Spam King Pleads Guilty in Seattle

arbitraryaardvark writes "The Seattle Times reports that spammer Robert Soloway has pled guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion, in exchange for the state dropping multiple counts of identify theft. 'The electronic-mail fraud charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. The tax charge is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum one-year sentence. The law also allows for fines against Soloway and his business of up to $625,000 on all charges. Both sides agreed to let U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman determine not just the amount of prison time Soloway, 28, might serve but also the number of his victims, the size of any fine and the amount of restitution he may be ordered to pay.' We've previously discussed his arrest and mention in the New Yorker. The wire fraud felony count is based on selling $500 packages to wannabe spammers."

Comments

Re:For sending too much email?

[thyrf]

That's all fair and well if you're only expecting email from certain servers, but for most of us a deny-by-all service doesn't cut it.

Re:For sending too much email?

[jd]

And you'll identify these e-mail servers how? By hostname? (Domain stealing, DNS poisoning, DNS injection) By IP address? (Fake IP headers + source routing, Router table poisoning, Zombies on legit servers, Zombies on any machine between legit server and target) By mail headers? (Zombies anywhere)

And you guarantee inclusion of legit traffic from mobile sources, how? You don't know what IP address or ISP will be used. What about legit mailing lists, where the originator is indeterminate?

X.400 provides much better authentication, and offers an API for repudiation, but if that's what people really wanted, we'd be using it. Or maybe everyone would use SMTP-over-SSL where client-side and server-side certificates were validated. We don't use them because people need the privacy, anonymity and flexibility of the existing system, although I'd argue almost anything is technically superior to the existing system.

In the end, although a totally secure option should exist, an insecure option should also exist that is controlled by policy rather than technology, and that ultimately means laws.

Re:I hope...

[Bored MPA]

Because rape, HIV, and Hepatitis aren't cruel and unusual punishment in your book? Or is that just the line you toss out to get out of jury duty?

Your comedic take is about as funny as the drunk guy I saw yesterday that said "Ooops, you just knocked over your home" when he walked past a homeless guy that dropped a cardboard box yesterday.

Calm down!

[xaxa]

There's too many comments suggesting he should be killed, raped, or otherwise hurt. If you seriously approve of that kind of punishment, either
a) move to a country with Sharia law
b) save it for the worst offenders, those that actually murder others, like some US states do
c) grow up. At worst he's annoyed you, and maybe cost you a bit of time or money.

Re:Calm down!

[dissy]

There's too many comments suggesting he should be killed, raped, or otherwise hurt. Seriously.

For the people advocating death/rape for this guy: just wait until you are falsely imprisoned, or simply imprisoned for a minor infraction such as telling your mind verbally to someone who turns out to be on the 'good' side of the law. It happens very frequently in this country. And non zero odds that it will happen to you as well.

To everyone else: don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying Soloway is innocent and should not be punished for his crimes. Just that wishing cruel and unusual punishments on him, which sadly are highly likely to happen to anyone that ends up in jail or prison, will also be forced on a small part of the innocent population as well, and that it's never right.

I also don't feel stupidity should be punished with nightly beatings, rape, disfigurement, torture, and potentially murder in the prison system either, despite the fact that the people wishing these things on others will probably never learn just how stupid such desires are until it happens to them.
But I sure do wish there was less stupid people in the world, such as those that cheer for this sort of treatment.

Re:For sending too much email?

[ZorbaTHut]

Who cares if someone sends junk faxes, the phone network is an open system and it's designed to indiscriminately deliver messages - making junk faxes illegal is a terrible idea. If you don't want wasted toner, just don't accept phone calls from every bozo on the phone system.

And yet, oddly, junk faxes are illegal, because they cause a significant amount of cost for the receiver. Just like junk email does.

The law won't [i]fix[/i] things, of course. Junk faxing still occurs. But it might help, if it's designed properly.