Slashdot Mirror
British Spammer Gets 6 Years
Killjoy_NL writes "The BBC tells us that a 23 year old spammer has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for sending spam and other illegal activities." From the article: "He had offered thousands of e-mail and website names when he had no right. And when victims complained, he threatened to destroy their internet systems by sending millions of spam e-mails. Peterborough Crown Court heard he also threatened to fire-bomb the headquarters of the county's trading standards department and petrol-bomb his local police headquarters. When internet policing group Nominet posted warnings about his activities, he responded by saying he would attack its servers." ZDNet has coverage as well.
FTA
Peter Francis-Macrae, of St Neots, Cambs, was found guilty of threatening to kill and blackmail.
Yes, he was a spammer but that's not what he was sentenced for.
Bradley Holt
I'm sure it's easy to dismiss out of hand comments about bomb-threats from some random guy as actually being serious, but they must be taken seriously and from the proliferate amount of threats and general assholery, surely this guy deserves more than six years as a life lesson.
At first glance you think "6 years for spam...damn that's harsh". Then you read what else he did and you think "damn, only 6 years"?
Out of all the other violations he had commited, why is Slashdot working the SPAM angle?
For instance;
A person arrested for hacking a website!
And the details are;
The person murdered everyone in the building, killed the world economy, and he hacked a website.
Yet, Slashdot would glorify that the person was arrested for hacking a website.
This was a lot less about his spamming activities and a lot more about the "threatened to fire-bomb the headquarters of the county's trading standards department and petrol-bomb his local police headquarters." part.
The fact that he was also a spammer is a side-story. Had he not done the other stuff, I'm sure he'd still be happily spamming away.
And after looking at the picture, what a smarmy little punk.
That's exactly it. I got excited when I read this headline, and it felt good to see things finally being done about the global nuisance. Sort of a let down.
"You won't eat our meat, but you'll glue with our feet.." --Some cow
I know it's nice to think some guy peddling generic viagra got put away for 6 years but this guy seems to have other serious issues:
"The 23-year-old was also convicted of threatening to destroy or damage property, concealing criminal property and fraudulent trading. "
It doesn't appear he was even charged with spamming, "Francis-Macrae was found guilty of two counts of fraudulent trading, one of concealing criminal property, two of making threats to kill, one charge of threatening to destroy or damage property and one count of blackmail. ".
And when he's making 100k pounds per week I doubt that many ppl are paying for junk, he prob was scamming somehow.
Jackass. Interesting that this particular model citizen didn't stop with mere spamming, but added arson threats and murder threats to his repitoire. Hopefully, this will serve to further erase the fictitous dividing line between spammers and "real criminals".
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
'Vindictive' UK spammer jailed for six yearsl ed/
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/17/spammer_jai
Good news!
I think it was this guy.
He sent out fake renewal notices to people, using whois data. The notices asked for a renewal fee of around £60 for 2 years renewal.
I reported that company several times to trading standards, as my line of work was in the same area, and it was affecting my customers who would get in contact and ask about their renewal status, that they'd sent in the cheque a while ago... this happened dozens of times, and I was running a tiny internet company.
His response? He moved his company to a Mailboxes Etc (Regent Street, Cambridge, UK) that I also used, thus sullying my companies name. Mailboxes Etc were not interested in the fact that their customer was a scammer.
That stupid little parasite got what he deserved. Just look at him, he's a punkass. Have fun in prison, beyotch.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
pwned. BAaaaaaaaaaahahahaha
2 year sentence. Ahhh, the oldest democracy, nice to see we have our priorities spot on.
Deleted
"... He's accused of threatening to slit the throats of trading standards ..."
Tha's what a 24 should be doing, not spamming
Not only is the guy a piece of crap spammer, hes also a psycho. Good thing he is locked up, maybe the amount of spam floating around will decrease by some small fraction of a percemt
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
Now hopefully he'll know the feeling of having unwanted items shoved into his inbox. Or outbox, depending upon your view of that type of thing....
could someone explain the "Reunite Gondwondaland!" at the bottom of the Slashdot page to me? Googling the phrase yields nothing but drug spam posted to blogs.
I feel so ignorant.
Evil is the money of root.
.. but spam *IS* fraud.
"During the trial, Francis-Macrae defied Judge Nicholas Coleman QC by refusing to reveal where he hid up to £425,000, saying Cambridgeshire Police would "steal" it."
That'd be an outrage if he really ends up with all that, they should make a condition he never gets released unless he says where he hid the cash if he withdrew it or moves it all back into the UK if he transferred his profits offshore. Otherwise he should rot in jail forever.
I guess the Government of U.K. has to do something to make it look like they take spamming seriously. I wish the U.S. would pass a real law against spamming as well as enforce it.
Wouldn't a death threat be "unsolicited?"
It was the malevolence of his threats which sunk him.
Peterborough Crown Court heard he also threatened to fire-bomb the headquarters of the county's trading standards department and petrol-bomb his local police headquarters.
Just the spamming alone wouldn't have got him such a sentence.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
When I read the very misleading title I assumed that he had gotten 6 years for just sending spam. Turns out, he did things way worse than that, but still, when I read the title I was a little bit shocked. Six years!!! For spam!!! Ok, it's very annoying, but I would violently protest anyone getting anything more than a month for just sending spam. Does anyone know how long you actually get/how much you have to pay for sending spam?
I'm gonna post this on Digg, that way /. can point back and say SEE! SEE! We got it first baby!
Hopefully, this will strike some fear into spammers and some of the spam will be reduced!
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Okay, at least his dad. According to the BBC article,
Francis-Macrae, who made more than £100,000 per week from the scam, spent £28,000 on designer clothes and on learning to fly helicopters
If any of my offspring are over 18 and wandering around the house in an outfit that's more than my mortgage payment, they best get packing - quickly. Oh, and they need to get that helicopter out of the front yard - it's murder on the azaleas.
Your logic is faulty. There's not necessarily a connection between spammers and "real criminals", even if there is one in this case.
If somebody who violates copyrights on occasion turns around and kills someone, that does not make all copyright violators murderers.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
make him write out all messaging/mail by hand, forever
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Nominet is hardly a policing organisation. They are operate the registry for uk. and so I expect they got a lot of complaints about him and decided to warn other people.
Also his main crime was not spamming, but simple fraud: offering to sell that which he was not entitled to sell.
This is poor sub-editing even by Slashdot, and BBC technology, standards.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
..he threatened to break in to each person's computer and ensure that no one was using his 'intellectual property' for reasons he did not beleive fit? OH WAIT SONY did this--and they get nothing. bull shit
It's like arresting a mafia boss for jaywalking. Why not just pass laws that make the real problem illegal in the first place?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Francis-Macrae, who made more than £100,000 per week from the scam, spent £28,000 on designer clothes and on learning to fly helicopters, the court heard.
Helicopters? Sweet. Ok, give him six years. ;-)
Often times it is only the stupid who get scammed. Had these people taken the time to investigate the notice they received, then they most likely would not have been defrauded. They should have contacted their registrar to confirm the need for renewal, for instance. If they forgot who their registrar is, then they're just being irresponsible.
You speak of this guy owning up for the threats he made. Perhaps he should. But then again, his victims should own up to their mistakes. It was through their own negligence that they lost money. They willingly and voluntarily sent him the money. It's not like he came and took the money out of their wallets.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
WTF?!?!? I'm tired of this sensationalized, misleading garbage we're seeing in article summaries! This site has gone to hell and if the community moved elsewhere I would too. I don't even come here for the articles themselves any more, just to read the comments. Enough is enough! Try to at least PRETEND to have credibility!
Go ahead and mod me -5 FlAmEbAiT!!!!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I say good riddence and I hope he rots in hell.... Wait thats what my friends and I are gonna say at each other's funerals, he's not good enough for that.
:D
Why don't they just lock him in Irons and create a website where each time its visited he's shocked... Then we just slashdot it.
Sadly I am very dissappointed that he's only getting 6 years, the US goverment tried nailing me for more than that for something I didn't even do. They didn't even have evidence. *It was a accident in bad weather and they tried nailing me on two counts of felony vehicular assault, one count was nothing more than whiplash, the other was my fiance and she ripped the prosecutor a new one. All they had was eye witness statements none of which were the same.* This guy had more evidence against him than you could shake a fist at, including threats to those willing to stand up to him, including threats to government buildings. Doesn't that classify him as a terrorist? Lock his ass up and throw away the key.
Just my two cents.
pbtpu40
-PB_TPU_40 The trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
>>I'd say 6 years is pretty light
it's real interesting to see what people from 2 different nations think about punishment. I find that I were to commit a crime, I think it would be better to do it in France or Italy than in USA.
Prison sentence seems shorter over there.
Onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
It's a good thing the Brits aren't allowed guns. Who knows what this guy could have done with one!
or subtle dirty joke?
Naturally criminals aren't kinky: thay take what the opportunity will give.
"Dude, that chick is so kinky. She took everything I had the opportunity to give!"
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Saying he's a thug implies he actually would carry out his threats; he may just be talking like a thug without actually intending to do anything, or he may be the type to hire thugs to go beat people up for him. From a criminal prosecution standpoint, making threats is probably enough, though obviously carrying them out is a lot more prosecutable.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
B (terrorists) is a superset of A (terrorists with political motives>, so for every x in A, x in B is implied; I believe we agree on that. What you just said is that x is not a member of A, therefore he isn't a member of B too, which logically is flawed.
What do you call someone who threats to bomb a building unless they are offered a large amount of money? Do they have to actually bomb the building to earn the title "terrorist"?
I speak England very best
He threatened people, threatened to bomb government buildings, etc. What exactly was the six years for then?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I don't know... I have several customers who have had their registrar change names several times! If you were, for example, a "Network Solutions" customer over the last decade, and you weren't paying close attention to Verisign's purchases, renaming, rebranding, etc., could anyone blaim you if you weren't 100% sure that the letter you received about the time you domain was up for renewal was from your registrar, or a different one with a "similar" name?
You're describing a completely different situation. Indeed, to get to the money in the peoples' wallets he would have to forcefully take it from them. That is not what happened in this case. Remember, the people voluntarily sent him the money.
A more apt analogy would be him standing beside a building, with a Coke logo on his chest, pretending to be a pop machine. People would voluntarily put money into his pocket, thinking they'd get a bottle of Coke. Of course, they wouldn't, because he's not really a pop vending machine.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
To all those blaming slashdot for a misleading title look at the tile fro BBC
Spammer jailed for £1.6m net scam
I belive slashdot only para-phrased thier title so in this case the title on slashdot is somewhat justified.
"Angry-Little-Black-Hat"? Angry, perhaps, but "black hat"?
If a blackhatter wanted to take down a server, he would have kept his mouth shut and just done it (and erased his footprint when he sneaked out). He would have also concealed his identity a lot better than what this scumbag did.
I got really pissed when I read this because it reminded me of case here in Norway where an 18-year old and three friends unprovokedly beat up a guy so he now has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair with the need of constant attendance for daily tasks (i.e. to live). The sentence was 4 years and 9 months. This spammer only cripples a persons damn machine, not their ability to move their body. No wonder people lose respect for the law.
But the fact remains that he did not directly take money from these people. They voluntarily sent the money to him, for whatever reason.
The fact also remains that they need to take responsibility for their actions. They should not have voluntarily sent him money if they were not completely sure that he was in fact their registrar, much as they shouldn't voluntarily put money in his Coke machine if they're not sure it will give them a bottle of Coke.
Notice that the key word is voluntary. That means that the victims themselves should take some responsibility for becoming victimized. They made the mistake of sending him the money when they obviously did not have to.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I think we agree that this thread should've had the dumbass tag. :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...in this day and age that anyone seriously threating any type of bombing would be subject to harsher penalties.
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Guys like him give the rest of us spammers a bad name...
--- This
Yeah, I'm sure posting someone's information on the internet is very noble indeed. He may have broke the law, but he still has a right to privacy.
I'm glad we all think it's okay to just willy nilly about with someone's personal information, but I'd be willing to bet a left arm that you'd want to sue if someone just up and disclosed public information about you, telling them to harass you.
It works both ways, asshole.
Did anyone else pick up on the fact that he made over £100,000 a week, spent only £28,000, yet still lived with his father?! Man, my inner geek aspires to be this guy.
On the bright side, at least we know ONE aspect of being a geek that never gets any that'll be fulfilled in prison *grin*
"So YOUR the bloke that got me hooked on generic viagra... I've got something for ya"
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I might annoy millions, but at least I won't have to worry about being offshored.
At first glance you think "6 years for spam...damn that's harsh".
Odd, that's not what came to my mind. I was actually thinking how sad it was a crime that affects so many gets such light punishment.
You're right though they other stuff he did was even worse. Should have got life.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the pron case, in all likleyhood your business would be very different from that of the porn company so there is no confusion.
But think about what happened to this guy - the scammer now has the exact same address as the official company that only differs by a P.O. Box. People would naturally start thinking it was indeed from him and be more inclined to think it was a billing screw-up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
which is? Iceland possibly for oldest parliament? New Zealand and other contenders for Universal Suffrage? Other contenders?
Why does the BBC report 28,000 pounds spent on flash clothes and learning to fly a helicopter as one line item?
Did he need the flash clothes so he would be appropriately dressed for helicopter lessons? Were the clothes and helicopter lessons purchased at the same store?
How come you can't buy Helicopter Lessons at Marks & Sparks, or Tescos, instead having to go to some poshish booteek?
When are we going to be able to walk into our local McDonalds and hear the magic words "Would you like helicopter lessons with that?"
Squirrel!
"Jailed Spammer's Ass Victim of DOS Attack" ...Bandwidth Severely Affected...
Threatens to firebomb, kill, retaliate, refuses to surrender illegal gains...
Mario Cuomo, the Kennedys and Shelley Silver...proud of the Brits humanity.
(WCATFA?)... as in Who Cares...
Was he dressed in black armour ?
did he look like this and resist arrest ?
Look at your definition. It specifically contains the word "employs". That means that to be considered a "terrorist", he would have had to have a political motive, and he would have actually had to carry out his threats. Until then he's just a threatener of violence.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I bet he is regretting sending out all those "Enlarge your Penis!" spams now he is going to jail.
Don't drop the soap mate, it's a gonna hurt!!! LOL
Later on, there is a sub-sentence saying "a radical who employs terror as a political weapon"; it is obvious to me that your comment is based on this from all the information given on the term. Well, if you think that this is the complete definition, arrange that the guys in dictionary.com remove everything else except from that sub-sentence; it must be obvious to you that "they can't write definitions"
Francis-Macrae employed terrorism by threatening to attack other computers with massive incoming email and DoS attacks. Notice that he had been already successful in using massive emailing during his business, so his threat about multiple attacks can be considered substantial, and his further threats about "burning" and "bombing" can therefore be considered possible.
These threats are an act of terrorism.
OTOH, Ballmer's "I'm gonna forking kill Google" cannot easily be considered a terrorist action, even if he said that he'd done it before, since these previous actions are not known to his potential victims, and therefore he can't be taken seriously however large the chair being thrown around, because he hasn't the means to destroy another company. ...Or has he?-)
This horse is dead as far as I am concerned, I promise you I won't write back, feel free to reply as you like.
I speak England very best
Russia, china are the biggest spammers, and we know they can't be controlled! If this guy has been punished, the next one would just set up his shop in eastern Europe
Manojar - pronounced like Manager