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Siblings Guilty of Spam Felony, Partner Acquitted
saikou writes "According to AP Story (via SF Chronicle), brother and sister spammers just got convicted 'in the nation's first felony prosecution of distributors of spam,' while third suspect was acquitted. Jurors moved on to figuring out appropriate punishment (please, please, please give them some jail time. Pretty please). More spam cases for Virgina?"
I find it insane the amount of internet bandwidth that spam consumes. The harder we crack down on this sort of thing the less of a problem we will have. In sinapore a fellow got whipped with a cane a few times when he spray painted a car; I bet he won't be doing it again any time soon.
What ? Don't you think there are other crimes that deserve such a real punishment ? Spam is easily filtered with spamassassin and friends (I should know, it gets rid of thousands of spams daily for me), jail should be for murderers, rapers, corrupted politicians, etc.
Agreed --- until the courts demonstrate that they believe spam to be a serious offence, the spammers will not be deterred. And I'm afraid that passing down a custodial sentence is the only way that will be demonstrated.
Is the editor seriously advocating jail time for spamming? I'm all for punishment, but I think taking every piece of property and dime of wealth is going to make a much bigger impact than sending them to a place that fosters the criminal mentality rather than reforming it. Reserve jail for hardcore felons that perform a physically harmful crime to someone else.
I agree, for purely practical reasons... putting them in jail costs us money, whereas fining them costs them money, and helps us pay court costs for prosecution of more spammers.
While I sympathize with the cries of "Off with their heads", I don't think jail time is really appropriate in this case. I think we need to save our prisons for people who have done something Really Bad, not something Really Annoying.
The whole idea of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" has been beaten into our heads by politicians playing on our fears. So we automatically suggest spammers go to jail with other terrible offenders, like the guy who got caught with a baggie of wacky weed at a Grateful Dead cover band's show.
Make the punishment fit the crime. Big financial penalty, to make up for the bandwidth they wasted. I'd like to see direct reimbursement of the victims, but if you really sent the guy $39.95 for a stupid get-rich-quick scheme, maybe you're better off with the life lesson instead of the cash.
Or kill two birds with one stone(r). Punish the "criminal" potheads and the spammers at the same time. Send nonviolent drug-related parolees to the spammers' house on a regular (but unpredictable) schedule to hit them up for money for weed.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
On one hand, I see 9 years in jail for sending nuisance email as excessive punishment, but on the other, they were making money committing fraud.
Since, however, they were tried simply on sending spam and NOT fradulent sales, I find this very disturbing. If the law they were being tried on was sending junk mail, does the content of the mail actually matter under this law? Why would the judge allow that information to be even considered?
It's kind of like trying someone for stealing a car, and saying it's a worse crime because he had a crack rock in his pocket. Unless the law stipulated stronger punishment for having drugs in a stolen car, it should be left out of the case.
The parent poster was just being a bit zealous in regards to how he/she feels spammers should be treated.
In America, once you've been sentenced, it's over. It can be shorted but never lengenthed, unless you do something stupid like make a shiv out of a toothbrush and kill your cellmate.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Yes we need to crack down on online frauds, spam, worms, et al as much as the next guy but I really don't think that sending spam should carry (roughly) the same penalty as a rape conviction. Looking at these sentences our court is either saying "Sending spam is a horrific a crime as rape" or "Rape is no more worse than sending spam."
15 years is the sentence handed out in a rape & sexual battery conviction involving a minor. This doesn't sit right.According to the article "In one month alone, Jaynes received 10,000 credit card orders, each for $39.95". These are the people who need to be slapped. They are making spamming and scamming profitable. I'm sorry, but losing 40 bucks isn't enough punishment for this.
But why is the rum gone?
If you read the article, this really was a case about FRAUD. The sentences were handed down heavily because they defrauded people of almost $40k. Spam just happened to be the medium they chose to do it in.
I really doubt that, had these folks run a legit business and didn't defraud people, that they'd have gotten such heavy sentences..
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
I know this will be an unpopular opinion here, but frankly I think 9 years in jail is way too much for this.
What about theft? The total costs of spam are enormous, even without scams. Many, many millions of dollars per year.They suck up bandwidth and disk space, and waste millions of person-hours each year that could have bene used for something productive.
They steal bandwidth. They steal disk space. They steal our time, and time costs dearly. You can't replace it.
So until you can find a way to force them to pay restitution to everyone they've robbed, don't try to paint them as harmless.
Now add in scammers, pornographers, and all the other crap, and they deserve much, much worse than they're getting. What, you don't think porn matters? When it gets into my house, in front of me, or my wife, or my kids, it damn well matters. If you try to walk into my house and expose us to porn, you might very well leave in an ambulance if you aren't awfully quick on your feet.
How about another cliche?
In one month alone, Jaynes received 10,000 credit card orders, each for $39.95, for the processor.
In other words, stupid is as stupid does.
10,000 people fell for it. Isn't that rather depressing? Ok, we probably saw vote counts for the election and wondered how so many people could be so wrong, but 10,000 people trying to order something for $40 advertised in spam, that tells you this isn't exactly a nation of rocket scientists.
You can't seriously fight spam until people stop being so damn stupid.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
WHat jail does is put a punishment onto spam. When its merely money, its a gambling game- odds of being caught*money lost-(1-odds of being caught)*money made>0? If so spam.
Now put in jail time- the equation changes. People don't want to go to jail. Where simple fines don't act as a major deterrent, jailtime does. The amount of money to be made has to be very high for jail to be worth the risk. Would you risk jail for 10K? I wouldn't.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Rape is generally accepted as being a horrible crime - everyone knows it's horrible, and normal people just don't do it. Basically if someone is committing rape, it's a good indication that they're eithor mentally unstable or otherwise are not considering the results of their action. The difference between 15 years in prision and like 50 years for rape would be pretty minimal, and keeping it shorter allows for some chance of the criminal becoming a useful member of society at some point in the future.
Spamming is a non-violent but financially costly crime. Since it's never been a criminal act before, the people doing it don't have an innate feeling that they're doing something wrong - they don't understand that society is going to *put them in prision* if they're caught spamming.
The absolute best thing that could happen here would be for the judge to rule that the spammers get FIFTEEN YEARS IN PRISION (quietly, under breath: with possibility of parole in 6 months with good behaviour). That will give us a headline that will scare some of the other spammers, but will wreck the fewest people's lives.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Considering the crimes involved (not just spam but fraud), and that all the defendents made millions (and the property records prove it), it's damn sad that one got off completely and pne that was convicted got only 3 "fines" of $2500 each. She must be laughing here head off now.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Spammer's have made my life miserable, but I am not willing to let them force me off the net. I have my own domain, primarily for e-mail, I will not allow the spammer's to win. I have spam filtering, I use Spamcop for those that get past the filters, I have Sendmail setup to use block lists.
The net result, in 6 months, my e-mail server has blocked ~3000 to 4000 spams a day at the MTA level with blocklists. That doesn't account for the thousands that Bayesian filters and other filters take care of that don't get blocked by the MTA and block lists. That also doesn't account for the 50+ a day that still get through, which do get reported via Spamcop. With all of the filtering and blocking that I have setup my e-mail is still inundated. I should not have to, as it's been suggested, change my e-mail addresses, this is my identity on the net, that would be like asking me to change my name.
Spammer's are scum and should be treated as such.
I personally don't think the penalty was harsh enough. Lock them up and throw away the room.
Truly, I feel they should be barred from ever using a computer again for the rest of their lives.
Apparently, I'm the only one out of of these assholes around here that agrees with you.
I don't think crimes that (in this case, theoretically) cost people money should be nearly as harsh as they usually are. Someone kills someone and gets 30 years, but some shmuck steals 150K from the bank he works at and gets 60. It's not right.
Non-violent crimes shouldn't command such sentences. It's bullshit. Sure, I hate spam, and these people wasted a little bit of my time perhaps. But give me a break, 9 years?
It's easy for someone to say "LOCK THEM UP!!! LOL!!' But that's NINE YEARS of someone's life, because what, they MIGHT have sent you a spam message, that was probably filtered by your spam filter anyways?
Putting these people in jail won't stop any of your spam. And it also won't deter other spammers from spamming, it will simply make them hide behind more servers.
I say, fine them. Make them pay financially. Fine them $200,000, or some other value that will REALLY fuck them for a long time.
In a world where executives of companies steal millions and millions of dollars and get six months in jail, why should we put this guy away for nine years?
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Yes, I do believe they should be jailed for property crimes.
What is to deter them? Just like oil companies, they are fined a fee that doesn't equate to a penny on the dollar for what they are raking in. That isn't even a slap on the wrist and is not even a deterrant for doing the crime.
I hate to say it, yes even as a Texan, a few examples must be made. And while I do not believe in the death penalty, I believe that spammers and anyone that writes/promotes or profits in anyway whatsoever spyware/malware/adware should be shot. Any time you spend feeling the guilt towards those individuals will be spent cleaning up the messes they've made.
Who cares about "wrecking" a spammers life? Seriously???
Also, note that the spam wasn't just spam... it was fraudulent spam that conned a lot of people out of a lot of money. Any con artist gets sent to prison. Why should a con artist who uses spam to perpetrate his scam get off lightly?
These people are being punished for annoying AOHell. Ordinary con men don't get 9 year in prison. There's not enough room there for violent people as is. Con men come and go from jail, till they flunk the three time loser limit. With so many ordinary frauds walking the street you have to wonder what this case represents. This is more AOHell flexing it's muscles than it is public outrage and it's unlikely to protect ordinary citizens.
I got to learn a lot about ordinary con men when one defrauded my mother in law's business. He burned her, her suppliers and her customers with bogus charges and every other manner or fraud in the few months he worked there, including a few spiteful last minute things like putting a chain of paperclips into the fax machine. He almost put her out of business and cost lots of people much more than he pocketed himself. The bozo ended up in jail for some other fraud he'd been involved in, but never spent more than a few months in jail. He'd been doing that kind of thing all his life, but he always gets out of jail and moves on. You can't level fines on the loser because he never has any savings. It's disgusting, but the damage such people do is not great enough for there to be widespread public knowledge and outrage.
Nine years in prison is the kind of punishment doled out by a company with Time Warner money and influence. It's much like the RIAA file sharing cases, where the victim loses their life savings as a "settlement". Sure, those people don't deserve the fines and frauds do, but there are a lot of other frauds that have yet to be punished. I'd like to see fraud taken more seriously but when it comes time to build more jails, AOL controlled media will remind us how expensive that is and nothing will change. Ordinary fraud does not harm big business, in fact it helps reduce start ups and other competition, so it will not be fought seriously.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
9 years does seem like a long time. Remember the American that was publicly caned in Singapore in 1994.... perhaps that would be suitable for spammers :-)
On the other hand... arbitrarily guaging sentences such as this just for the fear and shock value it will inflict on other would-be spammers is a negligent policy decision. Any sentence issued by the court should be meant to be carried out in full. If there are mitigating circumstances, that's where suspended sentence and parole should come into play.
I'm no fan of spam, but do we really need a special statute to deal with it? The people in this article used spam as a means to commit fraud. They should be tried for fraud. I don't care whether the fraud was an elaborate confidence scheme committed by a team of clever matchstick men going door-to-door pretending to take donations for the LDS, or some shmoe sitting in his parents' basement playing evercrack with one hand while lazily sending off spam with the other.(There's some nasty imagery in there somewhere) Fraud == Fraud... plain and simple. Spam is about pissing me off by filling my inbox with crap every day. What have I lost, really, by experiencing the email version of what I do every day when I come home from work.... sorting through the pile of mail trying to see if there is -Anything- even worth opening.
If some shmuck sends me email with "fraudulent and untraceable routing information," is my liberty affronted? If so, why?... because I can't easily reply? Of course I'll grant that spam is annoying, but so are infomercials... and calls from political parties... and people who drive neon yellow sports cars. Should we next tack on some fines for fraud committed while driving an ugly sports car?
Why waste time litigating the relatively meaningless incidentals when our public servants could focus on the core criminal act, resolve the issue, and move on to the next case in a more timely fashion?
Spam costs the world many millions of dollars in lost time, wasted bandwidth, and paying for services to deal with it. On top of that, most spam is in some way fraudulent. Some of it (that this spammer was apparently guilty of) was porn sent to children's email accounts.
Perhaps each individual message isn't much of a problem in and of itself, but when taken in aggrigate, the millions of messages he sent cost thousands of bucks to business and individuals. Children were exposed to things that their parents didn't want them to see. People were conned out of money and who knows what their credit card numbers were used for!
Perhaps when you think of it like this, you will see the beach rather than the individual grains of sand and realize that this man, and his accomplices are CRIMINALS and that the outrage isn't that he got a lengthy sentence but that the other escaped with too light of a fine.
Perhaps that last part is conjecture on my part, I do not know as well as the court what her role was in this criminal enterprise. But I find myself wishing that they were prosicuted under the RICO act.
The primary purpose of moderation is to improve the reader's experience. Rewarding the poster is secondary and not all that important.
Let's not forget that Jeremy will probably be out on parole in a rather short time. Since his was not a violent crime, he's not likely to spend anything near the whole time in prison. Nor will he be in a hardcore, maximum security facility. His crime was not much different than whitecollar crime. And frankly, spam is a social problem. It causes quite a bit of financial loss and emotional stress to all sorts of people (the receipients of spam, helpdesk employees at ISPs, overworked sysadmins, etc). Some people's reputations have been damaged by spammers. It's not comparable to rape as a violent act, but it is comparable as being a form of violation. People don't like being taken advantage of in any context. I don't think it's an extreme punishment at all. Oh, and I worked for one of the ISPs that Jeremy was getting his bandwidth from not too long before he got nabbed. I've dealt with the complaints from his spam, and I've been on a conference call with him and other folks. He lied through his teeth in an appallingly blatant fashion on a variety of issues (including trying to claim that the spam compalints we got from Spamcop we're actually just his "competitors" trying to hurt his "multi-million dollar" business).
In the darkness of future past, The magician longs to see. One chants between two worlds, "Fire, walk with me!"
First off, there's no "MIGHT" about it. He's a spammer, I've seen the spam equipment he used with my own eyes, there was ample evidence to convict him and apparently he's never claimed to not have sent e-mail.
Secondly, committing a crime and getting caught has consequences. I'm stunned to see how soft-hearted many of the Slashdot folks here are. He's not going to be tortured, he's not going to be wallowing in the worst conditions and he sure as hell isn't going to end-up serving nine years. After one or two years he'll be paroled to make room for someone else.
Oh, and don't for a second doubt he's not a criminal. I also fielded complaints about software piracy. He had a website setup distributing "bonus" packages to people who ordered whatever crap he was (pretending) to sell. These bonus items were illegal copies of software such as DVD copying programs, Pop-Up Blocker, etc. We ended up yanking his service due to that little escapade...
In the darkness of future past, The magician longs to see. One chants between two worlds, "Fire, walk with me!"
Or to put it another way, we should let her sell her stock, which she knew was going to be worth less, to someone who didn't have the same knowledge and was therefore going to lose out on the deal.
It is?
In discussions like this, you have to start by establishing what the value/benefit of the prison system is. Is it to punish the criminals? Of course. But why?
Punishment in its own right won't undo many of the crimes that carry jail sentences. It's simply a sad fact that once a murder, rape, or other abuse has been committed, it's done, and nothing can change that. All you can do is try to prevent it happening again, by:
In the first case, you're talking about locking someone up for as long as it takes to mend their ways, potentially indefinitely. In the second, you're talking about providing a sufficient disincentive to prevent others feeling it's worth it to commit the crime.
In either respect, of course 9 years is far too long. These people aren't a danger to society; they're a pain in the arse. To encourage others not to be pains in the arse, a custodial sentence may be warranted, but throwing someone inside for 3-6 months should provide a sufficient kick up the backside for a first offence (on top of fining them 100% of the takings they made through the spamming, of course).
Something like 9 years is enough to destroy a life and make someone coming out turn to far darker things just to survive, which is not a productive use of the prison system from any point of view. Save long jail terms for the crimes so heinous that what we really want to do is lock someone up and throw away the key, where that scale of disincentive is required to inhibit further crimes by others, and keeping the perp off the streets for that long is necessary for public safety.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.