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British Spammer Gets 6 Years

Posted by Zonk on from the angry-little-black-hat dept.

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.

6 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Title Misleading by mysqlrocks · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
    1. Re:Title Misleading by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
      > > 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.

      Yes, but it sounds like he thre@tened to ki1l and b1ackmai1 so many people that the threats themselves qualified as spam :-)

    2. Re:Title Misleading by cindy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. 2 much or 2 little? by yiantsbro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"?

  3. Domain Registry Of Europe by hattig · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. Good! by Whackjob23 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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....