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Spammer Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, NC now has the dubious honor of being the first spammer sentenced to jail for the felony of spamming. Virginia judge Thomas Horne sentenced Jaynes to 9 years in prison based on a jury recommendation after he was convicted of sending out 10 million e-mails a day. Jaynes, who sent out much of his spam using the name "Gaven Stubberfield", has held a position on the SpamHaus Registry of Known Spam Operations for a long time.
Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed." Commentary on the sentence available at Forbes as well.
Defense attorney David Oblon argued in court that nine years was far too long given that Jaynes was charged as an out-of-state resident with violating a Virginia law that had taken effect just two weeks before. "We have no doubt that we will win on appeal," Oblon said outside court.
9 years too long? i don't think so. on what grounds would they win? did the people who bought penis enlargement pills give good feedback? when the law takes effect has no merit, he was sending 10 mil emails a day. just multiply that by 2 weeks.
He also has said the law is an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.
ok, let me come to your house, stuff hundreds of flyers a day at your front door, then say it's an unconstitutional infringement on free speech if i get stopped.
the article didn't mention what type of spam he was sending (but at 10mil/day, my guess is every kind).
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Spam in the can, anyone?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
I think it's time for a good ol' fashioned tar and feathering...Now where'd I put those chickens?
Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed.
Um, I know we hate spammers, but isn't that how the system is supposed to work so that people have every chance possible to prove their innocence?
Still, the temptation to make a ironic Viagra spam joke here is pretty strong.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Damn that's long He should have killed someone or rob a bank, they would have sentenced him for less
...but 9 years in jail is just a little bit extreme, don't you think? A big fine would be more appropriate, imho.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Do you think he got more time for choosing an alias as stupid as "Gaven Stubberfield"?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
I know this is NOT going to be a popular opinion here on slashdot... but...
9 years! That's an awful long time if you think about it. Especially for doing something that's pretty much being a mass annoyance.
I can understand going to jail for doing something fraudulent. Maybe that was the case with this fellow, even though no mention of fraud was mentioned in the article, and seemingly he wasn't charged with that either.
Some aspects of emailing deserve jailtime. Sending phony ads to phish people, yes. Using exploited computers to send spam, definately. But aren't there crimes for those already?
Also, consider the fact that it will cost roughly $50,000 / year to keep this guy in jail. That amounts to 450,000 dollars just to keep this guy from spamming us.
Taxpayers of Virginia, is keeping this guy off the street really worth that much to you? Taxpayers of any other state, would you really want to adopt laws like this?
One more thing about criminalizing spam that makes me uncomfortable is the whole free speech thing. Sure, it's speech that most of the time we don't want to hear, but if I send mass emails from my own machines without breaking into anything and without defrauding anyone, should I go to jail for this? After all, it seems nowadays that it's in style to characterize any speech that doesn't agree with American policy as terrorist-sympathizing. Does spam count as free speech too?
By all means, slashdotters let me know any rational arguments you can think of for criminalizing spam that doesn't include other forms of crime already.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
How will that go over in prison?
Convict: What are you in for?
Jeremy Jaynes: um... spam.
He's somebody's bitch for sure...
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
What kind of "status" would a spammer would get in jail? (For example, child abusers are the lowest form of life on the prison evolutionary scale.) And how it will affect their behavior after relase, and how it will affect the behavior of spammers who haven't been caught but may end up fearing what awaits.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed."
Not "Unfortunately" - the right to appeal is a Good Thing (TM).
The right not to be punished while the case is under appeal is also a Good Thing (TM)
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
Bet he's sorry now htat he sent those penis enlargement pill e-mails to incarcerated felons.
I was really hoping for the death penalty on this conviction, but ya take what you can get.
Seriously though, this guy will probably be out in 2 years, maybe 3. I think a more applicable punishment is removing these people from using electronic means. Like what the FBI and Secret Service used to do the "hacker" community. Take away their right to use a computer. Jail time or no, thats what is really going to stop these people from sending out spam.
Just my 2 cents.
http://www.accelerateglobalwarming.com
I can't give you a rational argument for criminalizing spam that you don't already know, but I can explain the sentence a bit.
I suspect that the real reason for the stiff sentence in this case is deterrence. He's being punished not just for his sins, but for the sins of everybody else who spams, to let them know that the law is real and that there will be serious punishment for getting caught.
Everybody who continued to spam after the law was put in effect wasn't merely being annoying: he was deliberately and consciously doing something illegal. Whether it should be illegal or not, he was flouting a law designed to reduce vast quantities of annoyance, as well as forcing people to spend large amounts of money and time fighting that annoyance.
So I agree that the punishment doesn't fit the crime (and you're hardly the only one to say that here on Slashdot.) Nor am I a huge fan of "making an example" of somebody; it seems a violation of the eighth amendment forbidding "cruel and unusual punishment".
With a bit of luck this is the harshest sentence ever to be handed down. That "luck" would be a bunch of spammers say, "Whoa, we've got to get out of this business". It won't be enough, but if it results in half as much spam I'll be half as annoyed, and I won't be crying any particular tears for this guy while it happens.
Or they may just move offshore, or use zombies, or hide better, etc. Hell, to avoid this law you need only move out of Virginia. But I suspect that at least a few spammers will decide that it's not profitable enough to risk jail now that jail is a very real possibility, and that's a few billion fewer spams we'll receive.
Let's put it this way. What if I stole $0.01 from a bank? Do I deserve 9 years in jail? Now let's say I did it 1,000,000x ($10,000). Now do I deserve 9 years in jail?
This guy did not send a couple emails. He sent 10,000,000 emails a DAY. Do you know how much that can cost companies? It translates into real money lost. Try talking to any sysadmin that's had to deal with this.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
What kind of "status" would a spammer would get in jail? (For example, child abusers are the lowest form of life on the prison evolutionary scale)
You know, the myth of the rough justice karmic system in jail is highly disturbing: This seeming belief that federal prisoners are all bad people, but not bad bad, and they mete out justice to the truly bad people.
Child diddlers get killed in prison when it gets someone some fame, and maybe they dream that it'll get them some retribution in the good book. However the people doing the killing are rapists, murderers, extortionists - this is a merry band of robin hoods.
On the flip side the weak, and I'm talking to you 99% of Slashdot, are the ones that are having someone's cock jammed in their mouth/ass every night. The tacit approval of this system is scary, especially given that any of you could be wrongly convicted and tossed in jail. Haha, now you're getting ass fuck gang raped, and you have AIDS!
Love that prison karma!
You can see why getting into this business is so tempting... Nearly four hundred thousand dollars in one month. As long as people keep buying, spammers will keep spamming...
Granted, we all hate spammers. We hate what they do, we hate the way they zombify unsecured gateways, we hate they way they thumb their nose at everyone, we hate what they try to sell, we hate that they try to scam millions a day. We all would love to see every spammer get harsh penalties.
But, really... nine years?
Isn't that a bit much? He won't be serving all that time, of course, but it's a lot of time for spamming.
Wouldn't a better punishment be somethign vaguely like what they did to Mitnick? Forbid the guy from holding any sort of computer-related occupation for ten years. No computer for more than recreational purposes -- oh, heck, he doesn't need to play HL2, no computer at all. No opportunity to spam, and he'll have to make it or break it in a real job (for values of 'real job' which do not include 'IT jobs.') If he's smart, he can do office clerk work, maybe work his way up to office manager (he just can't work anywhere where the office manager also has to manage the computer system.) If he can't hack that, he goes into fastfood or retail. And if he absolutely can't make a living doing something other than spamming... ladies and gentlemen, we have here a dysfunctional human being.
Compared to Mitnick, he'll still be getting off easy. But it makes a lot more sense than nine years in jail. And the taxpayers aren't paying for his stay in the slam.
And if you want to get really creative, have him subscribed to every junk mail list in existence... with no opt-out.
I don't know, it just seems like nine years is ridiculous when we don't even put away physically violent felons for that long.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
There's a suit in the courts seeking to overhaul the entire justice system, based on the premise of cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not sure how it's going, frankly I hope they win.
Everyone in the Dept. of Corrections knows about the constant rape and torture of inmates, by inmates, and yet have done little to fix the problem in a century.
Sentencing someone to rape is cruel and unusual by any stretch of the term.
At any rate, prison makes bad people worse. There are dangers to society that need to be locked away, but the attitude of "throw everyone in for everything" is really warped. In my state, it's a manditory 10 years for being busted for anything drug related within 5 miles of a school. Get out a map of your city or town - unless you're way out on the farm, EVERYONE lives within 5 miles of a school. Erego, every college kid busted with a half a doobie gets his life ruined.
And then theres the practice of civil forfeiture, a great way to get around the constitutional protection to be able to refuse to testify against your spouse. "Mrs Malda, either you testify that Rob was selling crack to 6 year olds, or we take your home, car, all your money, and then put your kids into protective custody so you'll never see them again"
Cheer all you want about this, slashbots, this just sets a precedent for when you're in front of a Judge for downloading those Metallica mp3s. After all, a computer crime is computer crime to a clueless jury. Hell, the DMCA calls for even stiffer penalties than this, should you dare modify that PS2 to play copied titles.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So we should just set the sentance for spamming at a very tiny 2 seconds per spam mail in jail. That seems fair to me. Send out 150 spams get 5 minutes in jail. Maybe my parents would quit sending me those crappy jokes if they had to go server a couple of minutes in a jail cell.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I see a lot of people decrying the 9-year length of sentence as excessive. I'd like to promote the idea that its actually lenient, given the harm to society.
First, for those who haven't RTFA, this guy's crime wasn't just "spamming", it was the electronic equivalent of mail fraud. Take a look here for mail fraud penalties. Yup - that's right. Up to 5 YEARS per occurance. Not per person actually defrauded, but per mail sent.
Furthermore, we seem to want to punish "blue collar" crime (physical violence and theft) as somehow more heinous than "white collar" crime (usually fraud and theft of money or intangible property). As a poster above noted, blue collar crime tends to have a severe impact on a very limited number of people, though in the aggregate it also attacks a locality's social fabric (consider the number of violent crimes in someplace like South Central LA and the correlation to property values there). White collar crime, however, tends to impact a large number of people to a lesser extent, but also directly attacks the fundamental underpinnings of the society: in particular, the fundamental trust in fairness and shared responsibility that is essential for modern societies to function.
Fraud in particular is a particularly heinous crime from a societal standpoint, as it attacks the basic trust we put in financial transactions. A CEO giggering quarterly numbers is doing more than just cheating some stockholders out of a few cents in stock price - he's attacking the whole investing system which depends on truth in information dissemination. For if investors can't trust that a company's 10k annual report has real numbers, how can they invest?
White collar crime needs to be far more heavily punished than it currently is. And, it is much more deterred by increased prosecution and higher penalties than blue collar crime. Blue collar crime is generally only deterred by increased police presence (i.e. preventative measures) and not by increased penalties. White collar crime, on the other hand, generally shows a strong correlation to the likelihood of prosecution and severity of penalty. This is due to the fact that most white collar crime is committed by the more wealthy segment of the population, who generally do a risk analysis before committing the crime (i.e. "I'll steal $100,000 from the company, if I'm only 10% likely to get caught and only face 3 months in jail, but won't steal if I've a 50% chance of getting caught or if the sentence will be 5 years").
Also, remember that as "non-violent" criminals, white collar criminals tend to get put in low-security prisons, which cost much less to maintain than those in for violent crimes.
Overall, I'd like to see us start to put the emphasis on white collar crime instead of blue collar crime. In the big picture, I think it's far more damaging to society, and is far more frequent than people think.
There are some issues with this case (more specificly, the technicalities of the anti-spam law), but in the big picture, I think the sentence is exceedingly fair.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.