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Spam King Busted by Secret Service

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we're-going-to-have-to-ask-you-to-come-with-us dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Adam Vitale, aka Batch1 aka Baxter, 25, of Boynton Beach, FL, and his partner Todd Moeller, aka M3rk, of New Jersey, are accused of sending nearly 50,000 pieces of spam e-mail to more than 1.2 million AOL subscribers. US Secret Service agents used a confidential informant to hire Moeller and Vitale to deliver spam, which advertised a computer security product."

6 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Services rendered by slashnutt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    US Secret Service agents used a confidential informant to hire Moeller

    I guess it is good that the Secret Service doesn't have to worry about entrapment rules. It's great to hear that spam is getting wiped out but at what cost - the government is now hiring people to do things that will get them dragged into court? Maybe if everyone (including you, everyone you know and the government) stopped hiring/buying the service then maybe I might receive a little less spam and that is the only way it will really cease being a problem.

    1. Re:Services rendered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      That word does not mean what you think it means. Entrapment is:
      In jurisprudence, entrapment is a procedural defense by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because they were induced (or entrapped) by the police to commit said acts. For the defense to be successful, the defendant must demonstrate that the police induced an otherwise unwilling person to commit a crime. However, when a person is predisposed to commit a crime, offering opportunities to commit the crime is not entrapment, such as in the widely held misconception that policemen must answer questions truthfully if they are asked the same question three times, or that they must say "yes" if asked if they are a police officer.
      In Canada, which has a different definition of entrapment than the United States, there are two forms of entrapment.
      • Random virtue testing: police offering a random member of the public an opportunity to commit a crime. Police must have a reasonable suspicion of a person in order to provide someone opportunity to commit a crime.
      • If police have a reasonable suspicion they can only provide an opportunity, not convince or induce the person to commit the crime.

      While Canada focuses on the actions of the police, American law focuses on the motivation of the accused. In the United States, entrapment exists if the accused's main motivation was the offer made by the police. If the accused was more motivated by other concerns, such as financial gain, then it is not entrapment despite police actions.
    2. Re:Services rendered by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Nobody could pressure me into doing something like mass piracy (...err.. copyright violations) or spamming or theft without threat of harm or violence. Heck, I have a chance to not file some money I made as a "sole prop." in Canada last year. I could save $4,000 if I did that. My friends even suggest it wouldn't be noticed. I'm just not stupid enough to do that. I pay the 4K I should pay anyways and I don't run the risk of being caught, convicted and then seriously hampered (e.g. international travel). I guess I'm that sort of rare "honest" breed.

      Absolutely irrelevant. You seem to be fixated on morality of the individuals caught by entrapment, instead of looking at the macroscopic societal effects of the actions of law enforcement.

      So if you're likely to comit a crime for personal gain at the suggestion of someone else you're probably not a moral person and likely to do it anyways.

      Again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue. The issue is police creating crime for their own convenience.

      But the point really is you're responsible for your own actions. Unless the person threatens you (or others) with violence you have no reason to follow through other than you're corrupt.

      I, personally, have nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. The discussion was about the societal effects of allowing police to perform entrapment. I find your presumption of my predisposition to crime, and your defensiveness about "being a moral person" (complete with chest-beating examples) to be rather curious. You doth protest too much, methinks.

      Reasons entrapment should be illegal

      The main reason it is illegal is because it allows police to manufacture their own criminals just so that they can "catch" them for a spiffy press release. It impairs the main function of the police, that is to bring justice to citizens being victims of real crooks.

  2. You don't understand what "entrapment" means. by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Entrapment means causing someone to do something they would not normally do in order to get them to break the law. This "service" that the spammers were offering was their daily business. It was their regular mode of operation. All the Secret Service did was send an informant in undercover to pose as a customer. Thus there was no entrapment, this is basic policework.

    --
    Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
  3. All depends on how it went down by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the spammers offered a service, asked for money for it, and the SS then gave it to them, there's no entrapment. In fact, they'd need to complete the transaction to prove something illegal was going on. It's not illegal to talk about selling drugs, or spamming or whatever, it's illegal to actually sell those things. If you've ever watched one of those undercover cop shows, you'll notice they always actually make a buy before arresting a suspect. Otherwise, nothing illegal has happened.

    You'll also notice they are careful to let the dealer make the offer. Again another part of making sure it's not entrapment. If they offer it to you, it's obviously something they'd normally do. You didn't entice them, since they came out and offered. So if the spammers offered a service, and then said they'd need a few grand for equipment and such, it's not entrapment. If the SS asked them to spam, they said they weren't setup for it, and the SS said they'd give them what they need, that's entrapment.

    Generally, they are very careful about these things.

  4. Re:Oohhhh! by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Insightful
    So, let us say I am a spammer. And I pay an ISP company to host my mail, etc. And then I pay another company for DNS. Then I start mass-mailing - how is the ISP supposed to know I am doing illegal spam? How do they know my lists are not legitimate spam lists? They really can't. You hit the spammers - they are the only ones who know for sure if what they are doing is legal or not legal.
    The ISP knows because he is getting zillions of spam complaints by people you are sending your shit to.

    There is no such thing as a legitimate "spam list". Spam lists are **ALWAYS** full of unwitting recipients. Legitimate mailing-lists, on the other hand, only have addresses of people who have specifically requested to be included in **YOUR** (and YOURS alone - there is no such thing as a "legitimate" purchased list, because the people there HAVE NOT requested to be on it) mailing list.

    They know that your lists are legitimate mailing lists because every single person on them have requested to be on them, and for the eventual complaint that seeps through, you can PROVE that the person has requested to be on it, because you have DUTIFULLY kept the actual request ON FILE.