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Fired AOL Engineer gets 15 Months
n3hat writes "A former America Online software engineer was sentenced to 15 months in prison for stealing 92 million screen names and e-mail addresses and selling them to spammers who sent out up to 7 billion unsolicited e-mail messages, according to this A.P. story in the Baltimore Sun."
I've never understood why non-violent criminals are even put into jail. Instead of us taxpayers paying about 25 grand a year for this guy(a number I pulled directly out of my ass, by the way); he should be forced to repay the damage that he has done. And, if it takes the rest of his life, then so be it; just don't let the guy declare bankruptcy (another thing I've never really understood).
Anyways, save jail for the murderers, rapists, and child molesters of the world. Make people like this guy, Martha Stewart, and Bernie Ebbers repay they're debt in other more productive ways.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I wonder how he stole them? And how long did it take for him to give them back? Did they ever find them?
of those 92 million, only about 2 million actually use aol mail... the rest are people who used up thier free trial and moved on.
I mean seriously, you expect me to believe that AOL has 92 million paying customers?
Honestly if I were a spammer, I'd only pay half price for AOL addresses, the odds of someone reading your email (especially after filtering) is nearly zero.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Or maybe it means that novices sign up to become familiar with interacting with the online world.
Once they've become comfortable with using a computer and an online service, they feel that they can take the training wheels off and find things on the Web for themselves. The most common Internet activities are e-mail, Web and chat. You don't need AOL for those.
If you read TFA you'll see that the AOLer got off easy because he pleaded guilty very early on. In contrast this Kevin Mitnick nitwit is even now trying to play the victim and not really sounding contrite about it.
OK - no chance of the government being that smart... but it would be nice.
If I had to go to jail for a cybercrime, I would at least want the other inmates to understand the charge.
15 months really isn't that bad, he'll probably do a third of that with good time (5 months). But he'll have to be on probation for years, and nobody worth working for is going to want to let him do anything more than stuff resistors in circuit boards.
The trouble that comes after prison is often worse than doing the time itself.
Michael
Yeah, hilarious. He desereved to be gang raped and/or forced to perform sexual favors for his crime that physicall harmed no one.
Also I guess I missed where the judge included "rape" in the 15 month jail sentence.
Internet tough guys, huh?
Don't stow thrones in grass houses.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I hate to take Kevin's side on this because his actions were illegal and immoral. However, it's very important to accurately appraise the costs (financial, emotional, cultural, etc.) of a crime. If the costs are exaggerated then justice is miscarried, tax money is misspent, the public is misserved, and third parties--such as policy makers, security analysts, and insurance companies--are misinformed.
The $2.1 billion number represents the cost to make the software. If Mitnick merely made an unauthorized copy, burned it to CD, and shoved it in a drawer somewhere, what part of that $2.1 billion did the companies lose? None. Nada. Business would continue uninterrupted.
Alternatively, suppose that Mitnick managed to destroy every copy of the software that the company owned. That would make the $2.1 billion a much more accurate assessment. The business could go bankrupt.
And then there's the middle ground... what about leaking secrets to competitors or providing binaries to black-market distributors? These are things that chip away at that $2.1 billion, but it's unlikely they erode it completely.
Of course, we haven't discussed administrative costs associated with mopping up and responding to the Mitnick incidents. We haven't factored in the intangible losses to privacy or even the hidden gains that might have come from the crime (e.g., if benign criminals attack you early and force you to beef up your security before the truly malignant ones arrive, haven't you inadvertly made money?)
A true valuation is perhaps impossible, but we can be more accurate than to assume that the unauthorized copying of private/proprietary information is directly equivalent to the theft of physical goods.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I think its kind of harsh that he was sent to prison, personally I think that prisons should be reserverd for people who present a physical threat to other people.
In a case such as this, while he may have caused damage and made some money off it, a significant fine would be ample. I mean its not like he is a danger to society if he doesn't get locked away.
I actually registered to reply to this. I'm really glad that someone finally stopped the "ZOMG i hope j00 get t3h raped in teh assz0r LOLOLOL spammar!" comments and brought a real light to the situation. Sorry, sodomy isn't a joke. Just glad someone said it :)
Why is it that people think a distributed crime is any less of a crime? Do you think it'd be OK if he stole $130,000 from a bank? Then why do you think it's OK that he stole $0.0019 each (1 second's wages at $6.75/hr) from 70 million people? They work out to the same amount of money.
For all this shit people give AOL, I recommend it to every novice user I know. It has integrated spyware detection, some of the best spam and phishing blocking, comes with access to AOL's large library of music and videos, news, etc... It sets up your buddy list and everything for you. All of this is accessible by running one program, and for all of the functionality packed into it, the gui isn't half bad. For the price you pay, you can't beat it.
Most people think that it is just a regular ISP but it isn't. You get a ton of extras to go along with it (streaming music, videos, stock tracking, games, spyware removal, a clean inbox, self configuration, and alot more). Very rarely will you see spam coming from an AOL user, if you do see it, it's probably being forged from somewhere else. Considering all of the zombies that comcast and verizon let live on their networks, AOL's active approach seems refreshing. Just like credit card companies, if they notice unusual activity, they'll notify you, if its really bad they'll lock your account until you can let them know that it isn't a spammer that took control of your account. Anyway... even if AOL is just for noobs, I'd rather most peopl be using AOL for Broadband, rather then Comcast and degrading the quality of the net.
Regards,
Steve
I know everyone loves that Steve Jobs quote about decreasing boot time*, and I know a distributed crime is still a crime, and I figure that white-collar criminals are probably the group of lawbreakers most likely to be swayed by 'examples' of horribly disproportionate punishments for crimes --
but to claim that being violently raped, repeatedly, is an acceptable repayment to society for any crime, is a sign that some people here need to unplug a bit. If you get more bent out of shape over spam than large scale violence against fellow people, no matter what laws or social boundaries they've crossed, then I sincerely hope I am never on the recieving end of your decision-making process. It's just junk mail. Yeah, it sucks; but if someone gave a nation the choice between everyone receiving junk mail every day, or having a specific individual gang raped, I should hope the nation would be enlightened enough to deal with the stupid colored pamphlets.
For the love of all that's right, end prison rape.
* It goes something like "It's my moral responsiblity to decrease the Mac's boot time, because if I shave ten seconds off, and have 5 million users, and they each use their Macs for so many years, I'll have saved fifty lives". Uncle Google is failing me right now...