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Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?
Tha_Big_Guy23 asks: "According to this article, a man who created a website for his local Sheriff's department is being charged with extortion. This was caused by taking down the website after repeated attempts to get compensation from the county to cover the bandwidth costs. As a result, all his personal computer property, and company computer property was seized and he was jailed."
"After being jailed he was charged with extortion, larceny by conversion, using a computer to commit a crime, and obstruction of justice. This website explains in more detail the circumstances surrounding the situation. Has anyone on Slashdot ever had an experience where a client was unwilling to compensate you for either your work, and/or the resources required to do your work?"
While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.
While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.
I could see something getting out of hand with just verbal communications, misunderstandings, etc.
Anyone providing or buying services ought to insist on a written contract that both parties sign. Then, there's no question of consequences if someone doesn't pay within 30 days, etc.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
My knee was jerking furiously until I read your excellent post. I can rest easy now knowing that there's two sides to this story and we have another sensationalized /. article.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
3.5 million hits per month
"hits" is such a crappy way to measure bandwidth. Depending on how the site is built and which web traffic monitoring tool you use, a single unique visit to a site can result in hundreds of hits. My shitty site gets in the order of 50-70k hits a month and I know its only my mom.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
They do to receive email.. when you have a domain change... this also changes the domain for the email.
Read the article and then tell me that anyone in their right mind would defend this web designer.
First off, there was no contract.
Second, he told them that he'd discuss pay at a later date since they were to busy to handle it to begin with. If I donated 2 years of my time, I'd sure as hell want compensation.
He did what any normal person would do: shut off their service since they didn't pay. In fact, he did one up on what most would do. They didn't pay for TWO YEARS and he let them go on that long. Try not paying YOUR hosting bill and see what it gets you. A shutdown site, that's what.
How the hell is this extortion? Not even REMOTELY. People are stupid. They don't realize it takes time and money, not to mention VALUE of what he had turned the site into.
Granted he didn't have a contract, but both parties are at fault. You can't NOT have a contract then call "extortion" and throw him in jail. Sorry, that's not how it works.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
First of all, $300,000 is extravagant by any standards. He should have charged his actual costs, after all, he did agree to do the site in exchange for publicity. Thus, the designer should have asked to have the county pay the real cost. I simply cannot imagine the ISP involved was charging that much.
Secondly, the designer should have never shut the site down without sending the county properly served due notice. In other words, registered or certified mails, preferably coming from an attorney.
Finally, the designer should have sued the county, and then through the litigation a settlement would have been obtained -- most likely through binding arbitration.
But, at the same time, to settle a civil disagreement through criminal prosecution seems to be abuse of power at most naked.
Both of the parties should be spanked by their Mamas.
It does appear the webmaster is a scumbag, and probably had evil intentions from the getgo. However, the sheriff's office made an oral agreement, no written contract, with this person.
The evil webmaster then said, after 3 years and however many hits later, I need some cash. Pay me a lot of money or I'll shut it off to cut my costs.
Sheriff replies "Screw You!" and throws him in jail.
This is a Civil Issue, not a bullshit criminal case.
Don't be a zoa (zealous overbearing ass), be happy!
Odd. I would say that it is proof positive that you should not, in any circumstances, commit a crime against an entire police department.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
The article lists www.macombsheriff.com as the offending web site.
.com TLD? Was it a commercial web site? I'm sick of .gov and .mil sites using .com because it's k00l3r. These sites should use the proper TLD, and of course it should be impossible for a _person_ to own these domains.
.org because he felt like supporting Verisign, what with all of their sitefinder-related legal fees.
Which begs the question: Why does it have a
Of course, when I rule the world there will be different TLDs for individuals, companies, military, government, and nonprofits - and a commercial site would never be able to even claim an individual's web site is infringing (or whatever) since they will live in different namespaces.
Ironically, the alleged extortionist's domain is justice4pat.com, seeming to suggest that this is a business venture for him.
Or maybe he just decided not to use
The response of the Sheriff's Dept. is clearly overblown, but this guy was clearly not operating on the level.
To be honest, I wouldn't want to do business with either party.
A homepage is certainly not needed in order to recieve e-mail, but for giving contact information to the public it is very useful.
Heh, I laughed at that too. But later in the article, I realized that the web-designer guy actually owns the domain. So he would be in a position to totally shutdown their email.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
I read both articles, and they contratict each other.. The news article says he demanded $300,000... The other site says that he didn't want that money back. Who do we believe?
I haven't read a single comment that is at the heart of this issue. The reason the Sheriffs department considers it extortion, is because they claim they own the content.
Demanding money to give a person something that he/she owns IS extortion. But does the Sheriffs department own the content, or does the hoster (since he was hosting it for free).
It should probably have been a civil case first to resolve the IP. The owner of the IP would then have had firm legal ground for whatever action they wanted.
But I don't agree with slapping him with a criminal suit right off the bat.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
The guy couldn't jail county officials or seize their property. This is a perfect example of why we need lawyers and huge damage awards, contrary to businesses and Republicans would have you believe.
- If you do decide your work is worth something then don't jump from free to $300,000
You shouldn't offer things for free if you really want to profit. All you'll do is make yourself miserable at best. If you're really stupid you might even lose touch with reality and demand $300,000. Did he really expect them to pay? Unbelievable...
"Never tell me the odds"
$100 a month buys you exactly how much total bandwidth? What kind of speeds do you get? Is that for a dedicated bundled T3's? Of course not.. BTW- The customer list is, well, lacking..
/. have no idea what it takes to run a site.. I bet /. pays at least $100,000 in charges, would it be possible to have an Administrator of this site quote us what (S)HE pays for bandwidth?
Those rates are actually very resonable. It's obvious that most posters on
A dedicated T1 line, averages $400-600 a month, PLUS bandwidth charges. And only have 1 line is definitely not what you would call "redundant". What about his personal time invested? Oh I forgot, that ain't worth crap to the OSS society, right? Come on!
Really this is just a. A salesman at work and b. police using powers that only they have, for financial gain. Do you think YOU would have the power to do what they are doing? Guess we are all EQUAL though right?!
Mod +5 Drunk
I don't think we can settle anything about this case until we see documentation on this 300,000$. Either he's the stupidest web developer in the world, or he's a fraudster.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
IAAL. Oral contracts are just as enforceable as written ones. Of course, it's harder to establish what the terms of the contract were.
For two years, Pat attempted to negotiate a way to pay for the site. For two years, Pat worked without pay. For two years, RunningWolf was not compensated for its server space or its bandwidth costs. For two years Pat spent $300,000 of his own money to host and maintain the site, never asking for nor receiving a profit.
Pat did not ask for payment of any of that investment, but simply explained to the county he could no longer afford to host and maintain the site for free. For 2 years the sheriff refused to negotiate a way to continue paying for the site.
Considering that it is undisputed that this guy donated nearly 3 years of his time to this county before asking for anything, I find it much more likely that his side of the story is more accurate. You don't see greedy/selfish people work selflessly for 3 years with no return on investment.
You do however, see greedy/selfish people willingly leach off of generous people for years, and then sue or otherwise take legal action when those generous people stop.
You seem to be very ready to believe that a guy would be willing to work for you pro bono for 3 years, then suddenly turn and try to extort you by withholding his free service? How am I the one with the tin-foil hat? I have more faith in people than that.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
Not only that, but a web page is a great way to receive email from the public. If you set up a basic form with cgi/php/whathaveyou to accept the email, you can hide your email address from all the spam crawlers out there that scour the web for any email address they can find.
To all of you posters claiming he should have had a contract, I say why... he offered to run the site for free, a site the HE OWNS and worked on. Was he supposed to contract with himself ? Or maybe a contract that states that he would work for free until such time as he didn't want to any longer ?
I don't get it ? Is there really any legal reason he can't pull down HIS OWN website ? If he approaches the Sheriff and suggests that he need money for bandwidth or he's turning HIS WEBSITE off, how is that extorting ?
All you William Hung fansites take note... don't take them down or else !
An arrest, possible prison sentence, confiscation of equipment... if anyone doesn't see this as a small-town Sheriff abusing their position they are missing the point.
It's not illegal to ask for money to support YOUR website...
Wouldn't that make Slashdot guilty of extorting money by withholding stories from non-subscribers ?
Nuts...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
not entirely correct. he *offered* to create and run the site as a free service years ago, in exchange for the publicity it would bring him. the sherriff's office agreed. 3 years later, the web site is on all the police cars & letterhead, is used for email and has become an integral part of the department.
Now, he's *backcharging* the department $300,000 for work he originally agreed to do for free. That number does not appear to be solely bandwidth costs, but seems to include other new and surprising charges. The department didn't go for the "altered bargain" right away, and rather than the obvious expedient of simply turning over the site contents/domain to them to maintain on their own bandwidth, he pulled the plug as a bargaining tactic.
so lets see:
sounds slimy to say the least. it's generally a bad idea to play evil hardball with attorneys general, because it really doesn't cost them anything to fight back.
There are probably many scenarios by which this is not so far fetched as you believe - the most reasonable seems to be that the guy honestly thought that creating and maintaining the website for free would increase publicity for his other site(s), that it might lead to other more profitable career opportunites, establish his prowess as a web developer, etc. and that he realized at some point that it was NOT going to do these things for him and he needed a new plan - if you look at it in that way, he was never performing a selfless, generous act.
Even if you still don't agree with the above, there really is no explanation I can think of of why it would cost 300k to maintain a website for 3 years.
What he did wasn't criminal. The proper venue for this disagreement is civil court.
I really can't see how this can possibly be criminal extortion. Findlaw defines extortion as requiring the use of violence, damage to reputation, vandalism, or unfavourable government action.
The proper owner of the website was the web designer. He said "Pay me, or I take it down", they didn't pay, he took it down. Since the website was his to take down or not, I don't see any element of extortion that can apply.
....at least not by the web designer. The Sherrif's dept. might not be so lucky.
Pierre
And because he mentioned that he needed to be paid to keep it open, that's extortion.
No, he agreed to host it for free. Then, as soon as it became popular (and the cops came to rely on it), he started saying that he will shut it down unless they pay him an obscene amount of money. If he offered a reasonable price or offered to hand over the website to the department, he would be all right. That's not what he did, however.
Wait, please RTFA. He OFFERED to run the site for free initially, I quote:
Doesn't sound like he was getting screwed to me. Sounds like he pulled a turnaround when he asked the county for $300,000 all of a sudden.
I've actually been in a situation when we've had to shut someone's site down because they wouldn't pay. It took us more than 6 months to do it though, because we were professional and considerate, and it wasn't even a big site, just one of our small clients. But we had to do it after a while because he was just totally ignoring our bills and communications. He did eventually pay a reduced sum that we agreed to through negotiations. We then surrendered his domain gladly. But my point is, we gave him a long time and we tried really hard to communicate with him before shutting him down. It was the most drastic thing I've EVER done to a client, and I still feel a little weird about it.
This sounds different. Sounds like ye old bait and switch to me. And it doesn't really sound like they were out of communication--something I'm sure should have been worked out before the drastic step of shutting down their site happened. ESPECIALLY considering this guy offered to do it for free initially. You don't just shut down someone's site, especially not a high profile client like this. You just don't. There are other avenues way before that happens.
No foil hat needed.
How'd he get $300,000? Easy: aside from the hardware and software costs, there was unpaid labor. All that time he spent on this free site was time he could have spent on other work; so yes doing stuff for free was costing him money. As there was no contract the sheriffs office could have argued that he knew what he was getting into, but that's a question for civil court. However, by impounding his equipment, arresting him, and threatening 20 years in prison, they have committed a HUGE abuse of authority. I hope the responsible officials are a) fired b) sued into the ground and c) sent to a pound-me-in-the-ass prison for as long as they're trying to send this guy there.
The way the website offer should have started the process was by sending them a registered letter informing the sheriff that he no longer could afford to offer the county his services for free, and that as of a certain date he intends on terminating the service unless another agreement can be made.
He could then conclude the letter by informing them that he is willing to provide services to the county at less then his normal prices, and would be willing to consider a request for an extention of the deadline for a reasonable time if needed to ensure continuity.
Extortion charges are a bit extreme, but if he's trying to show his power over the site to the sheriff, he shouldn't overreach. He managed to get the sheriff to overreach as well, and while the charges will likely be overruled by a court, that isn't a fun thing to have to go through.
This case is a perfect illustration of the biggest problem with donating ones time or money; even when it appears to be a good cause. All too often, the recipient comes to rely on the gift and view it as an entitlement.
- scsg
They guy was frikkin arrested, his equipment impounded, and he's being threatened with 20 years in jail. For a dispute that should be settled in civil court. Is the guy snow white innocent in the whole affair? Probably not. Is the police department committing a huge abuse of authority? Hell yes!
Ugh. And in response to the old 'designer', the only way you'd be getting 3 million hits on some small town sherrif page is if you're posting 'The Strip Search of the Day" gallery. It just doesn't happen.
This is just another in a long line of public battles of idiots, rife with overreaction and failures to communicate.
Just like the internet and small town politics.
So the basic logic behind this is if you ever do something as a favor for the sheriff's department, you are obligated to do it forever, or be charged with four felonies if you stop doing it?
The statement about him being "privileged" to provide the website gives me the chills. So working for the state for free is a privilege now? That's just plain scary.
Don't try to rip off cops, MORON!
*laughs*
What was this fool thinking. And then the save pat website tries to make it appear as though all he asked for was them to pay for the bandwith.
There are definetally two extremely different sides to this story. Somehow, I sincerely doubt that the police are going to lie on a case they intentionally drew public attention to.
Regardless, I'm most certainly not going to donate money to help this persons legal fund - I find the statements made there to be very misleading and untrue.
The Sheriff's side seems to have quite a bit of supporting evidence. Most of which you can read on quotes in previous comments.
The "article" you're quoting is a Pat Richard fan site it looks like. Of COURSE they're going to be biased. I didn't say they were lying or wrong..just biased.
Is it factual, who knows. But you seem willing to believe him and not the police...because they're the police? Who's right? Do you personally know Pat Richard? Do you personally know the Sheriff involved? Then how are we to judge who is right and wrong given two conflicting views?
This matter will play out in court. Since you have faith in people, then you should have faith in the court system since it's run by people.
It's certainly an interesting case.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
An oral contract is enforcable, but this isn't a contract, since a contract must have payment or goods/services on both sides, and must have a term -- a start and end date. You can have a contract for eternity.
If you argue that the police were essentially selling advertising space, perhaps there was reciprocation.
But you can't find a term here. Hence, not a contract -- oral, written or otherwise.
Nope... he was operating on the "free drugs" model of business...
Give the county free services for three years, then hit them with the price and tell them that they can't live without him... that's not true, the county can take those three years of free service and give him nothing but a thank you, and then take their business elsewhere.
While the extortion charge is a bit extreme, he's lost all hope of doing business with any local government in the area ever again. He should know that local governments have to follow strict purchasing rules, and usually any contract worth $300,000 a year has to go out to bid.
His claim of ownership of the domain is a bit weak. He's not the Macomb Sheriff. The sheriff's office could very well create a trademark and then sue for posession of the domain name.
To suggest that a newspaper, or for that matter any "press" source should be considered unbiased is is patently... foolish.
I challenge you, or any other reader to name a truly unbiased source for this or for news in general! At best you'll find sources that listen to "both sides"... But remember, these media "balanced" news outlets choose who they will interview/cite to represent these sides. And that is BIAS my friends.
CNN - Biased
FOX - Biased
ABC - Biased
CBS - Biased
NBC - Biased
BBC - Biased
Times (london) - biased
NYTimes - Biased
WSJ - Biased
WashPost - Biased
WashTimes - Biased
SticksvilleDaily - Guess
You may prefer a particular bias. But there IS bias.
There are two sides to this story, of course, but let's presume that the defendant is innocent (since that's what we're supposed to do in the U.S.).
One could counter that the accused will have his day in court and be able to sort it out before a judge. True, but the accused has lost his time, legal expenses and reputation, not to mention his computer gear which the police are not required to return.I've heard of a DA charging a robber with kidnapping because he forced the homeowner (at gunpoint) to walk to another room in the house. That action technically fit the wording of the kidnapping law. The robber was convicted of robbery, but the kidnapping charge was modded -1 Stupid.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Couldn't the above story be considered entrapment on the part of the police since they seem to have never intended to pay but still require the results that incurred costs on his part? Obviously he'd eventually cut off the service since they weren't paying him.
Why don't you look at the website in archive.org? It looked like a piece of shit. Besides, even if he worked full-time on that POS for 3 years, $100K/year is not the going rate for a web designer.
Also, how the hell can you donate something and then ask for money back? What the guy did is regular extortion. Go read up on it sometime. 1) Full time + hardware/hosting costs. But it doesn't matter, because the number is irrelevant.
2) Did you not even read the other article? Did you not read the original reply in this thread? Did you read anything beyond the immediate parent post? He contends that he did not ask for his initial investment back. He simply asked that they pay going forward. So, regardless of how real or ridiculous the $300k figure is, if he didn't ask for it back, your point is irrelevant. Also, if I choose to provide you a service for free, and I tell you I'm going to stop providing you my volunteer work unless I get compensated, to call that extortion is ridiculous. It's my time, if I don't want to donate it unless I get paid, I don't have to. No one is forcing you to hire me.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
The man did it out of his own pocket and asked to be paid back. The Sherrif's weren't FORCED to become dependent on the web site; they CHOSE to use it and they CHOSE to allow Pat Richard to continue to pay out of his own pocket, despite repeated attempts to negotiate payment.
It's Pat Richard's property, and if the Sherrif's office wants control of it, they need to compensate the man for the time and money he spent on it. The "priviledge" of developing a web site for a Sherrif's office such as one that would arrest a man after abusing his resources for so long must be quite an honor!
Macomb County Sheriff's Office: FUCK YOU. Freeloading losers.
Personally, I'd trust a newspaper over blatant assertions by an activist site any day.
What exactly makes you think that they're any different?
The guy is in jail. Don't think for a second that a local paper is going to give him a fair shake. The local reporters need police goodwill to get the scoops from local cops. What the police do is an awfuly big part of local news.
Oh sure, and SO much different from what every bloody company tries to do with all their, especially internet, products.
Give me a break.
While we're being nitpicky.. It's 3.5 million HITS per month.. total users would be much lower than that
Gosh, everyone here seems to read the articles differently. I read it as he valued his services at $300k, and that included everything from hosting to site design, maintenance, info gathering, etc. That could very well be.
Now, when you go into negotiations you frequently state your side as strongly as possible, and I wouldn't be surprised if he came in saying, "Look, I put $300k into this, let's talk about paying me *something* to keep running this. Make me an offer."
But of course when you deal with the law enforcement authorities, things like this go with the territory. Ever try disagreeing with a cop?
But even if it was a complex, graphically intensive site, the bandwidth bill for such a site would be tiny. I host several similar sized sites on a 10 dollar a month shared hosting account without the slightest problem. In short, the idea of this level of traffic generating a $300,000 bandwidth bill is laughable.
Never piss off people who can legally carry guns.
Seriously though, let's look at the charges:
Extortion: How could Pat Richard extort anyone by shutting off his own server? Imagine loaning your car to someone, then deciding you cannot afford paying the gas, the insurance, and the up-keep. You give him an ultimatum, either buy the car or I'll take it back. Under what system of justice could you be charged with extortion under that scenario?!
Larceny by conversion: How could he convert his own property? Via this charge the Sheriff's Office is essentially admitting that the website was theirs, but on the other hand, they refuse to pay for it. They should not be able to have it both ways.
Using a computer to commit a crime: Turning off your own server is a crime?!
Obstruction of justice: See above.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
My guess is that his lawyer posted this article in order to "slashdot" the new domain - in a tactic to drive up their bandwidth costs to make the $300,000 seem a little more reasonable.
2advanced.net: Webhosting. Peace of mind
Is it just me or has the volume of posters who admit to not RTFA gone down lately? Perhaps the outrageous slant used to announce stories is having a salubrious effect...
Welcome to Slantdot!
They do appear to contradict about the money, but it doesn't really matter.
All that matters is who you believe owns the site.
If you believe the designer/operator owned the site then there is no extortion, regardless of what amount he asked for and when he asked for it. It was his to do with as he pleased.
If you believe the sheriff's department owned the site and the designer/operator threatened to keep the contents and the domain name unless he got money (regardless of how much or when he asked for it) then the extortion charges are approriate.
It doesn't matter if the guy is a jerk or not. It doesn't matter if he asked for a reasonable amount or not. All that matters is whether the site was his or theirs.
TW
So the police dept. unwisely used a free service. At this point - make contracts that guarantee that the site is up and useful.
Where it is nice to get things started on a shoestring, at some point SOMEONE should have thought "Hmmmm... We are spending real dollars here to advertise this site - we should spend the dollars now to make sure that we can have access to this site at all times"
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
The fault for this even being an issue falls squarely on the collective shoulders of the sherrif's department. First of all, friends are friends, and business is business. If it's important to your business (the area residents and to a lesser but entirely legitimate degree all of the residents of the USA being the customers) then you need to treat it like a business, and document things, sign contracts, and so on. A verbal contract is not worth the paper it's printed on.
The fact is that it doesn't seem that he's broken the law. The site belongs to him. The domain belongs to him (and that's the department's own fault, since he offered and they could have told him no.) How is he not within his legal rights?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He's an idiot for claiming that the website cost him $300k. That I will agree on.
But... there were two links. One said he did NOT demand back-payment and just wanted forward-payment for his site. That is perfectly legal and if they refuse that, then he has the right to close it. It sux and is shitty business practice, but it's legal.
If he DID demand back-payment for that rediculous amount of money, he deserves trouble. 50 years is excessive. Give him 3 months and keep his computers...
Ever been in jail? Two nights feels like a month... trust me, he'll have plenty of time to think about it in a few months.
I think everyone should spend a weekend wrongly imprisoned in jail... just for the perspective. I did it (not by choice) and many of my opinions about the justice system changed drastically.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Unless the sherrifs department had a contract that said otherwise, he can change his mind at any time. His demands are unreasonable, but it was a server *he* was paying for, site maintenance *he* was doing.
These charges are utter bullshit. So I do something for free for someone, I can't change my mind about continuing to do it for free?
First off, let's dispense with the "he said, she said" content here. My divorce lawyer once said to me: "There are three sides to every divorce: your side, her side and the truth!"
So, let's try to stick to the facts:
Fact #1. This guy built and hosted the web site and paid for the domain name. Last time I looked, it cost money for bandwith, so some one was paying something. The Sheriff's Dept. admits it wasn't them paying, so it must have been him. Bandwith for 3.5 million hits costs what? $1000.00/month? $5000.00/month? I don't know the exact amount, but this still is a tidy sum of money.
Next, someone paid for the computers to host this site, the rent for the place to house them, the electricity to run them, upgrading, maintenance, etc. Another fairly substantial cost.
Next, someone had to build the web site. It's likely quite slick to win all these awards, and took someone quite a bit of time, not to mention the cost of the computer programs used to create it.
Okay, no one disputes that the guy did all these things. Maybe in the beginning he DID offer to do them for free....
BUT.....(and this is a big but....)
A year ago, he went to the Sheriff's Dept. and told them he couldn't afford to do this for free any more. I'm sure that the bandwidth cost for millions of hits/month were getting pretty steep for him. I'm sure he had to provide mega large servers out of his pocket for hosting too. The Sheriff offered to help him by allowing him to sell ads on the site. It's fairly obvious that the Sheriff was getting MUCH MORE from this site then the guy was. I'm sure the site got much bigger then both of them ever expected it to... In any event, it's fairly obvious that the guy let the Sheriff know of his hardship at least a year before he actually pulled the plug. The Sheriff even admitted this when he allowed the guy the right to place ads on the site.
The way I see this is that it was unreasonable for the Sheriff to expect unlimited web hosting in perpetuity, especially where the costs of providing such hosting had obviously increased dramatically over when the offer was first made (of course, I'm assuming the web site didn't have 3 million + hits a month the first day it opened). There IS an implied contract here actually. That contract was to provide web hosting and email for a small county's Police Dept, NOT a mega site visited 3+ million times a month by people from over 60 countries. The fact that this guy offered his benevolence (and his money!)for as long as he did (in a major economic downturn no less!) should not be cause to put him in jail for extortion. The Sheriff should have known that the gravy train would eventually come to an end, and actually HAD a year's notice that it was fast approaching the station! This sheriff should be fired for several reasons. The first is stupidity. A high school student should have been able to see that this site was costing much more to run then one man can provide for free. Worse, the guy TOLD HIM it was a year BEFORE he pulled the plug! Second, is due to police brutality. There was NO criminal activity here! At best, this should have gone to a CIVIL court. Finally, for theft. The Sheriff had NO RIGHT to confiscate that computer equipment. By doing that (and jailing the guy), he likely put the guy out of business permanently. What a reward, huh? It's like giving the Sheriff a gun for his birthday and then having him shoot you with it!
With friends like that Sheriff, who needs enemies?
After all that Slashdoters say and do about how bad people are getting railroaded over simple little technical mishaps.. we get so many believing that this guy should go to jail??
IANAL, but I try to read Groklaw and so.. I think that if you are giving something away you can stop at any time. I run a mud at (www.mageslair.net cheap ad.. ) and if I wanted to I could stop it at anytime and those who are addicted (yep.. quite a few) could whine and complain but its MY mud and I only agreed to host it while I want to do so (going on 6 years).
This guy was spending lots of money and his advertising was not making up the difference. Its obvious it was a high quality website. Reading the Article(s) I get the impression he came and asked for money to continue the operation and the Sheriffs departnment said NO. 300k may be the monetary cost, but he had the right to CHANGE the deal at any time he wanted since there was no written contract (at least none stated). No contract is forever in perpetuity, there is reasonable costs associated to it as well.
So.. here is a guy who wants money to host a site and he may even ask for 1 million but he didnt.. and he is now in jail.
The Sheriff office made the decision to put the website addy on the car and the horse and buggy and the office pig. Why should he be held liable or CRIMINAL for stopping a service he was providing for free. The Sheriff office would obviously just STOP providing advertising for his company.. which of course they pretty much did not do anyways... and let the matter drop.
Police power gone rampant.
Support your local Police Department, Teach them that "Computers are your friend"
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I don't see why both can't be true.
What if the guy thinks to himself, after three years, "this is bull. I have worked on this site for three years and have yet to see any money from the publicity. I can't afford to float it along any more, and these guys keep making demands of me."
So he says to the Sheriffs, "Hey guys -- listen. I've lost about $300,000 of my own money running this site, and I'm going to need you to start paying for it. I'm turning it off, but I'll put it back on when you pay." The figure is an exageration (obviously). Maybe he's expecting a few hundred dollars a month.
And the Sheriffs hear this as, "Guys, I want $300,000 to bring your site back up." That IS extortion. And obviously, since it's not in the budget, they can't pay it. This is government -- you can't wipe your ass if it's not in the budget. That's why everything's budgeted so high.
So maybe the guy exagerates, and maybe the sherriffs hear the exagerated sum before the real one. Nobody thinks, because there's a lot of emotion.
Not saying that's what happened. Just saying that neither group has to necesarily be lying.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I've been reading ./ for years now, and I always thought that it was a BBS that was extremely popular because it linked to lots of news stories, which gave its members a constant stream of new topics to "discuss".
Slashdot is what happens after journalism.
A few comments: What the hell would over 3 million people a month (worldwide?) care about the macomb sheriffs department? I suspect some heavy stats tampering here.. I can't see them getting more than 50-100 hits per day, if that. The current macomb county sheriff's site has recieved around 20k hits since January.
I don't care how much bandwith or server space you think you have, you are ill advised to offer site hosting for free to anyone. If folks are really that cheap and need cost effective hosting they can pay $9 a month (see sig...). You won't have any trouble from them later on, and you probably won't end up in jail as a result. $9 is not a lot.
TallGreen CMS hosting
I think some of you relied solely on the poorly written and sheriff-friendly article at the Macomb Daily.
Why don't you see what a real newspaper like the Detroit Free Press has to say about the situation?
Mr. Richard did not ask for $300k. He only cclaimed that to be his previous investment. The only thing he asked for was help in the future.
He gave 12 months formal notice, and more than two years of informal notice, that he needed help financing HIS site. The sheriff refused to help. The site went down. Simple.
In the end, there are really only two ways this can all go:
;-)
1) If this person can prove that they had been trying to negotiate a payment plan with the Sherrif, and that these subsequent charges against him are because he then stopped supplying the service when no settlement could be reached, then he will have a great case; and will probably win more than he says it all cost him.
2) He will go to jail, and has lost all of his computer equipment forever, and may even be restricted as to their use when all said and done.
Personally, I find this all to be an over-abuse of police power.. at this point. IF it turns out that there was no 'demand' for money, only a 'request', then the extortion charge seems pretty steep. Most of the other charges are just being used as 'add-ons' to that main charge - this was what was used in the committing of that crime etc.. However, they ARE serious enough to adequately destroy someones life and livelihood.
Was it reeally called for in this case? Why would they particularly need to seize his equipment and personal effects? Taking these things really do nothing to solve the 'case'.. if anything at all, maybe they would have wanted to server so they cold pull evidence of access logs etc from it, but beyond that, siezing all of his computer and electronic equipment associated with it, is just strong arm tactics.. I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning due process and reasonable search and siezure rules.
Still, the press is not a good place for finding out the 'truth' about such things.. after all, if you where to believe the press, then the Macomb Sherriff's office has enough problems as it is anyway, what with the Old Sherriff Hackell who was brought up on charges for rape (I think it was), and now his son taking over.. who is the currect Sherriff probably involved in this.
Basically, there's more to this than meets the eye, but I still feel there is something wrong when peoples property gets taken without there even being 'good reason'.
But that's just me I guess.. and I'm a bit of a SykeOpath
Absence of evidence, is never evidence of absence..
It sounds like this dimbulb is just trying to get free work from you. Too bad ... if they need you that badly they should have worked harder to keep you. I'm sure you were just trying to be helpful, but I would never have admitted knowing that password or any others.
But this isn't the right forum for such questions. Slashdotters will be happy to give you plenty of advice, but I'd take it with large grains of salt. If some idiot in a suit is making threats, go talk to a good lawyer, answer his questions honestly, and then have him send them an attitude adjustment via certified mail, return receipt requested. In any event, before this pointy-haired-CEO does something stupid, like actually suing you, get some good advice from a good attorney. In this country at least, nobody knows their rights unless they talk to a lawyer first.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"and a large and vocal readership"
Do you really think that is true? I don't know how many slashdotters there are, but if we base it roughly off of id numbers, it's over 500,000. Even the most hotly debated articles rarely get more than 1000 comments. I think that most slashdotters don't post and don't read the comments at all. I think it's the same subset of people that post comments for each article. Maybe not the whole subset, but from the same pool.
I know a couple people where I work that read slashdot, but never click the read comments link.
Its called 'Pleonasm,' - using more words than are required to express an idea usually redundant, ie "at this moment in time"
Macomb, Kansas. Macomb, Kansas....Reminiscent of Holcomb, Kansas, and the Capote mass murder, will it get the same publicity? We'll see.
Baloney. The site belonged to Richard, he paid for it, and he had provided it free to the sheriff for three years. It even said on the site that it was owned by Richard's company, NOT the sheriff's department. Richard is perfectly free to do whatever he wants with it. He can ask anything he wants for the site (even a ridiculous $100,000/year) and the sheriff can either pay it or not. If he decided to charge for the site after three years in violation of a verbal agreement it is a civil matter, not a criminal matter. The OJ Simpson comment by the prosecuter is absurd - he is clearly incompetent if he believes there is a correlation.
Just because the sheriff was stupid enough to rely on a free site that he did not own does not mean that the developer (Richard) was a criminal. This seems to be an abuse of police power to me. It is clearly a civil case and not a criminal case. If a business in town went to the sheriff's office with a similar claim of extortion they would tell him to sue the guy and then show him the door. Just because the Macomb sheriff has arrest powers doesn not mean he should abuse them.
Incident #1: An aqcuaintance tells me the law firm she works for needs some computer help. I tell her my fee is x per hour, with reimbursement for one hour's travel and parking. She asks if that's OK, and they agree (verbally) I show up on time, and work steadily and quickly throughout the day - always at the request of an attorney - in other words, none of the work I did was of my own initiative. I tried to leave at three o'clock, but the attorneys kept "tugging at my sleeve" and asking me to do one last thing, so I left at 5:00. I send them a bill for everything, and hear nothing back. I call about six weeks later, and they send only 60% payment. When I ask why they said, "they've never gotten such a big bill for computer work before." But she leaves me with the impression that maybe they'll pay the rest down the road. I call this woman occasionally to collect the rest - she always sheepishly apologizes, says I'll get paid. I finally have to write a severe letter, return receipt required to get someone to call me back. One of the senior partners calls me, reiterating that same stupid argument. I tried to tell him that all of the work was driven by their requests, that I tried to leave but couldn't and that I charge less than most consultants do. All of this fell on deaf ears. He was willing to pay some of the remainder, so I took what he offered. I thought I learned how to handle this. I decided that whenever I did a job and didn't get paid right away, I'd have a person with financial authority sign off on a pro forma invoice. Incident #2 - I'm called to fix a computer in NYC that can't send Outlook emails. I get there, and play with the settings for a few minutes. I suspect a corrupted .pst file, so I use the Inbox Repair tool - it takes over an hour to run, and doesn't work. The person using the PC had to use it a couple of times and kick me off, so that burned up some time. Then, I hit upon the idea of making a new .pst file, but I didn't want to make any changes until I made a "safety copy" of the drive. Ghost took an usually long time, over an hour to copy the drive. Setting up the new file only took about 20 mins, including copying emails to the new one.
I create a pro forma invoice and have the office manager sign off. I kept the original. He was surprised at the high amount (Charged for three hours' work and only .5 hrs travel), but signed anyway.
So I sent an invoice as a PDF to their HQ. I also sent a copy of the signed pro forma.
*It still wasn't enough!* They told me they'd only pay part of the bill because they claimed I took too long to do the job! I told them why it did, and reminded them that someone who was financially responsible signed off, but those counter arguments failed! We finally settled on a reduced bill.
I'm not even sure of how I can protect myself from this kind of crap in the future. I guess even having an office manager approve a pro forma isn't good enough.
The only thing I can think of is to do a pro forma with everything in writing and have someone who's *really* responsible for check disbursement approve it.