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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.
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Well, hopefully he'll be able to redirect Bubba...
Who doesn't like free music?
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.
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.
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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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.
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.
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
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.
The deal he had with the porn sites had him getting paid for referrals. Not for referrals that actually sign on, but simply the number of referrals. So he was screwing over the people who were paying him, as well.
In fact, that's apparently why he targeted the kids. According to his admission, it wasn't that he had some thing about making kids see porn. It was that kids were more likely to make spelling errors, so they were more likely to come across his typosquatting websites; so if he targeted kids, his referral numbers would be higher.
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.
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.
You are either the gaotse guy or you know way too much about the goatse guy... either way, I need a shower ;)
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.
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!
Yeah, I remember seeing porn at an early age as well. My granpa had a stack of playboys hidden in the garage. That was _some_ porn! Nekkid women, posing on a bed, or maybe outside! With no clothes on! Wow!
I discovered my 10 year old had been using my wife's laptop to look for porn when a couple of his neighborhood friends came over. Let me tell you, this was not your granpa's porn. No doubt, he was curious and found a couple of sites and within seconds was clicking links that carried him into brutal domination, shit and piss, fuck me with a crowbar land.
I think the difference is that the net makes it too easy to end up seeing sick, violent, degrading sexual images unintentionally. If you're an adult, and that's what your're into -- fine by me. When I was a kid, the only way I would have been able to get access to that kind of stuff would have been to get on a bus and go across town to where the sex shops and peep shows were.
I don't think seeing those images will scar him for life, but I'd rather he didn't see that kind of stuff until he was a bit older and better equiped to understand what that's all about.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Dammit... since you're the proprieter of the 'autopr0n' website, can I sue you for not providing me with vehicle-based pornography?
Not that I'm saying I'm the type of guy to get off on watching a cute Asian car get jump-started by two big black American limousines, nor enjoy in any way watching a car park full of BMWs do each other, or monster trucks or...... ahem... doesn't do it for me at all.
No, I spend all my time perusing goatse like a good Slashdotter, but if I was that way inclined, then I'd feel pretty damn cheated that I wasn't getting hot European cars, or whatever.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
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?
The the greatest genius of the framers of the Constitution is that they founded our country upon powerful general principles of freedom and equality. In many cases they themselves were not ready to face the full implications of those principles, yet in a truly subversive act, they gave those principles the ultimate power of law.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, although clearly recognizing the evil of slavery, was unable to give up his own slaves. Yet he helped to found our country general principles that would ultimately make slavery untenable.
These powerful principles were like time bombs in our Constitution, and it was left to the logicians of our society--the judges--to work out the full implications of those principles. It has taken over two hundred years to do so, and we are not done yet.
There is a danger that we will turn away from those deep principles. There have been attempts in the past, such as the effort to amend the Constitution to make burning the flag an exception to the protection of free speech. We are seeing this again, with the effort to amend the Constitution to prohibit states from allowing gay marriage.
If we ever do start to amend the Constitution so as to limit people's rights instead of expanding them, I believe that our nation will have turned a corner from which there is no returning, and will have begun a repudiation of those principles of freedom and equality which our founders fought so hard to establish.
But we've approached that brink and turned back before. I can only hope that we will continue to do so.