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.
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.
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.