Slashdot Mirror
The Outing of Pranknet
An anonymous reader writes "The Smoking Gun recently published a story on their investigation and outing of Pranknet, an online cabal that aims to take pranks to the next level. Their legacy includes thousands of dollars of damage, and many harassed souls. Many of the pranks have clear criminal implications. Reading their report may send chills down your collective spines." From the linked article: "Coalescing in an online chat room, members of the group, known as Pranknet, use the telephone to carry out cruel and outrageous hoaxes, which they broadcast live around-the-clock on the Internet. Masquerading as hotel employees, emergency service workers, and representatives of fire alarm companies, 'Dex' and his cohorts have successfully prodded unwitting victims to destroy hotel rooms and lobbies, set off sprinkler systems, activate fire alarms, and damage assorted fast food restaurants. But while Pranknet's hoaxes have caused millions of dollars in damages, it is the group's efforts to degrade and frighten targets that makes it even more odious ..."
Eh I wouldn't say sociopathic. When /i/nsurgents raid something they do it because they're anonymous and they're invincible and they can do whatever they want without consequences- so they do.
Doing something for no other reason than because you can, without regard for the consequences, ethical implications etc., is pretty much the definition of sociopathic.
Technically speaking, he's most likely a sociopath, a psychopath isn't likely to be still living with his parents. Psychopaths are driven to the point of ignoring the needs and wants of other people to get what they want. Sociopaths are largely similar, but far less organized and far more likely to be capable of interacting with others, providing that they have similar interests. But both are worth considering as dangerous and keeping an eye on.
Seems like one of the Pranknet guys (Markle) was jailed for two years for raping a five-year-old. He "warned the girl that he would kill her parents if she did not comply with him".
The people who impose such limits invariably exempt themselves.
Now where have we ever seen that before? Surely our system is better than that, right?
"Also, a check of Pistol License records shows that Senator Schumer possesses an "unrestricted" pistol permit, a rarity in New York City. Licenses are distributed in different categories in the Big Apple: Target Permits allow only use of a firearm at a licensed firing range; Premises Permits allow weapons to be kept in a home or apartment; Restricted Permits allow the gunowner to carry their firearms concealed but only within the purview of their job (security, jewelers, armored car guards, etc.). So it's evident that Senator Schumer has two sets of rules -- one for Americans and one for himself."
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others......
The free market sees taxation as damage and routes around it.
Best sig ever :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The Criminal Code of Canada states (emphasis mine):
22. (1) Where a person counsels another person to be a party to an offence and that other person is afterwards a party to that offence, the person who counselled is a party to that offence, notwithstanding that the offence was committed in a way different from that which was counselled.
(2) Every one who counsels another person to be a party to an offence is a party to every offence that the other commits in consequence of the counselling that the person who counselled knew or ought to have known was likely to be committed in consequence of the counselling.
(3) For the purposes of this Act, "counsel" includes procure, solicit or incite. [R.S., c.C-34, s.22; R.S.C. 1985, c.27 (1st Supp.), s.7(1).]
Given that Malik and at least one other pranknetter are Canadians, I bet that would apply nicely.
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Technically speaking, nobody seems to be able to agree on what if any difference there is between "psychopath" and "sociopath". I've heard a million and one different 'correct' distinctions between the two. The most common distinction seems to be that "psychopath" applies to people for which the condition is biological in origin, and "sociopath" for ones for which it is sociological in origin. Even that doesn't seem to be common enough to say it's the 'correct' distinction. And I've certainly never heard the sort of distinction you're claiming.
To make the terminology even more fun and exciting, there's also antisocial personality disorder from the DSM and dissocial personality disorder from the ICD, which largely overlap with each other and psychopathy/sociopathy.
(IANAP, but I play one on the Internet)
Actually sociopath and psychopath are exactly the same. The only difference is, traditionally, people who think you are born a sociopath use the term psychopath and people who think you are made into a psychopath use the term sociopath. The symptoms and behaviors are identical with the only difference being the assumed cause.
I would also like to note that the captcha for this post was "pervert". How funny.
Well, the Government is taking 6.2% of my money for social "security", which will be bankrupt by the time I reach retirement age
Actually it's 12.4%. You have 6.2% withheld from your paycheck for Social Security (up to the Social Security wage base limit, which gets increased every year and most people's salaries never reach it, it's well over $100,000 now), but your employer also pays another 6.2% on top of it. Although the employer's so-called "contribution" does not count towards your "official" salary, this is what it costs your employer to keep you on the payroll. It's really your money, except that you never see it.
In addition, you pay 1.45% of your salary as Medicare tax, and your employer also pays another 1.45% on top of it. In the end, over 15% of your real salary gets confiscated by the government, before you even get to regular income taxes, on the promise of you supposedly getting it back later down the road, in some form or other, when you retire. So, don't you worry your little head over the money still being there when you retire.
To say nothing of those companies, that just can't stand the idea of paying taxes like we all have to...
You just don't understand do you? If you charge a corporation taxes then the corporation is going to pass that cost along to it's customers. In the end it's still the people that wind up paying the tax. All you've done is to put a middle man between them and the government and allowed some jackass leftist to claim that he's fighting for the "little guy" when in fact it's the little guy who is paying for the new tax. He's just paying it on his automobile insurance/gasoline/grocery bill/electric bill/etc instead of paying it on his tax bill.
That isn't true in all cases. While it may work for Inelastic goods such as medicines that people absolutely need to survive and will pay almost anything for, it won't work for more elastic goods. If the government puts a huge tax on something like sugar, corporations which make sugar will need to "eat" some of the tax. You probably wouldn't pay $100 for a bag of sugar because you could easily switch to sugar substitutes. Although the corporations may pass some of the tax along to the consumers, they often won't be able to pass all of it on.
What a stupid remark. The entire understood context to the phrase "yelling fire in a crowded theater" is about lying. To top it off, you state explicitly that you'll do the stupid thing, which is to behave hysterically. As if to laden the cake with idiot icing, you construct a straw argument to bolster your dumb concepts.
Fine. Do you think that we should all be allowed to yell "fire" in crowded theatres? I don't. There, rethought. The ultimate question is whether you think government is ever correct to punish people for speech. I do. If you don't, say so outright. The fire example was Holmes's (in my view, reasonable) example of a situation where obviously the government should be able to step in. The historical fact that Holmes then goes on to value the government's ease of conscripting soldiers over political speech has no bearing on the basic principle that speech can cause harm, which government may be right to punish.
Incidentally, whether "the most famous use of a principle is blatant abuse thereof" is a far less useful indicator of a law's desirability than you seem to think. Controversy attracts attention, not to mention court cases, while regular usage of a law is ignored. Additionally, you'll find that there are many famous examples of people whom the courts have decided were completely protected. I direct you, most colorfully, to Paul Cohen, who walked into a courthouse with a jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft". If that's protected, what exactly is it that you'd like to do that isn't?
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
This reminds me of the following self-videotaped paintball drive-by attack "pranks" for which the perpetrators were rightfully given jail sentences and in some cases mandatory psychiatric treatment:
3 Teens (Anthony Skoblar, Javier Perez and Malcolm Boyd) Face Prison in Paintball Attacks committed in 1996(some of you might remember watching this on TV as it got a lot of coverage)
The Anchorage paintball attacks committed in 2001 by Charles Deane Wiseman and two juveniles whose names were not released