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FBI Raids Home of Spam King Alan Ralsky
wstearns writes "The Detroit News is reporting that the FBI has raided Alan Ralsky's home. In the raid, the FBI took computers and financial records, effectively shutting him down. Mr. Ralsky has been frequently covered here."
Will I be notified, if they find out I'm a victim??
:-)
Hell the guy from nigeria didn't write me for a while, I'll send him an E-Mail. I'm still waiting for a large transaction
about time someone got him
The cow goes "tink"
I am heir to the FBI throne which was recently desposed. FOr only $2000 down, you can secure your right to this massive wealth as well.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Did they get his Spam Crown and Scepter?
NOW who will fill my inbox?!
Wah Sig!
I had thought my Inbox was rather empty today...
-- Seq
...unless they shot him.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
.... Will never be the same if he goes down.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Last time I checked, it was legal to e-mail someone you don't know.
You mean there wasn't a shootout where he got shot? With crack sprinkled on him?
Awwww =(
Seriously -- whether you like Ralsky or not, this practice of seizing computer equipment is probably unconstitutional. He is being deprived of his property and his ability to make a living, without due process of law. According to TFA, all of his computer were seized, shutting him down.
We may object to Ralsky's nefarious tactics, but the point is that SourceForge could in principle be next.
Did they find any meat products at this "king of SPAMs" house? Oh, wait....
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
"Effectively" shut down? So he's free to just buy new servers, host them elsewhere and restart his spamming or have they slapped an injunction off him telling him to stop?
He must have been spamming something obscene, because the FBI doesn't have the resources to deal with spammers while they're on this moral crusade to re-puritanize this god fearing country.
Besides, spamming is okay as long as you're a big corporation that either does or may contribute or lobby congress at some point.
Spamming is only bad if you're a private citizen doing it, sort of like how raping teenage babysitters, doing coke, driving drunk and killing women when you drive off a bridge and wander away is only bad for private citizens.
I mean, I'm sure he opted out of FBI raids on questionable business practices....
If you know this happened, you can be sure they had a warrant. That means there was due process.
Seriously -- whether you like Ralsky or not, this practice of seizing computer equipment is probably unconstitutional. He is being deprived of his property and his ability to make a living, without due process of law. According to TFA, all of his computer were seized, shutting him down.
Last I checked, a warrant was generally needed before property could be seized. Last I checked, a warrant equated to due process, at least until the trial ends. How else do you think the police get to keep evidence until the trial? Not all evidence is at the scene of the crime.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Oh bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. The FBI can't seize someone's property without a warrant, and they can't do a raid without a warrant either. Ralsky had due process, and he has more due process coming up, he'll either be charged and the seized property will become trial evidence, or he'll get his property back after the investigation.
I just phoned the Detroit office of the FBI who raided Ralsky's home at (313) 965-2323 and told the responding agent that I was so unbelievably happy that their office raided Alan Ralsky.
The agent was amazed and replied "uh thank you. We don't get calls like this very often."
OMG. Wow.
This is an excellent opportunity to show your support that we STRONGLY support their action and efforts!
If they know their is huge public support for this, that may help them to shut down more of these spammers!
This is AWESOME!
Just call and say thanks and this will keep things moving in the right direction.
w00t!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Warrants unsealed last week revealed that agents in September seized computers, laptops, financial records and disks from the 8,000-square-foot home of Alan M. Ralsky.
Apparently, he is getting due process.
The world would be a better place when spam is gone.
Subzerorz
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The spam problem will never be halted by arresting the spammers. There's so much money to be made that there'll always be someone to step up to the plate as soon as a spammer is taken down. The only way to stop spam is to stop it being profitable. Stop people buying from spam adverts and noone will bother to send the adverts. The only ways to do that though is to stop people seeing the adverts (spam filtering), or to educate them that 99.9% of products advertised are a complete rip-off .. and the 0.1% that aren't should be avoided because the company selling them resorts to spamming to sell stuff.
Much as it's great to see a suspected criminal arrested for sending this crap out, there's no chance that it'll actually made any significant dent in the torrent of spam flowing through mail servers every day.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Ever talk to someone whose property has been seized?
*IF* it comes back functional, it's obsolete by the time you see it again.
They also take the weirdest shit.
A kid running an abandonware bot on IRC had his music CDs, consoles, and books taken as well.
Still, I wish they'd just stick Ralsky in an evidence locker for two years.
As he's become more outspoken, Ralsky claims he's received numerous death threats. A few years ago, Ralsky was deluged with hundreds of unwanted magazines at his house, after anti-spammers signed him up for subscriptions.
hehehe
But the principle is still unjust.
They may have had a warrant, but what if he wasn't doing anything wrong? Then he's being deprived of his property by the government despite being not doing anything wrong.
Surely they did have a warrant -- but should it be possible for someone, with merely a search warrant, to shut down your entire livelihood? There's no doubt that it is possible -- we often read about computers being seized and then returned, broken, years later. That seems wrong to me, whether it be legal or no.
Seriously -- whether you like Ralsky or not, the practice of sending people gobs and gobs of email without them asking for it or doing business with you in the first place is probably unethical.
This is a very good sign.
The reason spammers operate is because it has been profitable for them due to their operating expenses (apathetic law enforcement, hazy jurisdiction, theft of third-party bandwidth and resources).
As more of these people get raided and have to deal with serious legal and criminal issues, the "cost" of operating will go up substantially, and as a result, it will not be as profitable for them to operate.
Let's hope the FBI follows through on this and puts this guy in jail. There's no doubt he committed a ton of crimes, including computer tampering, pornography, identity theft, etc. Spammers routinely break loads of laws in operating their business. Finally, we're seeing some agencies start to enforce these laws.
Seriously -- whether you like Ralsky or not, this practice of seizing computer equipment is probably unconstitutional. He is being deprived of his property and his ability to make a living, without due process of law.
Yes. Next thing you know, when they arrest murderers, they'll take away their guns! That's a clear violation of the second amendment. If we allow that to happen, next thing you know the UN will swoop in with their black helicopters and steal our precious bodily fluids. They must be stopped!
Robert Mueller's maanhood didn't grow to the size of a cucumber like Alan Ralsky promised....
Yeah, and why would they seize mounds of crack, or fully auto weapons, or perhaps kiddie porn on computers? This is EVIDENCE OF HIS ILLEGAL ACTIONS, you moron. If his livelihood WAS illegal activity, then he should damn well be deprived of it. Christ.
...how do you propose we get the word out to every single potential spam buyer? Remember, if you miss out so many as 1 of these people in every 10,000, the spam will continue unabated.
i would just like to say:
:)
You did WHAT???
i haven't had the time to read the comments so this joke has probably been already said, but:
you've slashdoted him via snail mail
Someone else will just rise in his place. Spamming is good money, because they are complete rip-offs.
What we need to do is make spamming uneconomical. We need to block all spam, so that spamming won't be worth spammers' time. It needs to be a collective effort. We also need to arrest big-time spammers (like they did) to make other spammers afraid to be spammers.
If we filter all spam, then none of it will reach your in-box (just your bulk mail). If it doesn't reach your in box, then spammers would ask "why spam?" We need to be more aggressive on filtering spam.
-ELiTe185
HHHeeeeerreeeeee's Jonny!!!!
A bullet sounds the same in every language. So stick a fucking sock in it...
You go to federal "pound you in the ass" prison for stuff like that
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
If this was a comparable crime, then why wasn't he arrested and charged? Anyone with mounds of crack, or kiddie porn or anything like thatwould have been arrested on the spot.
It's about time the FBI startd to "earn their keep" and start ridding us of nuesances of the likes of Ralski... So I'll be humming the song... "Ding dong - the witch is dead".... I did notice a "slight" reduction in my daily spam... if you call a reduction of 300 messages a day "slight". But I'm still getting about 2800 a day.... Ahhh - but I love collecting it, to feed to my trusty spam reporting system... After all, it's another mouth to feed.... :-)
It's just like "taking out the garbage".... but my reporting system is now honed to only take up about 5 mins a day for "upkeep" and pre-scanning for non-spam crapola.
c
Ralksy isn't the worst of the bunch.. perhaps his BIGGEST mistake is actually having some sort of media profile. There are plenty of spammers out there who are even more despicable than him, but it seems that Ralsky is an easy target. Perhaps they should consider going after Robert Soloway or Alec Defrawy next?
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
From the Wikipedia article on due process:
Was he notified before the raid? Did he get a chance to be heard and to oppose the raid before it happened? I know he will have an opportunity to do so in the trial (if there is one), but the point is that even now his livelihood has already been destroyed.
I know it's hard to sympathise with Ralsky, but this could also happen to many other people if they are sued by the RIAA or MPAA, using exactly the same legal principle.
This is the proposed message:
DeAR u.ser
Precvio3sly you have b33n victim of unsol.citated e-mail, so called s.pam selling u v1agra and p.enis enlarg.ements products, us.iNG aNNoying layouts ant teipos to confu..se your s.p.a.m..filters.
The FBI now offers you the ReA.L links to the places where you can buy your V.1agrA and P.eniSEnlar.gement produCTs for the real pr1ce without the middle S.P.am man.
Please go to v1agrahfDUgfapitdrGPSRGf.fbi.gov for the fastest S$hop
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I am 100% all for this guy to stop what he's doing, but there is more to than just less spam in our inbox if this guy goes away.
"Last year, Michigan lawmakers passed legislation that allows parents to put their children's e-mail addresses on do-not-spam lists. Even though he insists he doesn't target kids, Ralsky was an inspiration for the bills."
I'm more afraid of legislature crafting the legal system to catchup to one guy. I mean, this is more freightening thought. No matter how bad this ex-convict asswipe deserves it, our legal system cannot just craft a law in order to make an example out of single case. I am not an expert on law, but shouldn't our legislature think abroad especially when considering this isn't local or state, but FBI, federal enforcement agency is to enact and enforce such ideal?
I'm sure, a lot smarter people than I, thought this law through before passing it, but I'm sorry, I can't justify supporting a law which is crafted to make an example out of one man's action on Federal level. This sounds too close to persecution and walking on really thin line here.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Or perhaps Indymedia:
c e_fbi_mlat_request/l
http://indymedia.org/en/2004/10/112239.shtml
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/11/home_offi
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BOW410A.htm
It is true. I own a web hosting company and every single order from Vietnam (about 7 so far) is fraudulent. Not one legit order from there. I had to block Vietnam' IP range.
This is what I wonder. Some people might not like getting email, but sending email to people through opt-in mailing lists is perfectly legal business enterprise. They'll probably drop the charges in a few months after they've managed to take all his hard earned money, bankrupt his businesses, and put his employees out of work. The proceeds will make a nice Xmas party for the fbi though!
There are laws legislating the proper use of email as an advertising tool. Ralsky may, in fact, be abiding by them. So the US government decided to seize his entire business in order to determine whether he's guilty.
The due process that's missing is a court injunction against his activities. It's rather clear that the intent was to stop him, not to determine his compliance with laws.
As for murderers...generally, pistols and shotguns aren't essential to your livelihood, and they can kill others. Computers are essential to IT businesses such as Ralsky's, and they can't injure anyone. (Unless you throw them hard enough.)
My original comment was rapidly moderated up to +5 Interesting and spawned a lot of replies. Then it sank to "1,Interesting". Looking at the moderation screen for the article, apparently it has now been moderated 0 times.
And I thought capricious editors were only for the paranoid. Thanks, guys.
How much the overall spam level will drop by while he's out of action?
I hate to sound pessimistic, but I can't see this having that great an impact overall, at least not on its own.
If it happens again, to a whole bunch of other spammers, then perhaps, but just this one guy?
I dunno....
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
Was he notified before the raid? Did he get a chance to be heard and to oppose the raid before it happened?
Notified of a raid? Are you new?
Maybe you're thinking of subpoenas.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
No, they had warrants. To get warrants, you *already* need enough proof to make a crime probable. The seizure provides them with *additional* evidence.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Spammers routinely violate numerous state and federal laws. Computer tampering is actually now a capital crime under the USA Patriot Act. If this guy interfered with any network that conducts commerce or government activities, he could be convicted under these clauses. That's the tip of the iceburg.
I live in Michigan, and I have been noticing faster internet speed for the last week or so. I wonder (and bet) that it has something to do with this asshole not being able to send spam through virus infected computers on Charter's network.
He can wipe those computers.
Now, if he is found not-guilty and it isn't returned then there will be problems.
Alleged drug dealers and drunk drivers have the issues you are thinking about. Inpound the car, sell it at auction...whoops, not guilty.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Hmm... don't you think it's kinda strange that the worlds number one spam arsehole is arrested just days before important discussions concerning the future of the Internet are held particularly when a number of countries have expressed serious concerns at the lack of aciton against SPAM + PORN?
Brazil: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries."
Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable.
Find more comments here
P.S thank you to the posters of this insightful post and this one.
P.P.S Just a personal message to Alan: Hope you die in prison you scum sucking lazy obese cocksucker.
The article forgot to mention that during the raid, the FBI has found several enlarged penises. They were able to remove most of them from Ralsky's behind, but others will have to be removed by a surgery. These will apparently be used as evidence in this case.
Bubba will be on him every night putting more spam into his inbox.
If someone makes their living kicking my in the guy parts, forgive my complete lack of sympathy when he gets his steel-toe shoes confiscated. "But without shoes", you say, "how will he make his living?" My answer: who cares? That's his problem, and not one I'm at all interested in.
What gives him the "right" to earn money in this illegal manner, and why shouldn't the FBI be allowed to gather evidence against him? It's not like they confiscated his TV and pool table.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The FBI will be performing a raid on your crack house at 123 N. Main, on October 27th at 11:45pm. We better not finding anything illegal there.
Your friendly Federal Bureal of Investigation
I'm sorry but are you a fucking retard? The point of a raid is to go in and find indisputalable evidence that the crime was committed. A warrent will show that there is some evidence to it happening, but the raid will produce the evidence that will make the trail happen and get the assholes into jail. Or are you just afraid the FBI will raid your house and steal your computer to arrest you for all your downloaded p0rn, and MP3s.
Well, he gets it back if it turns out that he's innocent so it's not more unjust than e.g. suspects getting arrested and released but by then they might have gotten problems since they haven't been able to work etc. Laws exist to make society better but obviously there's a trade-off: unfortunate consequences for people who turn out to be innocent vs. difficulties for police to investigate crimes.
This guy is basically harmless. It's only spam. Just delete it. Or better yet use a spam filter or sign up for one of the realtime blackhole lists.
I'd rather the FBI spend my tax dollars on something a bit more serious, like catching some real dangerous folks.
People need to learn not to resond to spam. If we want the government to fight our battles for us then they may aswell go after all the bogus infomercials you see on TV. Next thing you won't be able to claim vitamin C prevents colds (which it doesn't) but, hey, let people figure stuff out for themselves.
If the kits didn't exist, they would have to send the sample to the lab to have it analyzed. That's what they are doing with the hard drives since there is no step 1,2,3 test kit to prove this crime.
It comes down to the police having enough good evidence to convience a judge that the crime most likely did happened and that he should write a search warrent. I have no problem at all with that as long as the police and the judge are technically savy enough to analyze the evidence to know what it really means. If they aren't savy enough, that's when you are likely to get the bad warrents and the bad outcomes.
that scumbag
If he did commit crimes, i agree.
If he did not ( spam IS legal if you follow the rules remember ), then its harassment.
Not all are criminals, and while annoying as hell, do follow the laws so they can stay in business.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It should be if your livelihood is doing something that is illegal.
I believe there are provisions in the Patriot Act that give the government the powers of search and seizure without a warrant. Historically there's also civil forfeiture where the cops can take your car, house, boat, etc. with a warrant if they find drugs.
The issue is that *we don't know that he was earning his living in an illegal manner until he has been convicted!*
Now, this guy -- by non-judicial standards of ethics -- needs to be kicked in the balls and force-fed his own p3n15 pi11z. But the FBI, as an arm of the law, has to play by the law. That law says that you can't shut someone down from doing something unless you have evidence that it's illegal.
There's a fundamental difference between confiscating someone's crack and confiscating their computer. Mere possession of crack is illegal; if you stop a guy with crack, you know he's doing something illegal with it, and can take it.
Whether or not this guy is doing something illegal hasn't been determined yet. By all accounts the purpose of the raid wasn't to gather evidence to be used at trial; it was to stop the flood of spam by seizing his computers. While that's going to make the Internet a better place, it's not the way the law works. If the FBI really wanted to look for evidence, they'd bring a hacker with them on the raid and do a find | grep p3n15 on his boxes.
What do you mean not doing anything wrong?
There is plenty wrong with him denying people the use of their email facilities.
Even forgetting that, there is plenty wrong with what he is selling. Vicodin is a Class A drug in the UK and presumably similar elsewhere, so selling that gets you a life sentence.
One one hand, we want our judges to be able to have the power to secure evidence so that justice can be done. On the other hand, we don't want our judges to have the power to inflict harm upon citizens unless that person has been found guilty. The conflict is that securing evidence has the potential to inflict harm upon innocent people.
In this case, it's a guilty spammer. But what about when it was the innocent Steve Jackson Games? I don't want judges to have the legal capacity to deprive Steve Jackson Games of their computers without a trial. Maybe we need something like Grand Juries to authorize large seizures? I don't know, just an idea.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I just think it's a shame there wasn't a long series of "accidental" FBI firearm discharges in Ralsky's direction.
Key here is "law of the land." Do you actually expect the FBI to call people up and go, "Um yeah make sure you're around a 3:00pm tomorrow because we're going to raid your house."? If the FBI was lawfully granted a warrant for the raid and seizure, then due process was followed. Since this guy is spamming, presumably illegally, seizing his computers as evidence doesn't seem to far out of whack to me.
This will not prove to be much of a bust. If there were anything of substance in the information there would have been a felony arrest rather than merely a search warrant.
Of course, there are clandestine warrants - entry and installation of a logger followed by entry with a "regular" warrant to collect the data & computers. Perhaps an arrest will follow shortly.
If all the matter comes down to is a nice little fine....
This clown will just up his contribution to the Republicans - just making money as a free rider is status quo ante for the Bushies.
Off topic I know but....
A good friend of mine had something like this happen to him.
He was hanging out with a friend tha was doing tagging (spray painting) and was caught by the cops. My friend wasnt doing any of it, but because he had a sharpie (marker) they took everything he had in his bag, which was everything he needed for school, 2 weeks worth of homework, 5 or some books etc. It basically ruined my friends chances of finishing the semester even if he could afford to buy the books again.
Yeah he shouldnt have been walking with someone who was spray painting on walls, and is your traditional "wrong place at the wrong time" situation. It's been 2 years now and still has not gotten any of his stuff back.
TruePunk | Games
As for murderers...generally, pistols and shotguns aren't essential to your livelihood, and they can kill others. Computers are essential to IT businesses such as Ralsky's, and they can't injure anyone.
You're not quite grasping the analogy. Ralsky, a convicted felon, has set up a giant spam operation. The feds convinced a judge that in addition to all of the moral lines he's crossed, he's also crossed some legal ones. The computers are the tools used in his criminal enterprise, and they also contain evidence of his crimes.
It's rather clear that the intent was to stop him, not to determine his compliance with laws.
They've already determined to a judge's satisfaction that he's probably not complying with the laws. What's wrong with stopping him from continuing to break the law?
I'm quite sure the FBI doesn't want to be flooded with hundreds of calls, even ones showing their appreciation. They only have limited capacity for accepting calls, and there are more important things that they need to hear. Things like information leading to catching criminals, saving kidnapped people, and other important jobs.
Help them by not calling.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
Has he been tried and convicted for these crimes, and sentenced to have his computers confiscated? If not, then legally speaking, he's not guilty.
Yes, he probably has been doing something wrong, but he's being punished for it without a fair trial. Do we really want the government punishing people without absolute proof?
And although Mr. Ralsky says he is effectively out of business, I trust him and this statement as much as I trust his honorable treatment of email address removal requests - which is no trust at all*. He certainly has backup tapes off site. He also has the means to start right back up - or he should have, considering the money involved. If he doesn't, then he is an idiot, and gets what he deserves. SBC wouldn't go out of business if their bookkeeping computers were seized - same principle here.
I know I expect SourceForge to have backup tapes held off site. If SourceForge and OSDN don't have disaster recovery plans already written and tested - shame on them.
Every business that depends on IT should have a DR plan. Even if law enforcement mistakenly seizes your computers - that doesn't excuse your business from failing. Once you get 'large enough' it is irresponsible to not have a DR plan.
*According to the Spamhaus Project, Mr. Ralsky hosts his email servers in China to evade U.S. law. And as an email administrator, I don't see any evidence that email removal requests result in less spam - quite the opposite, really.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Who by? Agent Glorious Bubba?
Yeah! Rights are only for hippies and criminals! Law-abiding citizens don't need no fucking rights!
You look very well adapted to the direction your country seems to be heading for, my friend.
Also, for the people actually paying attention to the arguments instead of knee-jerk reactions like this idiot above, raids and property seizure can serve two purposes: collecting evidence for the trial or preventing a criminal activity from continuing. Obviously surprise can be essential for the former, but in the latter case I believe some consideration should be given to avoiding crippling economic damage to a person that has not been declared guilty in a trial. And that's something that by many accounts hasn't historically been the case in FBI raids.
Now, I happen to live outside the U.S., so if you're happy with that it's (mostly) your problem.
he had a "prior business arrangement" with them.
I'll put this situation in a few ways:
1) To have a warrant issued for your property, the odds are incredibly minute that you aren't committing a crime. Unless you were an absolutely idiot, you presumed from day one of your operations that your criminal activity may invoke a warrant for your personal property. Anyone who has been involved with crime basically assumes that, at some point, soon or far, their information will be subpoenaed, their property raided, or they will be arrested and charged in the act. This is the risk you prepare for.
2) To have a warrant issued against you follows that there is typically ample suspicion (some founded, some not) and evidence that you are engaging in criminal activity.
3) As seen above, you don't have to be declared guilty to have a warrant issued against you. Same goes for an arrest, detention or charges. As much as we wish an individual's right's are respected, the truth is you were likely engaging in criminal activity and henceforth deserve no such privledge to the know that you are being eyed by law enforcement. This would make cleaning up operations far too easy and further increase criminal activity.
So basically what I am saying is that although you think criminals should be informed that they are going to be raided (the principle of which is just ridiculous, but I'll let it rest), there is a very strong chances that they already knew they would be raided. Anyone who has been involved in criminal operations (and I don't mean robbing a convenience store) prepares for the day that their door gets busted down. It's all part of the risk -- and game. Don't sympathize or fight for this gentlemen's rights because as I see it, it's just fair game. The battle between law enforcement and those above the law is always an interesting one.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Alan Ralsky is one of the most egregious and pernicious of the spam scum out there. He tops the ROKSO (Registry of Known Spam Offenders) lists and is responsible for a very large volume of spam originating from APNIC netspace. Much of his spam hosting is overseas and he regularly emits spam by relaying it through zombied systems open relays or proxies. As you will see from the article some of his own state's anti-spam legislation were actually created with him solely in mind.
I can only hope we see more of this in kind, especially Waggoner, Marin, Scelson, Lin, Martino and ESPECIALLY Soloway who, like Ralsky, has always been quite the unapologetic spammer.
As an earlier poster said, thank you to the FBI for their hard work, and also for starting to take this problem seriously.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
It seems Mr. Ralsky was not one of the best students at http://www.universityofnigeria.com/.
Not paying attention at school might result in the above story.
Let this be a lesson to all of us.
yeah maybe he can tell other inmates about penis enhancement products, that will work well for him
I get no spam. -- John C. Dvorak
No "shot while resisting arrest"? Too bad.
That law says that you can't shut someone down from doing something unless you have evidence that it's illegal.
Well, considering you can't get a warrent unless there's enough prior evidence pointing to the likelihood of a crime being committed, I'm thinking you're right. You did see the part about warrents, right? And the warrent will list explicitly what can and can't be seized during a search. You have to tell the signing judge what it is you're looking for. A judge will not sign a "blanket warrent".
There's a fundamental difference between confiscating someone's crack and confiscating their computer. Mere possession of crack is illegal; if you stop a guy with crack, you know he's doing something illegal with it, and can take it.
Um, no. If both are being used to commit a crime there is no difference. And your crack analogy may be flawed. That's if you're talking about some guy being nabbed at random because he's acting in a suspicious manner. If, instead, you're talking about a warrent served to collect bags of crack at someone's home, then your analogy isn't flawed - simply wrong. If I have a delivery truck I use to make a living but I use it to run down pedestrians in the evening (hey I gotta unwind), it won't matter that my means of income has been removed. It was what I was using to commit a crime. It will be seized and scrutinized for evidence. The same would hold true if I committed a crime with my computer. It doesn't matter what else I use it for. The fact that I used it for criminal behavior means it gets nabbed for evidence.
If the FBI really wanted to look for evidence, they'd bring a hacker with them on the raid and do a find | grep p3n15 on his boxes.
It's obvious you know nothing about forensic examination of computer systems. You may end up using that technique to recover evidence, but only on a mirror created from the original. And only after you've secured the system. On-site investigation is a last resort and only should be used if there is no other way to get the information. If you were rely on "an investigator did a find | grep p3n15" on the premisis without securing the system, making memory dumps (if possible), mirroring the drives (and mounting them ro - well, all your computer evidence would be most likley be challenged successfully by a competent defense and tossed out. For collecting evidence of a computer crime that would be recklessly irresponsible. It's called chain-of-custody.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
I'm torn. On the one hand he was bad dude, and abused e-mail, and apparently PO'd a Fed department enought to get the 3rd degree, they'll probably turn a hell this the fed were talk about, they'll close their eyes after he's 'detained', meents bu-no theyre the feds so no bootbandits. So I guess on the other hand while he'll suffer some, do know that they'll actuall persictute him or will he cop-a plee , be sent to min security, have his name and records changed, etc?
They didn't just take away his stuff. They took away his stuff, to then copy it onto network storage. Then copy the drives onto otpical media. Then copy it onto hard drives. All while leaving the originals unmodified. Then they will analyze the data to gather evidence.
It would be real sweet to know the domains that they used so that every spam victim can file suit against Ralsky and Bradley. We can take out spammers with distributed lawsuits. A spammer can survive 1,2 or maybe 10 lawsuits, but can they survive 100? I, with help, took out Avtech.
I tracked down a big time ink spammer, going under the name of payless inks, top quality inks, inks on sale. I posted the strings to search for on my spam page so that any spam victim can file suit. If you file suit, contact me and I'd be happy to serve the summons and complaint.
Fight Spammers!
It's easy for an ISP to surrender a virtual machine. They lose nothing physical, other than some time and a tape or DVD or so.
I for one applaud the efforts of our FBI Overlords and welcome more news like this in the future.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
What the Feds have determined is that there is "probably cause" for a search warrant, not that he is doing something illegal. They had to have motive and/or compelling evidence of guilt to be able to execute that warrant. Nothing unconstitutional was done here, although I do disagree with making spam illegal.
The naivete of some /.ers astounds me. Do you really think Ralsky is "deprived of his ability to make a living" by the seizure of a few computers? Do you really not understand that Ralsky probably has a few dozen other computers in another location? Do you really believe Ralsky does not have the means to go out and buy another 100 computers to replace the half dozen seized? Do you really believe Ralsky even *needs* any computers? He's made millions already. He could retire right now and live the rest of his life in comfort on a beach in Bimini. Ralsky doesn't need to "make a living." His "need" is to feed his greed.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
If you're deprived of your major source of income for any period of time and not reimbursed, that's already a punishment. And in the US, you're supposedly innocent until proven guilty, and sentenced after you're convicted, not before.
We know that this guy's a spammer. Determining whether it's done legally could well be accomplished with audits, just like the issues with IP infringement with SCO and IBM. It then follows that a warrant rather than a subpoena was issued solely to halt his actions without a trial.
Good Fucking Riddance.
Here's hoping he stays shut down permanently.
Only on
The FBI is a rather large orignization. They are capable of doing many things at once. The US attorney's office has made it clear they are going to persue criminal cases against spammers now, and thus the FBI will be investigating.
Now not all spam is legal, as per CAN-SPAM, some is legal. However most isn't. Most of it is fradulant in nature, or does not have the proper opt-outs and such. Thus, it can be subject to a criminal investigation.
But please, stop the stupid hyperbole. The FBI is plenty capable of doing more than one thing at once, including things you like and things you don't. The answer isn't to get all whiny about it, it is to try and get the law changed. The FBI doesn't make the law, they enforce the law. If you disagree with the law don't demand they don't enforce it, demand that our legslature change it. It's quite clear our definitions for obsecity are out of date and need to be updated.
Write your congressmen and let them know this, and make it clear that it is an issue that will influence how you vote. Oh and pleaes leave out the hyperbole and personal attacks. That won't win you any points. You want to appear professional and rational. Let them know you have good reasons for believing what you do and that it is something they'd better pay attention to.
The fourth ammentment is supposed to protect you from 'unreasonable search and seizure.' Ideally, this means that unless they have some evidence of wrongdoing, they cannot search your home, unless the present situation presses them to: i.e., they hear somebody screaming bloody murder inside. They can search your car, but that's a well-established exception.
The War on Drugs, the Red Scare and indeed the entire concept of the FBI is centered around violating those constitutional rights. Indeed, evidence that is obtained by illegal or legally questionable methods should be thrown out of court, and often is. I wish it happened more often. The whole War on Drugs is just a big mass of nonsense to send people into prison, preferably small-time dealers/users who don't have machine guns, and the more people go into prison, the more it is apparent that these agencies are doing their job. They get a big pat on the back from the guys who run correctional facilities, and there you have it: the Prison-Industrial Complex.
Perhaps now the powers that be have figured out that you can finger some nerd for something, get him in jail for fourty years, and he's almost certainly not got a gun. Let me leave you with a quote:
When the Nazis arrested the Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist. When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat. When they arrested the trade unionists, I said nothing; afterall, I was not a trade unionist. When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew. When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest. -Martin Niemöller
There was no mention of it in the article, so it probably wasn't used in Ralsky's case, but....
In the US, law enforcement working for any level of government can seize whatever they want under the RICO Act. They simply have to say "this object was related to selling drugs" and its their's. Doesn't have to be true. Doesn't require a trial. Doesn't even need evidence to support the statement. It is just gone. And good luck getting it back if it isn't related to drugs. http://www.fear.org
I believe it is unconstitutional, but it happens on a very regular basis. One day I hope someone is able to bring it to the US Supreme Court and have all forfeiture laws abolished. But while it exists, it couldn't happen to a more deserving person if they did permanently seize Ralsky's equipment. Even bad laws can be useful occasionally.
Only on
I'm not sure who's next in the direct line of the spammish succession, but there are certainly enough acknowledged royal bastards to pass the throne to, if need be. (I'm not sure if King Al Ral has any jewels to turn over.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
How many remember the decline of usenet thanks to these assholes? You know, the ones that tried so fucking hard to equate SPAM with "free speech"?
Gee, where are they now...pity the FBI isn't breaking down their doors too, just for helping start this mess.
If I had modpoints... It is interesting, and really I have to say that from the other country's perspective, we certainly have been slacking.
First they came for the child pornography wierdos
and I did not speak out
because I did not look at child Pornography
Then they came for the spammers
and I did not speak out
because I did not spam
Then they came for the GNAA
and I did not speak out
because I was not a troll
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
This is the FBI. Come out with your penis enlarged!
Table-ized A.I.
I know it's hard to sympathise with Ralsky, but this could also happen to many other people if they are sued by the RIAA or MPAA, using exactly the same legal principle.
The solution to victimless crimes isn't to protect criminals who cause harm; it's to revise the laws so they're worth respecting.
Hmm.... I tried to make this comment earlier but was unable to post for a while, so here's take 3:
The point is that FBI seizure of computers for evidence is extremely disruptive, and (since the computers are generally kept for at least a full obsolescence cycle and often damaged) amounts to taking stuff and not giving it back. We've all heard stories about people and organizations who lose lots of stuff for no good reason. The most famous recent one was Indymedia but there are others. That sort of thing is not supposed to happen.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that message.
Hmmm... Tried to reply to this hours ago but was blocked from posting for some reason...
The idea is that seizure of the computers completely disrupts his business and livelihood. Ralsky may (or may not) be a cut-and-dried case; but even if he is found innocent he is unlikely to see his computers again for at least a year or two. At that point they will be obsolete, and unless he has replaced them his business will likely be completely gone. There is little more than semantic difference between "seizing for evidence" and "seizing and never giving back". Consider Indymedia, who had their computers seized for months during election season and were never charged with anything.
Public paddling! Who's with me!?
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
(Mod parent "-1, moronic application of incorrect Niemöller quotation.")
:)
If only psychologically and/or genetically defect people could reasonably be expected to protest against the arrest of Niemöller, then there was obviously no fault with his arrest (and imprisonment in Sachsenhausen/Dachau) and thus no reason to protest.
Or are you trying to say that the whole German state at the time exclusively consisted of commies, teamster mafiosos, social democrats, kikes, and the criminal traitor Niemöller? Damn, then not much has changed!
If you buy from a spammer, you don't have to pay.
If you bought something that came from an unsolicited email that was received from an organization that you have not contacted in the last 90 days, you can get a refund from your credit card company / Western Union / bank / whatever for the full price of the merchandise purchased. You must swear under penalty of perjury that your purchase was made as a result of an unsolicited email.
There will be collateral damage, at least at first. It will be harder to get accepted as a merchant to handle credit card transactions, Western Union will have to question all their customers ("Are you transferring this money to pay for something you bought via spam? Are you sure? Are you really, really sure?"), checks will probably have preprinted disclaimers "My signature indicates that I'm paying for something I bought through spam" above the signature line, etc. Of course, the law for fraudulently reporting something as spam must be strict, too, but it's not likely to be accidentally violated.
What we need is for some legislators to get ripped off via spammers. Then we'll start to see laws like this being proposed. A less drastic version of the law would start with credit card transactions, since these can be made online much easier than the others, but then spammers will move to Western Union or check, so you have to cover them too.
should be directed to:
Alan Murray Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr,
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
Telephone: 248-926-0688 * Confirmed
Remember console frequently, and console late at night. Snail Mail gladly accepted. In fact, considering the trash he's sent us, filling his voicemail is entirely appropriate. Read him your spam. Read it slowly.
Ever heard of the RICO act? The gov. can charge *your property* with a crime. If you can't prove that your property was not gained from committing an act of racketeering, you don't get it back. It's frequently used as a revenue-generating tool; i.e., siezing cash from suspicious looking characters during traffic stops, in airports, etc. It is also used to deprive persons of effective counsel by seizing bank accounts that would otherwise be used to pay for lawyers.
So, in short, yes, the Eff-Fucking Bee Eye can seize your property without ever charging you with a crime, and it's damn hard (read *impossible*) to get it back if they don't want you to have it.
A few years ago, Ralsky was deluged with hundreds of unwanted magazines at his house, after anti-spammers signed him up for subscriptions. I wonder who that could be? Hmmm.....
But the principle is still unjust.
Not it's not. The principle is this: we the people elect, or through our elected officials appoint, sober, thoughtful judges who decide whether the risk of temporarily depriving an innocent person of their property (or similar hardship) is outweighed by the very likely finding of guilt. It's the job of the investigators and prosecutors to show the judge (or panel of judges) that warrant being asked for has merit. Do you reall, really think that even a first-day-on-the-job investigator couldn't show a judge the way in which the spammer in question was breaking the law? It's a no-brainer for the judge - the evidence in this investigation is huge, and the person under investigation goes to no trouble to hide his activities.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
he is unlikely to see his computers again for at least a year or two.
/. Indymedia stories.
Can you provide some links for this?
Consider Indymedia, who had their computers seized for months during election season and were never charged with anything.
I think you mean this case where they wanted copies of the drives, not the drives themselves nor the computers. As I recall, it was at the request of Italy, who wanted evidence for something. The drives were gone for three days, not the months you say.
Take a look at the
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Start arresting domestic offenders. Then, pressure other country's governments to follow suit.
They took down EliteTorrents, didn't they?
-ELiTe185
Taxpayers inconvenience spammers!
Watch the entire internet run faster due to this guy's capture, speaking of which I wonder if he get's spam, do spammers spam him?
Maybe his sentence will be to send out thousands of unsolicited emails apologies for all the SPAM he has sent.
They should make Ralsky send personal email apologies to every person he's ever spammed
You're barely aware of CAN-SPAM and yet have the temerity to debate about whether or not spam is a problem?! Here's another free clue for you : just because you and the thread originator only see a few kilobytes of bandwidth wasted, don't think that tells you anything about the larger picture. ISPs with tens of thousands of users have to invest serious money in capacity, and when spam outnumbers legitimate email by a factor of four or five, that means they need hardware and bandwidth four or five times the size simply to cope with the deluge. Those costs are very real, and they get passed on to you, even if you don't see it as a line item on your ISP bill.
Laws only work when enforced. If the idiots in D.C. didn't pass the I-CAN-SPAM act, much spam would be eliminated as the California law would have made each spam illegal. But even with strong laws, the only way to stop spammers is to either take away all their money, or put them in prison and give their cell mates penis enlargment pills and cialis softtabs.
Fight Spammers!
I wonder: is he a Linux/BSD user or sends his spam from a ISS server? It would be interesting to know his tecnical skills: he's pushing sixty, I bet he's not a Linux/BSD guru. All the people I know at his age lost their pace with tech a decade ago.
If this is true, it means that sending tons of spam is just damn easy, all you need is the money to start with and the "skill" to set up some Window$ mail servers. Even a kid could do it (except the money obviously).
Non-compliant spam now requires felonies. Multiple felonies. Not just CAN-SPAM violations, but forgery, viruses, theft of service, money laundering, and other clear crimes. Those are things that law enforcement understands.
Remember, there aren't that many spammers. ROKSO says that 200 spammers are responsible for 80% of spam. That's not very many from a law enforcement perspective.
MessageLabs says that spam peaked last year. At peak, 60% of all E-mail was spam. It's down below 50% now. However, it doesn't seem to have decreased since Ralsky was taken down last month.
In a forest, a large tree may block light from everyone around it. When that tree falls, often MANY smaller trees will sprout up to take it's place.
I've noticed in the last few days, the amount of spam arriving in my gmail box has gone from one or two a day to hundreds a day overnight. I'm worried about what that means....
Yeah, spam your local FBI office with thanks :)
... because it's alphabetical by first name. So how bad is this clown compared to the others?
Had the headline read "FBI Raids Home of Hacker Kevin Mitnick," we would probably have been outraged.
They were they, they were certainly armed. Why, oh why didn't they shoot him while they're at it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In order to try and convict him of anything you need evidence, seizing his equipment is not a punishment for him but an attempt to gather evidence of his innocence or guilt. I can't see any other way for this to work.
I live outside the US too and I am pretty sure a very similar system is in operation here too and I am happy that this is the case.
If the FBI warned him they would shortly be droppping around to look for illegal activity on his computer systems you can be pretty sure by the time they arrived there would be no evidence whatsoever.
If he, or anyone, is that worried about their activities being interrupted by raids like this I'm sure they can buy insurance to cover the loss of earnings caused by the seizure.
If we want to catch criminals then we need procedures in place such as the one in operation here, certainly not everyone who's stuff is seized will be a criminal and the FBI should make sure they take good care of it whilst in their possesion and return it promptly but the inconvience caused is one of the costs of living in a society which can effectively deal with crooks. This is a pay-off I am willing to accept.
That quote is totally inappropriate to this discussion.
Mr Ralsky is not being persecuted because of his political views, religion or anything else. The FBI is attempting to find evidence of criminal activity because they realise that without evidence the case will never get to court. When the case gets to court Mr Ralsky can defend himself and a jury will decided whether or not he is a criminal. If they decide he is a criminal then he may be locked up.
charge 1cent for each email sent, and 1cent for each attatchment, but you pay the reciever of the email. so if i email my brother and he replies there's no net charge. if i send a mailout to 10 or so friends saying i've got new baby photos on my website it still only costs me a few pence. if a spammer is sending lots of emails it's costing them cash, if i get 100 spam messages a day then hey, it's making me money!
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
It only takes a new law that puts a spammer to death to stop spammers. Oh wait, they have that for murderer's and yet people still murder other people.
Maybe they should seize his client list that pay him to send spam out and charge them some hefty fines, daily, for each spam they send so it's not worth sending this unsolicited email out.
I don't blame the spammers, I blame the companies who actually pay them to do their dirty work.
It's rather clear that the intent was to stop him, not to determine his compliance with laws.
Something else worth considering is that the evidence on his computer equipment can be modified or erased. Once he knows they're on to him, if he still has access to his equipment, he can get to work covering his tracks. If the authorities don't seize the equipment, it becomes useless as evidence.
Serving Suggestion: Defrost
Brazil: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries."
As if nobody in Brazil has seen a pair of boobs before...
Blank until
If this is genuinely to gather evidence than that's fair enough, and in this case, it's probably a net good. Can't say I'm totally happy about it though. The problem is I keep getting the impression this has been done specifically to shut him down, and the "gathering evidence" was simply a pretext.
He must have fallen behind on his bribes^H^H^H^H^H campaign contributions.
>But the principle is still unjust. They may have had a warrant,
>but what if he wasn't doing anything wrong? Then he's being
>deprived of his property by the government
>despite being not doing anything wrong.
Should he turn out to be not guilty or charges are never filled, he is entitled for compensation. Big enough money can cure every injustice except execution of an innocent.
Remember there was a computer game small firm in the early 1980s whose entire PC fleet and source code was collected by the FBI based on a spy story misunderstanding. They eventually got 50k or 80k USD for lost revenue and that was big dollar back then.
I believe the original poster was saying that we have no idea what reason(s) the search warrant was issued for. It could have been full of 'if ' statements, too. A warrant should be based on something other than speculation. Assuming they had some evidence to get the warrant, then I don't have a problem with it. I only object if there was no evidence and the government was abusing the law again.
Selling drugs can be a federal capital crime under the Drug Kingpin law.
Weird fact about that law:
It specifies lethal injection (btw, they don't use doctors to administer it - as it is a gross violation of medical ethics and the Hippocratic oath to kill your patients - unless you are a bariatric surgeon in which case no one seems to care, but I digress), for all other fed death penalty cases they use the method of the/an involved state and if the state/states has/have no death penalty the feds get to pick any state's method.
Also, "felony murder" (i.e. committing a felony and someone dies) can also get one the death penalty. Hack a PC, and the owner gets upset, has a heart attack and dies, and you can be killed by the gov't.
Any felony can cost you your life.
If someone commits felony spam and someone dies of anaphylactic shock or a Viagra-nitrate interaction from pills bough because of the spam - technically they could be executed.
Quite unlikely and has nothing to do with the USA PATRIOT Act.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Mr. Ralsky got a reporter's ear, and used it to yell out 'help, help, I'm being repressed!'
I don't believe him. I'm sure he has a DR plan in place and has already activated it.
Sure, in an ideal world, his gear wouldn't be confiscated. If the warrants were issued against SBC, probably some sort of deal would be worked out where a set of backup tapes were handed over instead (I believe this was the case with one of the Presidential investigations).
But in Mr. Ralsky's case, his operation is clearly on the edge of legitimacy, and so he should know he needs full disaster recovery plans and test schedules.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
I believe they have to present their evidence for the necessity of taking the actions they took to a judge who will not permit them to continue if all he is hearing is speculation.
I agree the system shouldn't be abused but then I think everyone will agree to that. I'm not sure what cases you are referring to where the government has abused it's power ( I'm not saying this doesn't happen ) but I expect that in the vast majority of cases the system works effectively and is a benefit to society.
Certainly when abuses are detected then action should be taken and I think what you are arguing is that this doesn't happen as it should do which is a different issue but for which there is no evidence of it happening in this particular case.
The prevalent reaction here is not apathy, but celebration. Ralsky's actions were not society-neutral; he was a parasite that made his living abusing other people's time and resources (and even more horrific, claimed it was his "right" to do so). His actions were not any sort of principled belief, but rather the very definition of anti-social behavior.
I'm all for being wary of the slippery slope, but it is a slope in and of itself to see slopes every time we try to make things better.
I'm impressed that despite the array of bright minds that have thus far been applied unsuccessfully to the spam problem, you alone have disovered the Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem. So go ahead Einstein, enlighten us all : how do you avoid spam with a few minor steps? Seriously, come on, you've solved it so easily, it's no big deal, why not dazzle us all with your insight?
I wish they would come for you, 'cos you're a fucking loony. Convince me you're not a fucktard - explain how spam is free speech?
What a shame that techies seldom get it right. During the Clinton administration all you people did was whine about high taxes. Then you voted for George Bush and watched as he destroyed your industry.
Now you cheer an overzealous FBI because they attacked a spammer. Hopefully, the results will be less of a disaster than your quest for lower tax rates.
How about focusing on the right solutions...
1. Protect America - An overzealous FBI is far worse than spammers.
2. Sender Authentication - Fix the SMTP protocol.
3. Doing it Right doesn't Pay - Make it illegal to blackhole legal solicitations.
4. Level the Playing Field - Provide email marketers with the same rights as USPS marketers or limit USPS marketers to the limited rights of email marketers.
Keep doing what you're doing and all the spammers will move to countries that need the money, the spam problem will get worse, and the FBI will be visiting you in the middle of the night to make sure you're voting for the right candidate.
They didn't seize it to deprive him of his business - they seized it to preserve the evidence in the case - which happens to be on the hard drives of his computers.
In order for the case to be valid, those drives have to be shutdown in a specific manner, then duplicated w/o writing to them at all, and then reinstalled in the PC they came from - serial #'s, technician names, dates, times, etc. - all is recorded in a chain of custody format so everything about them is known.
The FBI then hangs onto the equipment so that they have the originals in case anyone claims that there were changes, yada yada yada...
When the case is over, you can have your stuff back....
So yes, it does temporarially deprive one of his/her property - but it's the same as anything else that seized as evidence in an investigation. All done with warrants and judicial oversight, etc. so you get your Due Process - even though it sucks rocks...
And no, I'm not a lawyer, but I am an Expert Witness and have testified in a number of cases (for both sides) - so I'm intimately familiar with the way things are done.
If Ralsky had half a brain, he would have embedded large electromagnets in the doorway of his computer room, and set something up to trigger them when he got busted... then when the computers leave, they get erased... Not that this would be to destroy evidence mind you, but merely to protect his data from being stolen by some nefarious competitors...
As a bare minimum, it includes an individual's right to be adequately notified of charges or proceedings involving him, and the opportunity to be heard at these proceedings.
This was done, in this case, when they raided him they would have told him why the equipment was being seized, and the investigation with him as the subject. His opportunity would come later to be heard in trial. You dont "Notify" people of raids, that would completely defeat the purpose since you would be allowing them time to destroy evidence.
Nice straw man you got there. Is your dad by any chance a spammer?
So do you support the death penalty? Sure there are abuses and innocent people being put to death, but in the majority of cases the system works effectively and is a benefit to society.
When you are talking about killing someone you need to be 100% you are killing the right ( genuinely guilty ) person because once you have killed them there is no comeback or recourse you could take to correct your mistake and compensate them afterwards should you later turn out to be wrong or to have acted improperly. I don't think the criminal justice system can guarantee this so I don't support the death penalty for that reason.
What we are discussing here is a totally different matter, people are potentially being inconvenienced rather than killed so if it later turns out that the FBI were acting improperly Mr Ralsky can sue them and get recompense for the trouble they have caused him.
Rat in action. Note the satisfied smile at the end. Note also that he takes the time to degauss properly.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In Texas, if you have to shoot someone (justified), the police keep your gun. I think this really sucks because odds are the person you shot may have like-minded friends. I think there's a definate market for disposible guns.
FBI raids YOU!
I'm going to have to agree with you here, and yes, I took things an order of magnitude out of context further than necessary. Spammers use others time, machines, and service and really are annoying as all hell especially to ISP's (although mabye when european law forces ISP's to log 12 months of data, an increase in spam might stop this law from being taken seriously).
However I will warn people to wary themselves of the slippery slope; there isn't as much ground between 'crucify the spammer' and being on the cross yourself as one might think, especially if you're vocal like I sometimes can be, and in these strange times.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I'm sorry but are you a fucking retard? The point of a raid is to go in and find indisputalable evidence that the crime was committed.
They do notify you before they enter the premise. This usually means they knock on the door and tell you that they are about to do so in 5 seconds.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)