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.
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"?
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.
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".
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Precisly: this kid should be better labled as a terrorist or a thug (not the hip-hop variety) rather than a spammer. I still find it horrible that he was cleared of two accounts of threatening to kill.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
It's like a bank robber who drove a car to the bank. "Motorist Gets 6 Years!" The article only mentions spamming in context of his other crimes.
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.
The 23-year-old was cleared of two charges of making threats to kill.
He's not a "terrorist". His actions were apparently not politically motivated. It sounds like he was just trying to defend his business from those who opposed it.
I know it's trendy these days for political leaders to refer to anyone they don't like as "terrorists", but I think we can maintain a higher standard here and use the word as it should be used.
"Thug" is perhaps a more appropriate term.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Interesting, you believe that fraud should be legal because only irresponsible people would "fall for it"? I can't really argue that point any more than saying I disagree.
But, hey, thanks for the name calling, that's very mature! And kudos for the straw-man there too, if you can't argue the point argue the opponent!
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
The problem is that "terrorist" is a heavy word nowadays.
Actually, it's used more like Kleenex is used for a tissue, or Scotch Tape is used for cellophane tape, Band-Aid for bandage, etc....
Criminal == Terrorist