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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."
MySpace.com, soon to be MySpim.com?
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Sexybaby2592871 wasnt really the chick on that website she sent me to?
You mean i gave my email address, password and credit card to some stranger? What type of place is this Intra-web and what type of a mess have I gotten myself into.
#include sig.h
"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."
So, the spimmer isn't really under arrest for spimming, but for extortion. Right?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
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"?
It's stupidiotic, and it's getting irritannoying.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It soonds luke some thong fram ogent Crabtree out of Allo allo.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
First line of the article:
A U.S teenager has become the first person to be arrested on suspicion of sending unsolicited instant messages--or spim.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Nail him on spamming and extortion. This guy doesn't really sound like an above-the-board, honest businessman
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
He was arrested for extortion.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is would anything have been done if he hadn't attempted to blackmail the company. I personally doubt it.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
If you'd read through the first few sentences you'd have realized that he was _trying_ to create a new buzzword.
jeez, let the man work. . .
Yes sir, we would love to sign the contract. Please give us your birth name and the address of where you would like us to send the agents, oh did I say agents, I meant contract....
Personally, I'm more concerned with incidents like this that may not be appearing in news articles. I guess this could be "where there's smoke, there's fire"-style panic.
Is anyone familliar with similar incidents?
Getting convicted of a crime with such a gay name ain't going to earn him any points on the yard.
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
sample spam message:
To learn the secrets of how to spam like I am spamming you right now.
Please send $25 to AnthonyGreco@myspace.com
PS, if you do not send $25 dollars within the next 3 days I will be forced to spam flood you. Have a nice day.
He was arrested for Spamtortion or Exspamsion or....
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
OMG H4X
402 4 life biatches.
Screw charging him for spamming IM, how about charging him with extortion?
This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.
because it sure looks like it, and people wonder why the Americans get such a bad reputation, perhaps spamassasin should use the dollar sign as a "+5 US currency mentioned"
I really hope that this doesn't turn into a group of idiotic Senators that try to tax us on using any type of instant messaging.
IMHO until somebody figures out a way to spoof IM headers to make them look as if they're coming from somebody else, spimming is going to be far less of an annoyance than email spam.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The best tests of the First Amendment have come from unsavory characters like the pornographer Larry Flynt. If he can show us the speech value of porn, perhaps MySpace.com can make a case for spim.
I'd rather live in a world with spim than a Brave New World where you can't say anything that might annoy someone.
Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spim; egg bacon and spim; egg bacon sausage and spim; spim bacon sausage and spim; spim egg spim spim bacon and spim; spim sausage spim spim bacon spim tomato and spim; or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate brandy and with a fried egg on top and spim.
And what's more, it doesn't sound as funny.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Wait, simulating MIPS assembly code is ILLEGAL?
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Just wait 'til you get 'spom' on your mobile phone.
What a fucking moron. He's 18, and he has basically ruined his life for the next 18 years if convicted. Not to mention this kid is going to undergo major anal r00ting in prison.
s t/
Here's an article with some more information: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/22/spim_arre
...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.
Subject says it all.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This sounds more like an arrest for extortion, not spimming...
IANAL, but it appears that the fellow is being busted for extortion. There are merchants who would love to have the technology.
I don't remember the last time that someone took efforts to restrain themselves from hawking their wares, even in the comfort of my own home. If you don't believe me, check the 'Do Not Call' list.
There are no heroes here, just the lesser of two evils.
I'd go one further though and call it blackmail. Which is one particular type of extortion, but I think its applicable in this case.
From lawguru.com:
---
EXTORTION n. obtaining money or property by threat to a victim's property or loved ones, intimidation, or false claim of a right (such as pretending to be an IRS agent). It is a felony in all states, except that a direct threat to harm the victim is usually treated as the crime of robbery. Blackmail is a form of extortion in which the threat is to expose embarrassing, damaging information to family, friends or the public.
BLACKMAIL n. the crime of threatening to reveal embarrassing, disgraceful or damaging facts (or rumors) about a person to the public, family, spouse or associates unless paid off to not carry out the threat. It is one form of extortion (which may include other threats such as physical harm or damage to property).
It's great that they finally nabbed a bad guy for spim (?). But why can't they do anything for all the spam in my inbox.
I haven't even gotten any SpIm but I can't see how it's anywhere near as bad as spam.
1) I don't store my IM's forever (I don't store them at all)
2) I don't accept IM's from strangers
3) IM's are synchronous. So, I won't turn on my computer to find 100 spims waiting for me.
I really do hope this becomes a trend, spimming is one of the most annoying things _ever_. Changing screennames every week isn't my cup of tea. I just hope that they start arresting those annoying people that send the "send this to 88 people in the next 4 minutes or a ghost will rip your eyes out and eat your soul!" chain mail.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
If only I could mod you to +6.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
There's just something hilarious about that. Would have loved to see his face when he figured out what they tricked him into. Dumbass...
A little social engineering right back atcha', baby!
I couldn't agree more. I'm getting really tired of seeing new words inventented on the internets each time a slightly different idea is thought up. It is like everybody wants to coin a new phrase these days.
Between work and home, I probably use my computer more than the vast majority of the earth's population. When I haven't even heard of half of these words, something's wrong.
Heck, my mother has only recently mastered the concept of the computer not being the "screen" (monitor).
h5<>0r says: U R t0taLLY P0Wn3D unL355 u b0W t0 mY L33+ XK1LL5!
tanderson says: Okay. But you have to show up to sign an agreement.
tanderson says: LOL
h5<>0r says: 5W33+!1!!1 j00 r0X0R!
h5<>0r says: w51+! y u l5ff1Ng @ me?
tanderson says: What?
tanderson says: Sorry, just remembering a Seinfeld episode I saw last night
h5<>0r says: 0
h5<>0r says: y3h t5t s00p n5Z1's funny
h5<>0r says: 50, 1 sh0 uP on m0nd5y, OKBYU?
tanderson says: Yeah, that's great
tanderson says: You want a limo?
h5<>0r says: 0 b0y r1LLY!!?!11?/
h5<>0r says: U b3+!
tanderson says: Sucker
h5<>0r says: wa+?????????
tanderson says: Sorry
tanderson says: My granddaughter's here
tanderson says: I was just offering her some candy
h5<>0r says: 0h y5h candy's good
h5<>0r says: w1ll 1 G3t b3nif3+ts/!??!
Carousel is a lie!
Spimming is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for spimming. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, spimming is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of spimming: gnodab.
-- Kung Pow.. with liberties added :)
If "spimming" is IM-speak for spamming, then I guess chatting via IM is called "chitting"?
Its an apex to the paradigm of the modern Interconected edgy marketing soloutions,
Spimming i an opus paradox for the meta problem of the internet super highway...
Honestly it isn' as bad as marketing speak, but its getting close
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
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.
As much as I hate abuses by cops, feds, my government, and republicans...assholes like this guy really do deserve to be hung from their heels.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
if spim becomes a mainstream word, im blowing something up.
I couldn't agree more. Slashmod the parent up!
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Spam on the refrigerator screen - Spood.
Spam on the toaster - Spoast.
Spam on the ice cream maker - Spooge.
Spooge?!? Now the pr0n industry has come full circle....
I mean, I'm not saying I approve at all, and she should definitely be arrested, but I just kinda think sometimes that it needs to be open season on corporations.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
So.. If I set up subdomains that read like "eatmytacobell.dom.ain", and "just.do.it", I'll be charged for SPURming?
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Spimming is about the worst name they could have come up with for the stuff this chap was doing. It doesn't even make sense.
What's next? Sporking?
My digital rights don't need management.
I don't like spim. Stop saying spim.
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Was this guy dropped as a baby? I mean, how stupid do you have to be to blackmail a company, then agree to meet with "company execs" and NOT suspect that you're about to get arrested.
Did he honestly think he could get away with this? Uhmm, never mind. TFA explains that he did.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
But how fucking hard is it to read the FUCKING SUMMARY? I know people are busy busy busy watching their two TiVos (and such quality programming too), but really...
Spimming is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for spimming. Like badwrong, or badong.
I think the word you're looking for is strongbad.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Thank you, AC in Paris, I rally to the cause with you!
Too bad they modded you Funny, I thought it was rather insightful.
An arrest! Glad to hear it! That should stop them!
All the new words are perfectly cromulent.
I have to look closely to see that it's not 'Spinning', what with these fonts and all.
spinning? someone was arrested for spinning? probably that rumplestilkskin guy, straw-into-gold and interfering with some hegemony.
I don't think the term 'Spim' is going to stick, it just doesn't have POW. Spam - now there's a forceful word, rhymes with Blam!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Spam over IRC - Spirm.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Hmmm...I disagree. It isn't a technical derivation, it is pretty different.
And, it is a lot better than having to read "Spam sent via IM." Just makes sense since there is this new activity to give it a name.
No one complained about "sprint." I mean, come on, do we really need ANOTHER devaiation of "running for a shorter distance at generally faster speeds"?
What a jerk, what a fucking bottem feeder. I wish I could have seen the look on his face when the cops walked in. Probably didn't even realize he was breaking the law untill they cuffed him.
Hope he spends a long time in the can.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If I had points I would moderate your post doubleplusgood
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
This movement is being led by the illiterati. Or the ignoragencia.
I think I'll stop here.
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.
is a perfectly cromulent word that's sure to embiggen that uses it.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
If I was a director of Human Resources, I would hire a guy like this. He's clearly got the killer instinct required for business and guys like that keep an organization honest. If somebody screws up, this dude will be right there to point it out. If Enron had a guy like this in the accounting department, Ken Lay would have been hung the fark out to dry the first time he fudged the numbers to pad his wallet. I consider this dude to be a truer businessman than Sam Waksal, Ken Lay, all the Halliburton asshats, Dennis Kozlowski, John Legere and any other executive who used rent-seeking behavior or outright stealing to become wealthy.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Don't you mean Freedom of speech and Freedom of advertising are not the same thing.
Which banks? Name names. Which mortgage brokers? Name names.
What about the banks and mortgage brokers, Mr. Hoffstadt? Which banks and mortgage brokers are you bringing charges against, Mr. Hoffstadt? As you well know, Mr. Hoffstadt, not only does the federal government have the ability to claim federal jurisdiction in actions involving banks, but also the nature of the crime crosses state lines and can be brought under federal jurisdiction under that excuse, as well as various federal banking laws and regulations.
So what are the names of the banks you are bringing action against, Mr. Hoffstadt? What are the names of the mortgage brokers? What are the names of the individuals working for the mortgage brokers? All these individuals and entities are required to be licensed in the states in which they do business. And fall under federal control under banking laws. So how many banks are losing their license in this action, Mr. Hoffstadt? How many mortgage brokers are losing their license, Mr. Hoffstadt? How many individual mortgage broker employees are losing their individual license, Mr. Hoffstadt?
Until you crack down on the funders of the spammers, until you crack down on the real criminals, you are blowing hot air, Mr. Hoffstadt.
http://profiles.myspace.com/users/3002407
Span in the Emergency Room:
;)
Sperm.
I win
U R TEH SUXX0R!
No kidding. Maybe I'll start posting release announcements by IM and you can accuse me of rimming... or hell, perhaps I'll just distribute some swag, and go swimming.
Assholes who invent stupid words. Yeesh. (Yeah, like the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.)
myselfmusic
Dimnat, I hite spimmers. Kall them ill! :)
hawk
It's not fscking hard, but that may have been the point.
Spim is sent to that crappy service that was put into windows 98, but not enabled by default. Was put into 2k, ME, and XP, and enabled by default.
It allows network messages to be sent via the Messenger Service.
I used to work at an ISP in my area, we got calls all the time with those "Your computer will reboot" pop ups. We walked the user through disabling the Messenger Service (Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services), then spent 5 minutes explaining that Messenger Service and MSN Messenger are two diferent programs. Finally, we wraped up the conversation by telling them to buy a firewall, or switch to our dsl service, and get a free router.
I now use Messenger Service at work to tell end users that I need to install patches, and to please call me when they are at their computer. The service doesn't allow two way conversations (unless you know the command line).
You can download programs that use this service, and even if the person DOES NOT have MSN Messenger, they will still get a pop up. Granted, they have to be exposed, or the firewall/router breached.
So, when you read the rest of these replies, remember that MSN and Messenger are two diferent things. You can't "Block" Messenger adds, or "Only allow friends" messages. mater of fact, there is NO gui for Messenger.
I think that if the company looks deaper, they will find that this guy wasn't using their IM service, but in fact was using a hole in the FW, and a service that is still active.
No, I don't think this company has seen the last of this exploit!
Later
He should have used xspim.
example.org - powered by Linux!
Yeah, you'd have to be stupid to be a maroon. Either that or mix red and purple and splash it on him.
Your quip was quite funny, but I think it might have been a cultural refrence, and not a typo. In old Warner-brothers cartoons, Bugs Bunny would say things like, 'What a iggit, what a maroon!' to insult people. I think the joke was that he didn't say 'idiot' and 'moron', but 'iggit' and 'maroon', words that only an iggit maroon would mispronounce. Either that, or I'm an iggit maroon who is missing the real joke. I'd lay odds at fifty-fifty either way.
(Dry, boring joke analysis over, you can wake up now.)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Once upon a time, "spamming" referred only to USENET messages. The term "velveeta" was coined for e-mail spam but it never caught on.
(Google it if you don't believe me, but it's true.)
I go to the gym almost every night and there are the classes full of hot spimming bitches. They are all sweaty and pumping away... I love it.
No wonder these girls are upset at him for spimming them when they didn't ask for it... it's almost a religious thing for these spimmers and I know if I was into it I wouldn't want to be distracted.
So if you spam a Blackberry pager, can they charge you with RIMming? ...Or is that only illegal in Texas?
The 'x' makes it sound cool. /bender
At least he's not a moran.
Quiet or you'll start a TechnoGate crisis!
If you don't know what I'm referring to just ask any lazy journalist.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Greco allegedly sent 1.5 million messages advertising pornography and mortgages.
Why doesn't that surprise me? Because these are the traditional users of spam. If they had something that everyone really wants, why don't traditional advertising avenues work?
That has to be one of the best Stong Bad Emails ever... Next to the techno one, ofcorse.
~ Mooga
after reading the news article I expect that he will be charged with extorion type offences, not with 'SPIMinning". Bu that remains to be seen...
As scary as it is for cops to be arresting people for 'net activities it's nice to see that little SOBs like him are getting there just desserts. Unfortunately it seems that the only time anyone gets penalized for spamming is when someone tries to use it to extort money from a corp. No one in the government gives a rat's ass if mine and every other human citizen's inbox gets flooded with porn ads. FBI HQ: "What? Myspace is getting attacked?? Call Gitmo and see if they have room!"
Greco allegedly sent 1.5 million messages advertising pornography and mortgages... 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.
Pornography and mortgage services: two of the biggest scams on the Internet today. They don't make money off of the front end (i.e. people buying their services); no, they make money off of the back end (i.e. people scammed for recurring credit card charges or balloon payments on their loans). Does it surprise anyone that someone promoting these services would resort to blackmail to promote them?
Look, it isn't time to put away the people who promote these things; it is time to put away the root cause of this bullshit in the first place!
do you have anything without so much spim in it?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Similarly, just because the victim company abused the capabilities of the MySpace service to create lots of free accounts and spim from them, and cleaning up those accounts cost them money, that doesn't mean that the miscreant actually damaged their computers, and the legal doctrine of a "protected computer" is badly thought out and may not apply here. That doesn't mean that the sleazy spimmer didn't violate Myspace's terms of service (I haven't read them, but I'd hope they had the sense to write them in a way that his abuse was a violation), but that's something that ought to be a civil cost recovery issue, not a crime.
On the other hand, if you can believe the press release, the extortion part does sound like a legitimate criminal complaint, as opposed to mere sleaziness that isn't in the scope of the laws the DoJ is accusing him of breaking.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So, if spamming via IM is spimming, what's sharing via IM?
Spimming pissed off enough people they made a word for it. The neologism probably won't go away unless the IM companies do a good job of making the problem difficult by including some decent security. So far, it's as limited a problem as it is only because the major IM providers don't want to cooperate with each other, preferring to keep their little closed systems hoping to make money by attracting customers to their ISP businesses.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Spam from male to female -> Sperm
Spam from female to male -> Speech
The world is full of stupid people.
I'd pay money to see the look on the kids face when the cops came in
Found in the US teenager's pocket was a to-do list:
Hey, Peter. Watch out for yer cornhole, man.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Well, how else are people going to patent it ?
And then you get Sporn (a.k.a. Spr0n)!
Wait.. I've wished for that!
Or does it seem like a big waste of taxpayer money to drag out federal law enforcement officials and court time and god knows what other costs to basically arrest a rowdy user of a web site??? I mean jeez, I know people don't like spam, but seriously guys... There are not only bigger problems to worry about, but also if you really cared about spam that federal money would be best served fixing up sploits that allow for spam... Instead of ruining the lives of obviuosly smart 18 years olds!
Isn't there a terrorist or some other bigger target of anger these people should be taking care of?
"Spimmers? Sure, I like spimmers. I prefer mine boiled."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Otherwise I'd have to go through life without knowing words like "SCSI", "WiFi", "DOS", "chmod", "blog", "google", "flickr", and now "spim". A few years ago, I thought those were all sounds a sick cat made!
Thanks, Progress! My hat's off to you!
it's been disabled by default in the XP SP2 installations i've done. this page backs this up. just fyi. (so if people update to SP2, or buy a new installation of windows, it won't work, unless of course that service is needed for some program they use and they or the network admin turns it on).
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
It's ricoculous.
would that be called "modoverifying"?
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2005/034.html
Spam on reusable kutware = sp0rk
Speaking of sp0rks, CALL TO ARMS, CALL TO ARMS, THIS IS A CALL TO ARMS! Where are you my brothers?
Oh, I'm so alone on Slashdot these days. How I wish I were Lion-O, with the ability to summon his friends with a shimmy of his sword and a mighty "ho."
Does this make an IRC Spammer a Spric?
The U.S. Supreme Court, in their 1978 decision FCC vs. Pacifica Radio Network, found that freedom of speech does not imply freedom of volume. That pretty much covers spam, spim, telemarketing, and junk faxes, as far as I'm concerned, but for some reason the law isn't enforced like that.
That doesn't mean you can't use it! I've cited that Supreme Court decision when writing to ISPs regarding trolls and other net.miscreants, and have had accounts revoked.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters