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First Arrest Made in U.S. For Spimming
prostoalex writes "U.S. federal authorities have conducted the first arrest for spimming. Eighteen-year-old Anthony Greco was arrested for sending spam to instant messenger users of MySpace.com." From the article: "Greco had allegedly threatened to share his methods for spamming members of the group if MySpace.com didn't sign an exclusive marketing deal that would have legitimized the messages he was sending via the service."
Yeah, that's the ticket! Blackmail a company into making what I'm doing legit! Since I know they won't do the legal way I'll force them into it using blackmail!
What logic! What stupidity! What a maroon!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I'm betting the CAN-SPAM violation was thrown in for good measure. From another article on this: Anthony Greco, 18, of Cheektowaga, N.Y., was charged with violating the CAN-SPAM Act, threatening to cause damage to computers with the intent to extort and causing damage to a protected computer. If convicted of all three offenses, Greco faces a maximum possible penalty of 18 years in federal prison.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
...and get's the shit kicked out of him regularly.
there is no excuse for this at all.
this is intentionally degrading other people's lives for you own greed. it is the (or my) definition of evil.
This sounds more like an arrest for extortion, not spimming...
I picture you writing, a la the old Bart Simpson blackboard gag, "IT'S A PROPERTY RIGHTS ISSUE, NOT A FREE SPEECH ISSUE."
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
For the millionth time, spamming is not, and has never been a free-speech issue. It is a property rights issue. Nobody's prevented this clown from saying what he wants to say, they've put him away for using other people's property without their permission.
Clear enough?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The first amendment gives you the right (in the US) to free speech. It does not give you the right to have an audience.
pick a reason:
1. this isn't "speech", it's blackmail
2. this isn't "speech", it's advertising
3. it's not about forcing him to stop, it's about not letting him force us to listen
4. free speech doesn't cover costs e.g. you can't steal other people's paper to print your opinions on
I think *YOU* are eroding the First Amendment by making it sound like anything you say is "speech" and should be covered, which is blatantly false and could lead some people to think the whole thing should be thrown out.
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Famously, Al Capone was nailed not for his violent crimes but for tax evasion. I wonder if this is similar: charge him with CAN-SPAM just to make sure you've got something to nail him on, and to increase the penalty even if you could nail him.
It also gives them an opportunity to test the law, to see if it's worth going after other spammers. If the courts decide to throw out the CAN-SPAM charge on the basis that the law is badly written, they've still got other crimes they can hit him on, so their time isn't wasted in this case, but they won't waste time on any other spammers unless they've got something else.
The other thing is that it's hard to prosecute pure spammers because they're so hard to find. Everybody criticized CAN-SPAM precisely because the spammers can so easily send mail through some other country and make it hard to tie to the source. They nailed this idiot because he showed up to a meeting.
In Brazil SPAM is really bad, as is computer-related bank fraud.
But even in brazillian-based mail accounts that I have (including an account used solely for University studies, and hosted by te University), the proportion of SPAM from the US is 10 to 1 against SPAM from Brazil.
Then again, it could be obviously due to the fact that the proportion of US on-line businesses are more than 10 - 1 against Brazillian based businesses.
Answering the question - in my book, it isnt a US social problem, it is certainly a US capitalism model problem.