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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?
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!
Spim = instant messaging spam, for those that don't know.
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."
Its not spelled wrong, spimming is the act of spamming through instant messages.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
but come on now, how frelling hard is it to spell "spamming"?
And the same people complain about bugs in millions of lines of code.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
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.
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....
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.
actually Spim appears to be SPam on IM. I just recently started getting spam on Myspace. I'm not to happy about that.
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
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.
...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'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.
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!
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!
No.
The first amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the right of free speech. It does not say I am required to listen it or read it.
If "spimming" is IM-speak for spamming, then I guess chatting via IM is called "chitting"?
but come on now, how frelling hard is it to spell "spamming"?
How fucking hard is it to spell "fucking"?
That's right. All your base.
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."
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....
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.
"But your honor, the 1st Amendment protects my right to say 'Hey buddy, give me a thousand bucks or I'll burn down your house' to anyone I want."
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
What is Spim?
Some 42% of America's 134 million online adults use instant messaging and almost a third of those instant message users have gotten "spim" - or unsolicited commercial instant messages. That translates into nearly 17 million adults who have gotten the instant-message version of spam.
Can someone please put the parent on the short list for torture; I'm too busy eating apple pie, bombing brown people, and devolving society right now.
Thanks a bunch.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
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.
The correct comparison is not to Larry Flynt and this is why teh First Amendement argument doesn't really hold water.
.procmailrc I manage to avoid most spam sent my way. I'm guessing it's slightly harder on a phone and of course most people don't know how to use those tools. The correct comparison is a salesdroid knocking on your door and if you don't answer trying to yell his "message" through the closed door. And that is not and should not be protected.
The difference is really simple. Larry and the spammers/spimmers should both have the right to publish whatever they want to. But Larry has no way to, *force* me to view what he publishes. I have to get out of my chair, go to the store and exchange money to get it. OTOH spammers/spimmers both shove it down my throat. Thanks to fine tools like SapmAssassin and a very aggresive
In short the problem is not that the spimmers are saying the things they are saying. It is that they are forcing you to listen. Which is a bad thing.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Spam over IRC - Spirm.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If I had points I would moderate your post doubleplusgood
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
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.
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
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!
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