but at the same time, good spam filtering and using the snail mail spam for firewood fuel is about all it amounts to. I don't think the feds would really care that much if you left a bad email address though. In the end, this is just another charge the DA can bring against you to make a really sound case.
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
When my sisters kids come over and we go on to the net to look for Barbie's and the like; the amount of times something a little 9 year old shouldnt be seing is incredible. Thanks goodness someone is looking to combat this problem. Although I do question whether going to jail is in order. Making them take down the website and if the then keep re-affending THEN slap them with some jail time.
The other day, a friend and I were using google to try and locate sites that had a demo of simant (actually, we were hoping for a free download, but that didn't happen). Using the terms "+simant+download", I was rather dismayed to see that the vast majority of results were PORN sites that used the term simant in their keywords. I'm all for freedom of the internet, but if you can't be responsible enough to be honest about what your site contains, you really don't deserve the freedom. What I saw was just plain pathetic, and I don't think I'd be against a law that forbid this kind of misleading characterization of content.
"Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT) of 2003"
And the PATRIOT act as well...
Do they have some software that generates acronyms that also happen to be (seemingly) appropriate words??
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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From the article: "Zuccarini admitted in court documents that one reason he preyed on websites popular among children was ''because children are more likely than adults to make spelling errors and to mis-type website addresses,'' prosecutors said.
If he had made the statement that he misspelled the domain names to attract adults, thats one thing, but in his case intention is everything. He should of received 30 years.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
There is this one site called www.hornyteens.com , and after very careful research, I think some of those girls are actually probably in their early twenties, or late twenties. I want my money back.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I tell ya, recently I have become very pissed about domains in general. The OSS project I run, had .org .com and .net when we started. (This is when domains cost $79 each).
.com domain expired. Nobody is sure how it slipped up. Needless to say, some jerkoff company bought the domain up. The price started at $300 and now its close to $2000. Becuase of how many people go to the site on a daily basis.
6 months ago, the
Here is where it gets worse, the name of the project is a registered trademark. We tried to use that, and they won't budge. We don't have the money to go after them legally for the rights to the domain.
So maybe this rant isn't totally on topic, it just pisses me off to see they are making laws against typos, and won't deal with those blatenly stealing trademark names.
Surely the porn magnet wishes to avoid kids seeing porn? After all, it's 1) Bad publicity, 2) Not productive (kids don't pay) and 3) Likely to involve the wrath of the Federal Government.
Unless they're doing some sort of "Hook-em now" scheme like the cigarette companies are accused of doing.
Dr Reducto wrote: But i would do a coupl years in prison if I recieved a couple million dollars, as long as I got to keep it when i got out.
Great idea! After all, what could possibly happen to you in prison? By the way, can we start calling you Dr Rectum already?
National Fruit Products in Winchester, Virginia (hometown of my Virginia office) is talking about buying the whitehouse.com domain name.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
"And can you be fined for "offending" someone with content that you consider acceptable ?"
Probably, thanks to things like Community Standards. Sadly, we seem to live in a world of hyper-sensitive crybabies and professional victims.
goddam it's still available!
My mom has a German Shepherd that learns faster than this for godssakes.
What's creepy about this is how people take offense to things that are not in and of themselves offensive, such as the word "niggardly".
You have a fair point about the stupid dismissal of someone for using the word "niggardly", which etymologically has no relationship whatsoever with the word "nigger". However, I don't think I'd be too controversial in suggesting that those people who have used the word "nigger" in the workplace have, historically, got off too lightly.
Sure, the "niggardly" case was stupid. But it doesn't make right all of those situations where black people have had to endure workplace abuse which included the word "nigger". Is Rosa Parks a modern-day heroine because she confronted the niggardly behaviour of the driver? Or because she confronted the fact that the driver regarded her, first and foremost, as a nigger?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
That's no deterrent... Make a million, someone tells you to stop. You still have the million. Where's the deterrance?
On the other hand, most people don't want to go to prison. Prison is bad. It scares people who aren't already criminals. What are you going to answer on the next job interview about what you were doing the past two years? "Oh, I was in prison because of a stupid federal law. And I learnt all about the bizzare kinds of sex that I was redirecting people to first-hand." Or first-arse. Whatever.
Yes, they do.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
This doesn't make sense, last time I heard, kids don't carry credit cards. What's the point of redirecting kids to porn sites if they can't pay? How did he get the $1 million? I never thought you can make this much by "click" advertising.
No dude. This is the internet era. No one must ever pay for porn again
Now, will you excuse me while I register a domain www.attention-this-site-may-contain-explicit- pictures-or-descriptions-of-or-advocate-one- or-more-of-the-most-sinful-deviations-violating- every-law-known-to-man-and-god.com No jail time for me I guess...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
They sit on their asses thinking up words that fit pre-defined words all day! There's a big difference!
</obgovworkerjoke>
'nuff said...
You decide.
a y.comr lsinlove.coms tiegirls.como mt neyspears.com
teenpanties.com
younggirls.com
chocolatehighw
teabagging.com
reversecowgirl.com
teengi
littleflirt.com
assriding.com
bea
girlsongirls.com
pussy.com
dick.c
hotmail.com
girlsalone.com
tunataco.com
bri
I have no idea if these domains exist much less the content available. Please do not complain about the abundance or lack of porn.
Been there done that. There is no money worth staying in prison for. I know guys who defrauded banks for millions who would have turned the other way if it meant saving their families the embarrassment, and hardships they'd suffered by being locked up. So you mean to tell me you would put a price on your wife and kids, family, dignity? If so, then you my friend will be a lonely sad person in the future. "making you a bitch" is reserved for prisons, not white collar places, you'd have to be in a USP for something like that to happen. Club Fed as we called it is Camp Cupcake, think of a college with no chicks, and no gates (for the camps), for the lows, same shit. Medium - High you'd run into things here and there, but what your thinking of via conditioning you've seen or read about is limited to high security prisons, and state prisons. Club Fed is as they call it Club Fed.
MoFscker
A lot of things we silly humans do is motivated by money...so take away any motivation!
Make it two million.
Oh sure... Someone could argue that partybeef.com could be typed in by a 6 year old looking for snacks for her friends, (not a real site, so use your imagination...) Next thing you know the site operator ends up as a piece of party beef in a federal prison because someone decided it was obviously misleading.
What is obvious to me is that the next step will involve going after anyone who puts objectionable material on the net without it being clearly labeled, registered, and hidden behind a credit card required brown paper wrapper page.
And what about unintentionally misleading Google results? When will they hold us liable for that? This one actually disturbs me a little.
I'm not sure about this law specifically, but the government can usually seize illegally gained funds for this very reason. Otherwise, people would do illegal things to make millions, go to jail, then enjoy life. So it is highly likely they'll take what he made on this scam.
"Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT) of 2003"
Doesn't that spell PROTECTA?
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
I think Hotmail.com should be prosecuted for diverting traffic off of Hotmale.com. Some kids expecting gay pr0n might be offended by the usual "Enlarge your penis".
That's just really gross. Really, if I was a porn site provider and some guy was redirecting to my site through kiddie bits, I wouldn't be very happy. Primarily because they're taking my money and just throwing it all over the place.
Beyond even the issue of being a scum bag with arguably scummy people, using sites popular with children with a method that drags in more kids than adults. I think this makes him the kingof the scumbags.
There was a story not too long ago about the domain being up for sale. Apparently the owner has become a father, and is trying to become "respectable" for his kid. White House Apple Juice has been after the domain for years and is probably going to buy it.
What were you expecting when you went to http://noon58.org
Probably not a big "YES".
You are either the gaotse guy or you know way too much about the goatse guy... either way, I need a shower ;)
Could I go to jail for this blasphemy www.mirco-soft.ca
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
But I'm sure it's not what he had in mind =]
Yeah but then you'd also have PATRIOTA as well. :-/
Too latino-sounding
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I wonder if www.whitehouse.com is considered misleading. I'm sure many people have been tricked (including myself). I must say however that www.whitehouse.com is much more interesting and informative than www.whitehouse.gov.
It seems a bit harsh for someone to be sent to jail for capitalising on common mistakes.I'm not quite sure that this man deserves jail time for this SNAFU, maybe just tarring and feathering.
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Dear god! That's just about the coolest thing I have ever seen. I'm trying to find a name that doesn't result in a good acronym, and I can't!
Looks like I better cease and desist with my habit of "Goatse-ing" friends for a laugh with a java redirect! Will have to think of some novel ways to give that virtual slap when required... It'll be hard! Nothing says "get a clue, dude" like a creative Goatse-ing!
Really, I don't. I really could care less that he was tricking children. Sex is a fact of life. Hell, anything is, we only set ourselves up to get offended-- I was never offended much by things as a child-- I think it's really blown out of proportion.
I don't think goatse would disturb me any more if I was a young kid. I really can't see why those subjective "sex-is-bad" ideas come from, besides society and religion. I only hear vague "kids aren't ready" bullshit.
HOWEVER, he is cybersquatting, that is, playing off popular website typos to send people to his crap. That's like the mikerowesoft.com case-- although on an even worse level.
I don't care that children saw Janet Jackson's boob on TV (GASP TEH END OF DA WORLD!!!!11) and I don't care if they accidently see "DORM SEX". It didn't disturb or pervert me, and I see no scientific evidence to suggest it'll do the same for kids.
Let's keep our personal morality out of it (this creates problems. FCC guidelines, for example, require "community standards of decency". Oh joy, isn't that just a nice, fine, "freedom-of-expression" friendly phrase?) and focus on the real issue, which is cybersquatting.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
After that comes PROTECTAGA
Prison time is the perfect punishment for this guy. In prison, inmates who preyed on children are at the bottom of the "food chain". As soon as word gets out about what he's in for...well...let's just say he won't be lonely.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I, unlike most /. posters, can comment on prison based on experience. I have spent time there, as an inmate.
It's my firm belief that sending non-violent criminals to prison
does more harm than good.
There are many other ways to punish someone, besides sending them to prison : home confinement, community service, probation, fines, are all better options for a large percentage of offenders.
Prison should only be the punishment of last resort. It is far from a solution, and the notion that sending some people to
prison acts to prevent others from committing crimes is childishly naive, and doesn't stand up to statistical scrutiny.
Sending non-violent offenders to prison is only one more
in a long series of huge mistakes made by the US government.
Of course, this will not be news to intelligent, well-read people.
All you "law and order" types need to consider this : when someone is sent to prison, unless they die there or have a life sentence, they WILL eventually be released. And when they are,
the rest of society will very likely pay some sort of price for the damage this person has incurred while in prison. Thus, society is
screwing itself by sending non-violent offenders ( or offenders who don't present an actual danger to society ) to prison. Far better to keep these people OUT of prison and punish them in some other way. NOTE : I do believe that crimes *should* be punished, but the point is, it's possible to punish people without
permanently damaging them, that sending someone to prison is quite likely to result in permanent damage.
Any of you out there who haven't done time are not sufficiently informed to comment on the advisability of sending non-violent offenders to prison. You can of course write what you like, but keep in mind that your thoughts might have the same level of
validity as those of a man describing what pregnancy feels like.
Oh, and the invasion of Iraq was about preserving access to oil,
and the "anti-gay marriage" stance the current administration has embraced is an attempt to pander to the religious right
and gain votes.
Don't let YOUR government sucker you into accepting policies that end up screwing YOU.
Thanks, and good evening.
Porn is educational for children. And if they don't like it, maybe they will learn to type better.
Our culture is needlessly obsessed with idea that nudity and sex is our ultimate nemesis. The Greeks had no problem with this. I blame Christianity for encouraging weakness and stagnation.
It's up to the Internet to solve this problem.You're not going to stop kids going to porn sites by imprisoning people and any government regulation of the Internet is too much and legislation is a lazy society's sorry substitute for an evolutionary technical solution.
This is a sick person. He targeted children. Not only that, but if people can make a stink about Lindows because it sounds too much like windows and causes confusion in adults at computer stores, then how can they let this slide where he tricked children to watching porn? What the hell is this guys value system? Making 10 cents off each child he tricks to going to a porn site? Was the 10 cents worth it for him? I would like to hear what he has to say in prision, when he is forced to look at jail porn, live and first hand.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Most crimes do not have one and only one possible sentence. Generally, the court has leeway. The law perscribes maximum and sometimes minimum sentences for a given crime. This is so there is some additonal deterrence for repeat offenders. You do something once, you are likely to get a sentence quite a bit under the maximum. However if you are back in court for the third time on the same offence, they can hit you with a harder sentence.
goddamn I can't believe it's not butter!
Instead of "Dorm sex party" his website will have to say "Cell Block assrape festival." He's going to be passed around like a joint and won't be able to sit down for a week before they're done with him.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT)
I mean really. Who sits around all day thinking of names like this?
So are they going to send any CBS executives to jail for tricking millions of children into seeing a naked breast? This looks like one more example of "it's evil because it's the inter-web and we're scared of the inter-web."
What about taking pictures of children naked? Especially if you do it surrepticiously. You're not touching them... you're not giving or showing them anything! Gee that shouldn't be illegal at all!
You do not care that he tricked children and forced porn on them? Did you forget to take your medication? Seriously, you need help. Maybe you do not have children, and do not care.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Kiss a tit, it's an X. Hack it off with a sword, PG-13 --Jack Nicholson
So really at the end of the day this person has pocketed $1 million USD for 30 months jail. No wonder he pleded guilty. I would trade a short holiday to jail for that....!!!
-- b
i think corporate america is even more guilty of pushing their products down kids throats than this guy. corporate america doesn't even need to rely on mispelled words, just some clever marketing techniques.
i'm not sure what's worse, seeing some naked chicks - or convincing children to be mindless consumers to feed the bankrolls of greedy corporations.
America is becoming less & less "American" all the time.
The government is -not- your mom. They shouldn't be required to take these kinds of measures because some soccer mom saw her child get re-directed to some hot fisting action.
If there's any 'america' left in Americas geeks, some smart kid will capitalize on soccer mom paranoia; by writing an app which catalogs all these re-directs and makes sure that the user never sees the end result of that offensive URL. Then sell it for mucho coin. Yay for Free Enterprise and not Socialism!
Imates who preyed on children ARE looked down on, but
these inmates are also protected by prison authorities.
Any "normal" inmate who messes with one of these perverts
will immediately experience a drastic reduction in quality of life.
As in : they will be on the next bus to a much worse place.
That's right, your government actually protects child molesters
while they are in prison.
I've seen it with my own eyes, and no, I am not a child molester.
In places like bookstores, gas stations, video stores porn has to be in an area inaccessible to kids. If this is not the case then you can get fined and/or thrown in jail. I think this should be applied to how we handle letting kids access porn on the Internet. But I suppose that goes against my principals of the free Internet. I suppose it is getting less and less free everyday.
It's just bad business sense more than anything else. Who is the potential customer? How many people are heading to, say, slashdot or nytimes.com to read the news or such, make a typo, get one of these sites, and say "oh, this looks good! i think i'll get out my credit card and subscribe to this!"
Of course not! You're going to just close the window and try again to type in the site you wanted to go to in the first place.
If you wanted porn, it's easy enough to find yourself. Even if you were the type to pay for it, would you really go to the source with in-your-face pop-up advertising? Jeesh.
I wouldn't make it illegal, but I can't see ANY possible financial benefits for porn sites to justify this practice.
I was quite disappointed when ICANN did not set up a ".xxx" domain. The purveyors of smut in the past has gladly taken up the X or XXX rating so that customers could be sure of the quality of the product that they were getting. I am sure that the internet generation would be more than happy to do the same thing because the .xxx domain would tend to drive traffic to their sites.
Oh, well, another reason to get rid of ICANN.
Isn't theory a great place? Everything works in theory.
But . . . Rosa Parks is a nigger. Are you trying to pretend that she's a honky, or a chink, or a spick?
He was forcing parents to give their children proper instruction on typing and speling.
Yes. The organization behind it is the Federal Acronym Registration Team. That organization, ironically, goes by it's full name.
(With apologies to Jon Stewart...)
So why post uninformed comment?
Oh sure, they could enact something like this, but they're going to thave a hellva time proving actual intent to mislead. the lawers will be all over that point alone...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Getting drunk is for pussies. Go ahead and waste yourself, I'm hopped up on caffeine and my brain is loving it.
What's with this expert-worship in culture nowadays. Sheesh. As if it takes an expert to understand kids.
Sorry... but it had to be done.
I guess I can't support America's paranoia about its own sexuality.
Now watch them go after Whitehouse.com, which is a porno site.
Or Whitehouse.net, which is an anti-government site.
Or Whitehouse.org, the satire site run by Landover Baptist Church ("Unsaved Unwelcome, as Jesus Commanded").
Simply put, this law and the sentence are pure bullshit. The kind of people who support it are the same kind of people who got all worked up over Janet's Right Tit.
The first BIG problem with this law is the typical slippery slope thing. Here's just one example: What if someone is a really big proponent of gay marriage and instead of redirecting these typo-sites to porno, he redirects them to a bunch of gay marriage propaganda -- nothing pornographic at all, just stuff designed to convince adults and children alike that the "gay lifestyle" is OK. With recent events, it is clear that there are a LOT of people in America who consider homosexuality to be obscene. Should a guy like that get 3 years in the slammer?
The second big problem is this American attitude that sex is bad. First off - kids who haven't reached puberty don't care diddly about sex. Left to their own devices, pre-pubescent kids will take a look or two at porn, and then click on to something that they care about. It just doesn't mean anything to them. On the other hand, kids hitting puberty are going to seek out the porn all on their own. If anything, this scam will convince them that on the internet, porn costs money and maybe delay them from finding some of those free all-you-can-eat-and-then-some porn sources like alt.binaries.erotica.
All this law does is "protect" parents who were long ago indoctrinated with the sex-is-bad meme from feeling embarassed when they sit down with their kids at the computer and end up at one of the porn sites.
Don't take the above statements to mean that I condone what the guy did, but it is just a minor annoyance -- on the level of pop-up ads, nothing more. The saying about freedom not being free is directly applicable here - true freedom of expression means people using that right to express stuff that disgusts you in ways that disgust you but for the greater good of society we all put up with the disgusting stuff. If we didn't, then all we'd ever have is politically correct, but effectively lifeless expression in public.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Otherwise, you'd have stupidity such as ATM Machine.
So install Net Nanny, doofus. It's like 50 bucks.
But . . . Rosa Parks is a nigger. Are you trying to pretend that she's a honky, or a chink, or a spick?
Aahh, Slashdot. Who can divorce its American heritage from its Racist heritage? The genius born from one hundred thousand code monkeys, who have been brought up on a diet of intolerance, ignorance and contempt.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
This is the last place to look at when you've got a situation at hand - and it comes up as the first link when you google for "morning after pill". Shouldn't these guys be charged for seriously misleading people?
BTW, this site has all the correct information about this topic. In case you didn't know, Emmergency Contraception (EC) is a method of birth control when something bad happens, like your rubber breaking.
So much for the hardcore site. And to think I picked up VoteNader.US, VoteNader.INFO, and VoteNader.BIZ. It would have been kind of amusing to put a hardcore gay site on VoteNader.US, just to make the political statement that Nader is a fag...(in the context of the 2004 elections at least).
The Slashdot crowd have any bright ideas? Lampoon page, Bumper Stickers, etc...?
This guy doesn't seem too bright to have ended up in jail over this.
He should claimed he was doing it as a social sciences research project to track mistyped names and the reactions bad typists have toward sex. And therefore the goverment is seeking to restrict his speech. (First Amendment)
Or made the arguement that the infomation againist him was obtained illegaly. (Fourth Amendment)
Or said nothing except and let his lawyer plant the seed of reasonable doubt. (Fifth Amendment)
The government can't tell people they can't purposely mispell names and much of Congress's pornogrphy law has struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court because it was overly broad.
Where was his counsel?
Why do we send non-violent criminals to prison to bunk with violent criminals?
I'm sorry, but if you believe that using force to commit crime is a good idea, I don't think you belong on the earth anymore. I certainly won't miss anyone who brings a gun into a store and threatens to kill someone if they don't hand them a wad of cash. I will feel a lot safer knowing that somewhere down the road, said criminal won't be getting out on "good behavior". In fact, said criminal won't even get a chance to execute his elaborate escape scheme.
Prison time is useful -- it's a way to send a message to people that no matter how much money you have, you only have so much time, and if you want to spend that time ruining other people's lives, you're going to pay with your time.
But when you threaten someone else's life, or take a life, you are going to pay with your life. It's that simple.
The jury knew the consequences of their decisions, and they weighed the facts and opinions and emotions better than anyone else could. In the end, they knew without a shadow of a doubt that the criminal was guilty, and they put him down for good. The jury will be held accountable in their own way, whether in their conscience or in the afterlife. But there is no more just way of trial than by jury or your peers.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
I think it is readily apparent to any sane, thoughtful person that our justice system in the US is broken.
We have too many ideologues on the bench, trying to legislate when they should merely consider the facts and the law.
The courts regularly overturn the constitution. Where in the world did they find the "right" for a woman to have an abortion? Did they totally ignore the 10th amendment?
Too many judges give lenient punishments. Some do it because they don't believe that punishment is the best thing to do. Others do it because they are afraid of being overturned by a higher court.
Too many criminals walk away scott-free. Take a look at this Joseph Smith character. He committed a crime he was already convicted of.
We should be impeaching a lot more judges than we do now. We should have a more powerful president who refuses to enforce unjust decisions. We shouldn't let the judicial branch make decisions for the executive branch or the legislative branch. There has to be a balance between the three.
Right now, judges issue executive orders. Judges write new law, or they order new laws to be written. They disobey current laws.
Our system is broken, and it needs to be fixed. Whatdoyabet that this marriage amendment gets passed, gets ratified, gets adopted, and they overturn it anyway? Heck, it's happened to the 10th and the 2nd, why not the 28th?
What recourse will the people have then, if we can't even amend the constitution to hold the courts in check?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
No ? - well then how the hell is it that you think its fine to leave an unfirewall-unwhitelisted account for your children to use when surfing the net ?.
Having a unfiltered/unfirewalled PC at home should be a criminal offence of the parents. Anyone who complains about Internet junk and their children is missing the point. The internet isn't some sort of big electronic library but an electronic analog of humanity. With it comes all the variety of life.
I just think anti-typosquatter laws are one of those laws that'll be used to catch parody sites like *insert politician here*sucks.com. He only made money because the referals paid on visits or click-throughs. Go for those that paid him the money.
Just out of (evil;) curiosity, what is the most physically damaging a sheer "visit to a website" can do? Can it reformat a harddisk? I understand a visit to some sites may lead to broken marriages etc, but that is not the point here. I'm thinking of hardware failures. Oh, no I'm not interested in how to do it, just what can be done.
Please mod parent up: +5, Funny!
It's not a felony to register domain names, it's a felony to use those domain names to mislead people into looking at porn.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yeah, porn isn't going to be to bad, but I would bet those kids would be pretty irritated by getting porno popups when they are trying to look at the Lizzy McGuire homepage or whatever. The important thing is that One of the Assholes fucking the internet for everyone got thrown in jail.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, I didn't read the article. But that's not even important. My opinions matter way more than me having to read some article on Slashdot.
Number one, the fact that somebody is registering domain names that are spell-alikes of real domains is questionable. The fact that they get linked to some porno site is sleazy. The part where he made a million dollars helps draw things into focus a bit, though. Before that I thought this guy was some sort of pedophile psycho. But apparently he's just trying to make a buck off the Internet, and who here hasn't tried that. There are plenty who have cyber-succeeded and not been sleazy, sure. But it's the Wild West, baby!
But does this particular sleazy incident warrant Congresional action? It seems to me like it's only a handful of people registering these URLs. Heck this guy must have done quite a few to net $1mil. (Maybe I'd know that if I read the article. Who cares.)
I'd like to know what sort of research Congress did before passing the PROTECT Act of 2003. Did they attempt to finger this dude? Apparently not or he surely would have been dragged before some committe, somewhere. Or did Congress hear horror stories of kids trying to find Pokemon on line only to find something that made them ask their parents uncomfortable questions.
Speaking of which, what the *fuck* are kids doing on the Internet in the first place? That is a dumb idea, it's neglectful for parents to let kids surf without watching over their shoulder. Of course the flip side to that is there should be some sort of decency standards, and without a doubt the Internet has been wrestling with that since, well, how long has alt.talk.abortion been around? For that matter I'm pretty sure I signed the "save goatse" petition.
Okay, I just read the article, it doesn't really answer any questions. I'd love to know what he had that got him the "one count of possessing child pornography."
You know what, this law sucks. This basically makes registering a domain name that might be mistaken for disney a federal crime. How about fuckdisney.com? Couldn't that fall under this umbrella? I thought that any company with half a brain would just register all the spell-alikes anyway; it's cheap and there's no way they'll get the wrong message then. This stinks like the 1998 NET Act, which made copyright infringement a federal crime too. What the fuck, Congress, is there no room for civil proceedings anymore? Let's just make everything a crime? Do you know how much money that is going to cost? We'll need a ton more federal lawyers, and prison space once you're done with the trials.
Criminalizing shady behavior is a slippery slope. It's perfectly legal to lie, in fact that right is pretty much guaranteed by the First Amendment. We should be working towards a society where issues like cybersquatting and redirecting kids to porn sites don't require contfrontational, litigational, Congressional intervention. We should be able to work this out without some bureaucrat deciding it's time we take heed of the power he wields.
The guy should have been aware of this law and just registered all these domain names from his villa in the Mediterranean, free of Uncle Sam's long arm. Aside from that, he probably deserves the 2.5 years he gets, even if the law he broke is totally for the benefit of Disney, Nickelodeon, and a few other exploitative corporation that prey on the young. They don't sell sex, but they pump a hell of a lot of sugar into the veins of young America. Why one is reprehensible and the other is condoned is anybody's guess.
I want the net to be an exiting place where someones clever hack can make you see "whatever". If you want a net where you can take your kids, then make a new dns or something.
I want the Internet to stay it's amoral tech-oriented self, if you want something else, then go somewhere else.
FRA: STFU GTFO
"What's this mindless yammering that says everything has to do with children?? Save the children! Help the children! You know what I say? Fuck the children ... I know what you're saying, 'Jesus, he's not going to attack children, is he??' YES HE IS!!! He's going to attack children."
Seriously, I might get modded down for this, but why do we put the little fuckers on a pedastle?
Do you really think that little Johnny seeing pics of people loving one another (even in strange ways) is really awful enough to put someone through the damaging experience that is prison.
Seriously, kids will just have to deal with shit like the human beings that they are.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Try "Pixley Boyle", together or separately.
I was rather disappointed in "Daryl" (which, of course, should be Digital Artificial Robotic Youth Lifeform).
Unfortunately if you give hime two he will reinvest until he has 4 etc. The only way of removing a motivating factor behind crime is remove the gain.
Young kids need a restricted subset of the net.
Not a troll, and certainly not a defence of domain-name scams, but something a number of people have apparently failed to grasp: a basic censor should be mandatory for young, kids, particularly where unsupervised. There's no way anything with "hot teen sex" in the page should be getting through to their browser in the first place.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
...taking pictures of children naked isn't a crime. Nudist/naturist vids end up having them all the time. Often not in secret (that's surreptitiously btw, if you want to be a quibbler), but I don't imagine they go around asking everyone around them for permission either. Or watch "Pretty Baby" or some other cinema movie, and you'll see Brooke Shields naked.
Then again, the US is the country that goes apeshit over seeing an adult woman's tit. I do realize that there is child porn - and yes, pictures can be child porn merely by showing children nude, if in a sexual position. But your post seems to imply that anything involving kids nude would be child porn. [Flamebait] Are you sure it's not your mind that makes that connection? [/Flamebait]
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
it looks for all the world like YOU are the troll, kir, user ID=583, with 210 total comments, 10% of them coming in the last month or so, including:
*Mon 23 Feb 10:08AM 0, Offtopic
Thu 19 Feb 11:50PM
Thu 19 Feb 09:40PM
Thu 19 Feb 09:32PM
*Tue 10 Feb 08:16AM 0, Troll
*Tue 10 Feb 05:43AM 0, Redundant
*Tue 10 Feb 03:47AM -1, Troll
*Tue 10 Feb 03:02AM 0, Flamebait
*Tue 10 Feb 02:41AM -1, Troll
didja hijack an account? what's up with that?
hmmmmmm..........
fred
Religous Right will vote for Bush or stay home.
36% of registered DEMOCRATS "strongly oppose" gay marriage.These people are largely Black and Hispanic
"working families".The Republican Party is intent on capturing these voters.
The issue isn't free-speech, it's deliberate misrepresentation and costs users money (forcing them to waste bandwidth downloading junk they don't want).
What if it was legal to register look-a-like names and phone numbers in telephone directories? Or in Yellow Pages? Navigating through 12 spelling variations to find the number for a pizza joint would just be annoying. Kinda like wading through the crap that appears in a Google search list. Maybe every web domain registration should include a description of what the site is FOR. It would be fraudulent to host a website that varied significantly from its stated purpose. Your free speech is preserved along with the public's right to avoid your free speech.
Is this sig nificant?
It's more intolerant/ignorant to deny us our right of association with whom we please. You can always also visit http://www.amren.com/colrcrim.html.
I hope these cute critters won't be affected...
Is there anything left that's actually LEGAL in your country?
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
The internet is full of dodgy stuff, you cant make it a safe haven for kids, period. So if your worrid about kids seeing something objectionable dont let them on the internet its simple. The 'digital learning revolution' is a myth, you dont need google to learn the alphabet or basic maths and if you want to show them something, download it first.
You cant go sending people to prision for this sort of thing its just stupid, next they'll be exicuting spammers and sending VB-script virus script-kiddies to camp X-ray. This guy was just trying to make a fast buck and if thats a crime then lets start thinking big *COUGH* ENRON *COUGH* there are hundereds of bigger basterds out there who have done far far worse and instead of rotting away behind bars end up being senators or presidents.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
However, there is a law blocking this. As long as the act is illegal he is held to that standard. Now I believe this should be struck down on 1st Amendment violation, but what do I know.
Everyday I'm more and more disappointed in the people of this country & world.
Amongst other things, the Internet is a capitalistic force. Along with that comes the responsibility of legitimate business practices, whether a site exists for the almighty buck or a not-for-profit infotainment, information, or other just-fund-me-enough-so-I-can-keep-this-site-runnin gg node. That means fraudulent behavior should be punished.
Whether it was intended or not, the domain name has become an advertisement. And just as if your local shop claimed one price or feature with goods or services, but offered you something different for the same goods and services, that organization would (and should) be punishable under various laws covering fraud.
...that the Ashcroft fellow, who registered the link from a poster texture in Rainbox Six (I think it was Rainbow Six...ah, all those tactical FPS are the same anyway) and put all those links to porn sites and what have you, can now totally get nailed by the company instead of them having to pay him for the domain like he's demanding? It might not benefit the game publisher directly, but couldn't they pull some stipulations out on this law and bring it to the attention of some people that could get him in some serious hot water?
Then again, that game probably is (or should be, I'd assume) rated mature, so I guess yougins' shouldn't be playing it anyway. Hmmm...
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
But, what do you guys find objectionable about Sponge Bob? Aside from his annoying laugh, that is. :)
Please. Kir, user ID=583, is mine. It has been since I created it in 95 or 96.
I am not a troll. This moderation system does not work. It has turned into a tool used by the vocal minority to censor people whom they do not agree with (the opposite is true as well). Go against the vocal minority and you get modded down (try it... say something positive about Bush). No replies... just neg mods. And believe me, it IS a vocal minority. Most folks here lurk, as do I.
So, that explains my 210 comments. I mostly lurk. When I do post, I get em all. Trolls, Insightfuls, but mostly ignored.
So piss off.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
He's a jerk for 2 reasons:
1) He's trying to point kids at porn. Just plain wrong.
2) If he an others keep this up, all internet porn will get banned. I like porn. I want it legal. I just don't want my kids to see it.
People playing in "grey" areas need to play nice if they want their "grey" area to stay "grey".
Well, a lot of Latinos are finding the word, "illegal aliens" offensive now, even compairing it to the N-word. This PC movement will just get worse.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Want proof? Check out dinseyland.com, one of the links in the article. The very first search result displayed is about porn!
Wow, I'm impressed...what a dent the feds have made in the pandering of porn to children. Where do I sign up for a job with those heroes?
What gives you that idea? "Of" is a preposition. "Have" is an auxiliary verb used to put "should" into the past tense. The two have nothing in common aside from the language in which they are spoken and that the contraction of "have" sounds a lot like "of."
If you still disagree, consult the American Heritage Dictionary:
Improper english is used very often in casual communications, but you'd better get it right in a formal context. If your company puts out a press release with "should of" in it, people everywhere will point and laugh and your company will be thought a bunch of bafoons.
Attempting to surf to those sites would
Are we still using the term surf. I thought that was so last century.
Classify this infraction in the "Preying on subordinates" file. What do I mean by this? Well, lots of things in this category offends us. For example, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky -- Americans were upset not because Bill committed adultery, but because he used a position of power to awe and influence a subordinate for his personal entertainment. Same reason why there can be no doctor-patient sexual relationship because the doctor is in a position of power. Same reason why there can be no teacher-student sexual relationship (even in college or otherwise) because the teacher is in a position of power. Same reason why there should be no hanky-panky in the workplace because inevitably the one individual could be in a position of power. The perp in this crime was in a position of power and preyed on helpless children. The issue of punishment is another matter, but there should be no confusion as to the merit of his crime.
Linux at home
A modest proposal: it should be just as illegal to make blatantly false false claims about a product in its NAME as anywhere else.
E.g. if you name your program "Easy CD Creator" and it isn't easy and doesn't create CDs, you can be prosecuted. If you call your TV station "Fox News" and then broadcast Republican party propaganda, you can be prosecuted.
Just a thought.
Let's also put Playboy and Penthouse's executives in jail. They're obviously using misleading domains to lure children (children looking for playmates and children living in penthouses) to porn sites.
didn't care to publish yours?
How about a law requiring simple, lucid titles for laws instead of a bunch of pointless verbage shoehorned into some Really Cool Sounding Acronym!!!
Call it the Policitally Overcharged Law Embellishments Suck My Orifice's Kebab Egestions Reform (POLESMOKER) Act or something.
Aah, where I come from, dirty middle aged white men masturbate over porn as opposed to silly titles for pieces of paper...
This is the most rediculous ruling EVER. There shouldn't be any legislation making the internet child approved. If these parents cant regulate where there children go, TOO BAD FOR THEM. The internet should never be regulated for content. And the idea of jail time for someone who registers a domain to point to ANY content, so that the parents dont have to watch thier children, Well, THATS CENSORSHIP?!?! It may be immoral, it may be unethical, but its also an erosion of your basic freedoms. Today its "obscenity", next week it will be "obscene" art. If you cant see this as the beginning of the end for freedom on the internet, your not paying attention.
It's not that.. it's just common courtesy is to not keyword-fix your site just to deceive people. There's nothing inherently wrong with animated GIFs, or Java applets, or keyword lists, or CSS, but they all have some abuse potential.
:-P
Most people who have been online for a while understand the dualism: the Internet is sort-of a dog-eat-dog place (just because of the anonymity and haphazardness), but at the same time, people generally try to help each other out, especially in social groups that cluster around certain things. When someone goes out of their way to be a nuisance, especially by using very specific keywords in ways that just disrupt the normal social and productivity flows... it isn't highly appreciated by everyone else.
And if I were sober, this post would be a little more down-to-earth...
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
It's happened to me too (and by the same group; WHOIS ipid.net). These days it's a little more difficult to lose a domain this way. Nearly all registrars will hold onto an expired domain for one month in the RedemptionPeriod status. This means the domain won't work - and you'll notice that you can't get to your site - but it gives you 30 days to figure this out and post a renewal before the domain becomes available on the open market.
If this didn't happen in your case, I'd suggest using a different registrar next time. DomainMonger has been good to me, and they do support the RedemptionPeriod. Of course, you have to visit your own site enough to realize that it's down, which in the case of ipid.net I didn't do, so I wound up losing that one anyway.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Then how could I possibly make it not misleading?! Oh, well... I hope jail isn't that bad...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
That's hilarious and overdue. Of course, what will they do about this site, which appears to be doing the exact opposite?
While your comment doesn't address the actual convict...the convict was redirecting people who typed in toy sites wrong to porn sites. I'd say he's not of high moral character.
Who is Half Handsome?
What pisses me off is that we have to 'protect our children' from all these sick motherfuckers that are the RESULT of the sexually repressed America of the early 1960s and before. Seriously, exposure isn't going to hurt anyone.
I used to look at porn when I was a kid, I'm not at all damaged by it. In fact, I like to think of myself as having MORE healthy sexual experiences with people my own age because of it. This generation is MUCH more fun in bed because we're more exposed to the things that we can do in the bedroom that previous generations had to hide away.
Earlier tonight I had a wonderful experience pleasing a woman in ways I'd never IMAGINE if it weren't for the stuff I'd seen online.
All you 'missionary-position' motherfuckers can go ride a jackhamer for all I care, porn is a beneficial force that will empoer people to have more fun in their sex lives (both alone and with others).
God bless pornography.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
dude you are the definition of a troll.
sample comment from you: "People. Never listen to anything relrelrel has to say. He is Illuminatus. Seriously... just look at his name. So symmetrical. And there's other signs too. His post has scored a five. A FIVE. The Illuminati favorite number (for the pentagram). And there is at least three number twos in this post. An obvious reference to the Illuminati duality."
and also this: "Do you not allow your users to browse the web (particularly with IE)?"
you say, "I mostly lurk. Go against the vocal minority and you get modded down"
user583, mebbe you could lurk more.......
We actually passed a law that says the content of a website has to match the domain name? Man, they snuck that one by me!
Sure, the guy in question was scum for misdirecting kids to a porn site, but this law doesn't seem like a good solution to me.
-Rich
Yeah yeah... sure.... take quotes from my previous posts out of context. That's fair.
I could do the same with you I'm sure, but I'm not going to waste my time.
I am not a troll. You simply do not agree with me.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
ICANN creates a .xxx domain, making porn much easier to filter. Anybody publishing explicit pictures not in the .xxx domain is convicted under existing laws against making pornography available to minors, and "honest" pornograpers still have most of their free speech rights intact. Unless somebody wants to argue that they have a right to target children...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
So I guess you must be a Pick'n'Mix Christian.
"I come not to change the Law, but to fulfill."
-Matthew 5:17
I hate goat linkers as much as the next person, but jail time for this kind of thing is Just Not Cool. Big fines, yes, but those could frankly be dealt with under current truth-in-advertising laws. We do not need new laws to specially single the Internet out for censorship.