Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Anti-Spam Case

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook is on a never-before-seen legal rampage against high profile internet spammers. Today Facebook was awarded yet another nine-figure settlement, this time for over $700 million. Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace, which means a high likelihood of prison, a big win for the internet and a milestone in cyber law. 'The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,' Jeremy Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions."

Comments

A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[eldavojohn]

What's wrong with this picture?

2004-10-08 FTC files suit against Wallace to stop infecting computers with spyware that promised to remove the problem for $30.
2006-03-22 FTC files suit against Wallace--Wallace and co-defendants fined for over $5 million.
2008-01-26 MySpace awarded $230 million from Wallace in LA.
2009-10-29 (Yesterday) Facebook awarded $711 million from Wallace.

If you say seven hundred million and jail time is too much, I say it isn't enough. A warning didn't stop him, five million didn't stop him, two hundred million didn't stop him and I'm sure seven hundred million won't stop him. Throw the book at him and lock him up--this is definition CAN-SPAM Act. And he's a heavy repeat offender, it's not like this guy was blindsided with a surprise ruling. Spam is too kind of a label for this guy, I would hit him for extortion and identity theft on massive scales in addition to CAN-SPAM.

How he continued to operate with a two hundred million dollar loss a year and a half ago is beyond me. Is he just declaring bankruptcy (like he did back June '09), rolling over and doing it again? Or avoiding states where there's a warrant for his arrest or what?

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[El Jynx]

Heh. Nice. But the problem is as old as humanity itself: forbidding is one thing, preventing is quite another. I agree, jailtime is the only way to go for a recidivist like that. And he's just abusing international law and such: just because you go bust in one country doesn't mean you can't have $500m tucked away in another. Until treaties are formed which address these problems - and thankfully, tax havens have come under heavy fire of late - this type of crap is just going to continue.

What I don't get is why a joker like that - who is obviously intelligent - doesn't just find a legal way to get rich. It can't be that hard.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[shentino]

If there's a warrant for his arrest why don't they nab him and extradite him?

Surely the US Marshals can't be THAT clueless...

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[mysidia]

It can't be that hard.

Yes, well, it can be that hard. There are lots of intelligent people who aren't and can't be rich, although they want to be.

More than intelligence is required.

And apparently, for this guy, he's skilled in getting rich using uncouth methods. It's what he's familiar with, it's what comes easy for him (I suppose)

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[nametaken]

You notice that there's a billion dollars in risk here?

Sounds to me like there is considerable incentive to be an epic scale douchebag of the internet. You'd think he'd be a gajillionaire, right?

Except...

"As of October 2003, he is working as a DJ in Las Vegas, making weekly appearances at OPM nightclub (name changed to 'Poetry Nightclub' October 5, 2007) in Caesars Palace Forum Shops on the Las Vegas Strip. Wallace performs under the name DJ MasterWeb.[8]"

"Wallace filed for bankruptcy in June, 2009. On 2009-10-29, a Northern California District Court Judge awarded Facebook $711M in damages.[12]. Although unlikely to collect due to his bankruptcy, the presiding judge in the case also recommended Criminal Contempt charges against Wallace, who may face jail time as a result." -wiki

So uh, it's not like he's ridonculously wealthy as a result of being a sleezebag? What gives???

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Penguinisto]

1) They'd have to actually find him first (odds are good that all but the first cases were done with him in absentia).

2) Good luck collecting.

3) this may sound a bit trollish, but a thought occurred to me: as of right now, Spamford Wallace likely owes enough money to buy a brand new ballistic missile submarine. No one will ever see so much as a dime from him. So... why did they even bother? It's similar to the RIAA and Jammie Thomas - there comes a point where it becomes less of a statement and more of a parody. Trust me, I have zero sympathy for the son of a bitch, but do we have to make a mockery of our own legal system just to make a point?

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

you see there is a special feeling in bad things that you dont get while you do good things

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Joce640k]

This is why we need debtors prisons - so people can't escape responsibility by fiddling books and declaring bankruptcy.

Make him work it off in a sweatshop for the rest of his days.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Courageous]

No, we need a criminal conviction, not a "debtor's prison". In some states you cannot discharge by bankruptcy a civil outcome that proceeds from a criminal conviction. I.e., we need to go after folks like this criminally. His actions are clearly criminal. What Facebook should have done was sued the DA.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[eh2o]

Spammer makes profit from facebook users. Facebook (+lawyers) make profit from spammer. Is this a new business model? Why isn't this a class-action lawsuit?

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[csartanis]

We already have this, it's called the middle class.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[oldspewey]

Make him work it off in a sweatshop for the rest of his days.

"Mr. Wallace, you are hereby sentenced to spend the remainder of your natural life logged in to a mail client pressing the delete key."

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a special feeling in good things that you do get when you do bad things. It's called prison rape. And I wish lots and *lots* of it on Sanford Wallace.

And now that I've started the inevitable rape thread that's invaded by Euro-slashers who will call me a barbarian, let the festivities commence!

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[maxume]

Zing!

Technically, Bill Gates is middle class.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[morgauxo]

Hmm...

I hate spam. I'd love to see all the spammers burn as much as anyone but...

Is the damage he has caused really worth $946 million? I'm sure somebody paid the $30 but there couldn't be THAT many. How much monetary value is there on having to clean a spam cluttered inbox? This reminds me of the RIAA and MPAA's methods of justifying their big money lawsuits against individuals. "No, a few songs are not worth 10s of thousands of dollars but we need big damages to discourage piracy."

Can we have it both ways? I don't really think so. This kind of ruling is dangerous because it validates using the same heavy handed tactics against the people we do like.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[morgauxo]

Nah, let's make him a mail server. Give him one of those old green and black text terminals. Give it an IP and make any requests to port 25 go to his screen. His job is to read the incoming SMTP commands and respond accordingly. He would then swivel his chair to a second terminal where he would use telnet to connect to port 25 of the destination servers and send the message on... manually. I'm sure he will get a special kick out of messages with attachments! He can do this eight hours a day 5 days a week (I can only be so sadistic even to him) for minimum wage applied towards his debt. No doubt the server will get backlogged quickly and I wouldn't expect him to keep up with it all. I would deduct for typos though. I'm sure some Slashdotters could think of things to send via the Spamford Mail Server

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless he keeps all his finances separated. Sooo, when you do score a lawsuit, he has "nothing". Where does he live? What about his house? What does he drive? Those would be good indicators on whether or not he has something.

Even so, most people live beyond their means. Maybe he has to spend all that without having assets to get the REAL payoff. :D

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[jcoy42]

What I don't get is why a joker like that - who is obviously intelligent - doesn't just find a legal way to get rich. It can't be that hard.

Isn't it obvious? He's doing it for the lulz

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[lowrydr310]

Eh, someone with his intellect could easily go get a job on Wall Street. Then he could make millions just as unethically, but legally.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[compatibles]

shhhh! You'll ruin the suprise when facebook reveals itself to be the emporer....

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[dgatwood]

These people are a blight on society. They deliberately ignore or abuse the rules of society for their own personal gain, deliberately harm millions of people for their own personal gain, deliberately commit mass fraud, etc. They are hardened sociopaths---not significantly different from mass murderers, child molesters, etc. except in the way and extent to which they choose to harm others. They have no morality, no ethics, and no fear of punishment. Therefore, it is not realistically feasible to rehabilitate these people short of a brain transplant. They are animals---less than human---and should be treated as such.

Were it not for the chances of misidentification, I'd suggest declaring open season on spammers and allowing people to take home and mount as many as they can tag and bag. I even hold terrorists in higher regard. At least they usually honestly believe they are doing what they do to save others and not just for their own personal gain. Spammers are the lowest of the low, right up there with CEOs and members of Congress.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

jailtime is the only way to go for a recidivist like that

Many would disagree that jail time is the only way to deal with this guy. However many of the alternative measures would involve questionable behavior themselves.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[cetialphav]

easily go get a job on Wall Street. Then he could make millions just as unethically, but legally.

It still isn't that easy because of competition. On Wall Street, there are thousands of ruthless, smart people who would do anything to be super rich. Don't be fooled by what you see in the media. Most people on Wall Street are not super rich just like most actors in Hollywood are not super stars. The vast majority are working really hard to give themselves a chance to hit it big. Being super smart and super unethical doesn't make you special on Wall Street. By being a spammer, he didn't have competition so it was easy.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[shentino]

How many of those judgements has he actually paid?

Methinks that since the judgements are just at a civil level he isn't exactly in a position to be FORCED to pay up.

As for bankruptcy, his conduct was willful and malicious...which means any *sane* judge should refuse to discharge such debts.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope he gets buttraped in prison, gets aids, and dies.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[tqk]

Is the damage he has caused really worth $946 million?

What's it cost to train and employ a planet's worth of email admins to deal with the shite he's peddling? Add in the cost of the anti-malware industry. Add on the cost of all the users' time dealing with what inevitably comes through despite all of that. Finally, add in all the costs of increased infrastructure needed to keep the net working when 80% of (email|net traffic) [I can't remember which it is offhand] is garbage dumped on our ISPs instead of what we specifically requested.

No, he's not responsible for all of it, just as Capone wasn't the only crime boss in Chicago, however, Wallace in jail would be a great place to start.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is wrong. Myspace, Facebook etc. offer massive amounts of data for spooks wanting to spy on people who are politically active, who have friends who are politically active, who travel to certain places, who have certain religion, who have friends with H1N1, etc. These "social websites" are more influential in singling out individuals than you'd think. The "spam settlements" are merely a way to transfer support funds to ensure the automated OSINT/HUMINT continues.

Of course everything I said is wrong. Please move along!

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

If he's already willfully breaking laws, to make a buck, how likely is it that he didn't launder the money earned from his douche-baggery, or stash it somewhere untouchable, so he was able to keep his payouts, after declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying the consequences of his illegal, unethical, and immoral actions. just kill the bugger and get it over with.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Rary]

What I don't get is why a joker like that - who is obviously intelligent - doesn't just find a legal way to get rich. It can't be that hard.

Maybe he doesn't want to.

Most people who are really good at doing something got to be that good because they enjoy doing it.

If he enjoyed doing something that is both profitable and legal, then he'd probably be just as rich with no legal problems. But he doesn't. He enjoys doing exactly what he is doing.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two reasons why someone like Wallace would do what they did: The thrill of flouting the law...or too lazy/unethical to get a REAL job (or the skills to hold one). In either case, Wallace would probably wind up doing insider trading, screwing up, or dropping out...which is probably why he's NOT on Wall Street, or some other job that requires skills, hard work, or ethics.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Hittman]

I'd just make him spend one day in jail for each piece of spam he sent out.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[FlyHelicopters]

To get the point across to people like this, you have to take them out back and shoot them in the head.

It is the only way to stop them; putting them in jail is a waste of money. They won't change their ways. If we as a society have decided we do not want this behavior, removing him from the gene pool is the only option.

Shame we lack the courage to do that.

(note: this does not mean I don't want him to have his due process, he deserves that. If he has had it, then off with his head)

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Khyber]

"What's it cost to train and employ a planet's worth of email admins to deal with the shite he's peddling?"

What's it cost to train someone to code their shit properly and not leave holes to be exploited in the first fucking place? What's it cost to keep such fresh untested technology off the damned internet until such a time as it has proven pretty solid, like gee, I dunno, HTML AND CGI SCRIPTING? With those two alone you can do about 99% of what Flash and Java do (minus vector animation, but video, audio, text, images, chats, etc, can all be done) and it's pretty goddamned secure.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

Sanford is easy to find. I see him every week at the poker room in the Hard Rock Casino in vegas.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[tqk]

Ah. Wishful thinking. Try to keep on that track as long as possible. Consider it a second childhood.

We have to deal with the mess we have. Yeah, Win* is a sloppy slut. I don't use it. Still, the net's polluted with Win* crap and I'll bet most of those on /. (have to|want to) use it every day. So, whether MS are incompetent idiots or not is irrelevant. We're in quicksand; what do we do? Just blame MS and go home?

For me, it's astounding to hear that Win 7 is still crackable days after release. This from the company that's been supplying business with software all these years. They still can't even figure out how to secure their binaries. How can we expect different from them in the rest of their realm?

HTH did we get from Wallace to malware?!? Probably my fault.

Still doesn't answer the question. We've email admins around the planet fighting this !@#$, and I still see some every day (yes, I know procmail & bogofilter, thanks).

I'm hoping Darknet shows up any day now, and any packets with MS signatures in them will be summarily dropped when detected.

Again, wishful thinking.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Bronster]

You mean the cost of re-tooling every system on the planet to use a more secure protocol than SMTP (or the ad-ons that have been created to do half a job of fixing the issue)

Answer: plenty more than that. It's not insecure shit that causes a mail server to have trouble determining valid vs invalid SMTP connections, it's the lack of authentication in the protocol. SPF, CSV, DKIM, etc all help - but only if they're correctly set up, and they require 100% subscription before you can ditch anything with them. Not going to happen.

But hey - HTML and CGI have nothing to do with email protocols, so I'm going to assume you're a clueless kiddie who's never run a serious mail server in your life. The best I can say about your point is "you're not right - you're not even wrong".

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Khyber]

I've run several POP3 servers - but then again I'm smart enough to whitelist sites I want to receive e-mail.

And I've written a pure mail delivery system using CGI scripting with an HTML frontend. Are you so crappy a programmer (and I know jack shit about programming) that you can't use simple standards to achieve your goal?

I feel sorry for you.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's it cost to train and employ a planet's worth of email admins to deal with the shite he's peddling?"

What's it cost to train someone to code their shit properly and not leave holes to be exploited in the first fucking place?

It costs a hell of a lot more than training admins to deal with it, given that these incompetent fuckers like Vint Cerf and Jon Postel who are responsible for the spam problem are looked up to by most software designers as their superiors even if you are such a better developer than they are. It already costs a lot to train people to a basic level of competence through the university system and workplace training, it will cost a lot more to train them all to the level of an RFC writer or a server developer, and it will cost a lot more to make all their designs perfect and bug-free. The mathematical term is "approaching infinity".

What's it cost to keep such fresh untested technology off the damned internet until such a time as it has proven pretty solid

Given that we are still waiting for a complete free implementations of X.400 and OSI, I am glad that we implemented the fresh, untested technologies of TCP, SMTP, and DNS that are behind the spam problem. The cost would be the internet still looking like a bad BBS system today.

HTML AND CGI SCRIPTING? With those two alone you can do about 99% of what Flash and Java do
(minus vector animation, but video, audio, text, images, chats, etc, can all be done) and it's pretty goddamned secure

First, this has nothing to do with the topic of e-mail spam that you were writing about earlier.

Second, "plain HTML and CGI scripting" blogging software and mail form scripts are notoriously vulnerable to spammers.

Third, you can do video OR audio OR text OR images with plain HTML and CGI, but you cannot blend it all together into anything like the average Flash application. See the Newgrounds games section for examples, and come back when you've written a complete knockoff of Azul Baronis in plain HTML and CGI.

Fourth, the "minus vector animation" which you dismiss as a non-feature is the whole point of running Flash.

Fifth, Java is a complete language with a hell of a lot more uses than you seem to be aware of.

Sixth, a plain HTML/CGI system requires all processing to be on the server side so that all I/O has to wait on a network communication and the cost of all the processing is borne by the server instead of distributed among clients. You also cannot save an HTML/CGI application to your hard drive and run it later the way you can with a properly designed Flash or Java program.

Seventh, a plain HTML/CGI system requires a complete reload of the application any time any I/O or processing is needed.

Eighth, Java and Flash are "pretty goddamned secure", as much so as HTML. There was a day that you could pwn IE by giving it malformed tags. They fixed it the same way Adobe fixes Flash when a bug is found, and there aren't that many more security bugs found in the Flash reader than there are in the average web browser.

Ninth, if you were going to mention Javascript in response to any of these points, I will laugh in your face. Javascript adds all of the security problems of any other client-side processing environment that can run arbitrary code and also talk to the web, and its graphics performance is so slow that it makes Flash and applets look fast.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Anonymous Coward]

A recap of the above thread (shortened):

GGGGP: [Did Spamford really do $711,000,000 worth of damage?]

GGGP: [What's the cost in labor for mail server admins to fight spam, plus the entire anti-spam industry?]

KhyberKitsune: [What's the cost of making the stupid fuckers who invented e-mail code it correctly in the first place. They should have done it in plain HTML and CGI!]

GP: [detailed explanation of the e-mail spam problem, efforts being made to fight it, and how HTML has nothing to do with it]

KhyberKitsune: [I once wrote a CGI script so I know what I'm talking about, you fucking moron!]

.....

Oblivious troll is oblivious.

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Khyber]

"Third, you can do video OR audio OR text OR images with plain HTML and CGI, but you cannot blend it all together into anything like the average Flash application."

Audio, video, text, and images, in a VIDEO FILE, use the EMBED tag. What the fuck are you smoking?

Did you miss the part where I stated "HTML AND CGI SCRIPTING? With those two alone you can do about 99% of what Flash and Java do"

As in I didn't fucking say that those two things alone could do EVERYTHING Flash does. Learn to read, moron.

The rest of your post isn't even worth responding to - I stopped reading after that, because it shows your total lack of reading comprehension.

Stupid Name

[Monkeedude1212]

Does anyone else find it ironic that the "Can-Spam Act" is meant to stop people from spamming, specifically from the false and misleading type?

Re:Stupid Name

[Anonymous Coward]

The complaints about CAN-SPAM when it first came out was that it was so weak and watered down that it was essentially legalizing spamming, and exactly that: you can spam.

Re:Stupid Name

[pz]

Does anyone else find it ironic that the "Can-Spam Act" is meant to stop people from spamming, specifically from the false and misleading type?

I believe the intent was to have the first word in CAN-SPAM be a verb, with the meaning of "can" being, "to throw in the trash."

Re:Stupid Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong homonym, genius. Can spam, as in put spam in a can. It's the only bit of legislation I'm aware of with a nickname that's actually clever and punny.

Re:Stupid Name

[TimeElf1]

I think they were trying to invoke an image of a trashcan but had a epic fail moment.

Re:Stupid Name

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the name was intended to be humorous, alluding to sealing Spam(the Hormel product) into a container (a can).

Re:Stupid Name

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yeah, but it was written by politicians apparently too proud of themselves for coming up with the acronym to realize that it has another more widely used meaning. Its like when my dad calls his monitor " the computer", The desktop "the cpu", and the Ram "the hard drive". He's sort of just proud he's in the right ballpark and doesn't call the keyboard a typewriter.

Re:Stupid Name

[Scrameustache]

Does anyone else find it ironic that the "Can-Spam Act" is meant to stop people from spamming

Yes, it's ironic, in this context it's meant as "to put it in a can", you know, like the meat Spam.

And this guy is going to go spend time in a metal box, so it seems fitting.

Re:Stupid Name

[TheRaven64]

Yes, it's ironic, in this context it's meant as "to put it in a can", you know, like the meat Spam.

You mean, the thing you do to spam before you deliver it to millions of people all over the world?

Re:Stupid Name

[mcgrew]

I think it's such a weak law (and probably intentionally so) that it means that you can spam with impunity.

Free Viagra!

[jornak]

Why can't -I- sue people for emailing me mindless spam?

Re:Free Viagra!

[mysidia]

The CAN-SPAM act ruined it by superceding prior federal law that made sending junk faxes/e-mail subject to a per-message penalty to be paid to the recipient, prior to the act.

Before then.. individuals did sometimes did sue spammers, I believe it was ~$500/message..

Idea!

[gcnaddict]

Facebook should just use this as their business model.

I mean hey, if the money ever actually does come in, it's perfectly viable given how often people spam Facebook users.

Re:Idea!

[Aladrin]

That was my first idea when I heard the numbers! I somehow doubt it'll work out, but it's an interesting thought.

Re:Idea!

[Prof.Phreak]

wonder if they'll consider this judgement as an asset on their books...

Good ol' Spamford

[willith]

Sweet merciful crap, is Spamford Wallace still around? We were stabbing voodoo dolls with his picture on them more than ten years ago. His C.V. reads like list of things that are wrong with the Internet. If there were ever someone that the world would be a better place without, it's this guy.

Re:Good ol' Spamford

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kinda wondering why this guy isn't dead yet, after all these years. Seriously.

Re:Good ol' Spamford

[mitgib]

First off, I have no love for spammers, but to wish death upon them? Don't you think wishing death upon another human being is a bit extreme for anything other then capitol offenses? I'm sure you are smart enough to tweak your .procmailrc file.

Re:Good ol' Spamford

[FlyHelicopters]

First off, I have no love for spammers, but to wish death upon them? Don't you think wishing death upon another human being is a bit extreme for anything other then capitol offenses?

No, I don't... Someone like this is not going to change their behavior. His past shows no interest in changing his ways.

The only way to stop this behavior is to take him out back and shoot him in the head.

He'll never stop, he will never care, removing him from the gene pool is the only remaining option.

Putting him in prison costs money and changes nothing, you can never let him out again, or he'll do it again.

Re:Good ol' Spamford

[arth1]

Yes, whoever wrote in the subtitle of this post "yet-another-spam-king" must be new. Sanford "Spamford" Wallace is the original spam king, active back in the mid 90's.

Ironically, about a decade ago he claimed he had seen the light and was now all against spam.

SO..

[CrackedButter]

Facebook have turned a profit now right?

Nice

[mosb1000]

It's good to see a corporation winning a $700,000,000 against an individual once in a while.

Re:Nice

[jhfry]

Whoever modded this as troll is unfair... I think it was kinda witty and should have at least got a Funny or two.

It is kinda funny to see an individual taken to the cleaners by a corporation and the /. crowd being pleased about it.

Re:Nice

[DurendalMac]

Hey, the little guy isn't always the good guy and the big guy isn't always the bad guy.

SANFORD Wallace?

[RevWaldo]

Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Re:SANFORD Wallace?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Not long enough.

Re:SANFORD Wallace?

[corbettw]

That sounds like an admission to being Wallace, to me.

Re:SANFORD Wallace?

[Timosch]

I thought he had been hung, drawn and quartered. Oh wait, nevermind, that was William Wallace.

Re:SANFORD Wallace?

[RevWaldo]

(In the manner of Stewie Griffin:)

Ah, you suspect me to be this so-called 'Spam King' yet you reveal your e-mail address to me. That's very brave of you...

BUT FOOLISH! (hits Send.)

Time for the death penalty

[JoshuaZ]

There's a certain point where we need to consider the death penalty for this sort of thing. Sure, we normally only use the death penalty for heinous crimes, but from a utilitarian perspective it is quite clear that people like Sanford Wallace are doing far more damage to society. If Wallace is taken out and shot he'll lose about 365*50*24= 438,000 life hours. On the other hand, even a year or two of Wallace's normal behavior causes the rest of society to lose far more time. We should consider a death penalty for serious spammers or possibly a long sentence where he is kept far away from any computer.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[JCSoRocks]

Hmm, this is an interesting concept. However, to carry it to its natural extreme.... what then would we do with Microsoft? I've wasted hundreds of hours of my life trying to fix their crap.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[AJWM]

And an appropriate execution method might be death by ten thousand paper cuts. Or just leave him naked in mosquito country at the start of the season. I mean, it's not like any one cut or bite is that serious....

Re:Time for the death penalty

[scubamage]

We could sell the body to hormel, and they could use it to make a canned meat product!

Re:Time for the death penalty

[JoshuaZ]

You agreed at some point to buy a Microsoft product. You or someone you are helping opted in. And most likely once you've got it working you will actually have saved time overall. There's no claim that a) people opted in to Wallace's crap or b) that anyone will save time overall from what Wallace is doing.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

Repent, Herlequin!

Re:Time for the death penalty

[drdrgivemethenews]

Back in the bad old days, a few days in the stocks would have done it. Spectators threw stuff. If you were lucky enough to get out alive, you possibly didn't have eyes anymore, and for sure would be an expert on the taste of various species' feces.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[JamesP]

Just have a small pebble thrown at him, (and it can be thrown lightly), for every spam he sent...

Re:Time for the death penalty

[DiademBedfordshire]

A tad over zealous, don't you think? Spam is a business and as such we need to hit it were it hurts. If we stop the flow of money to spammers we effectively stop the spammers. Teach every person you know how to spot spam, how to avoid it, how to not click it and the simple restraint of not signing up for every god damn "Free" offer. I am generally spam, virus, and malware free because I assume I'm not the one millionth visitor to EVERY site I go to.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Way to destroy the credibility in the first part of a post with bat-crap craziness in the second. You win my prize for the most schizophrenic post of the day.

You may collect your prize of a bloody mary with a shot of mole sauce at your convince.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[fulldecent]

>> There's a certain point where we need to consider the death penalty for this sort of thing. Sure, we normally only use the death penalty for heinous crimes, but from a utilitarian perspective it is quite clear that people like Sanford Wallace are doing far more damage to society. If Wallace is taken out and shot he'll lose about 365*50*24= 438,000 life hours.

so... watch out for your 15 minutes of fame lest people consider you wasting their time?

Re:Time for the death penalty

[CraftyJack]

Hmm, this is an interesting concept. However, to carry it to its natural extreme.... what then would we do with Microsoft?

What would we do with Slashdot?

Re:Time for the death penalty

[omnichad]

Force him to eat nothing but spam until he dies of malnutrition.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't have to. You didn't even need to use a computer.

Computers improve productivity/save time overall. That they don't improve it as much as possible is not the same.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[omnichad]

Think about the dumbest person you know. The person THAT person thinks is really stupid is the kind of person who clicks on these things. There's nothing you can do. They're out of your reach. Out of 6.5 billion people, it doesn't take a very high percentage to be a millionaire.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

To be serious for a moment, why has this jackass not been completely prohibited from using the internet? Judges have already told him that he can no longer use Myspace or Facebook - why not just bite the bullet and tell him that he cannot use the internet at all?

Considering his track record in junk faxes as well, I'd probably suggest disallowing him use of any communication service whatsoever. If he still wants to "spam," he can do it in person where his "potential customer" can easily respond... preferably by a swift kick to the balls.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[damn_registrars]

Spam is a business and as such we need to hit it were it hurts. If we stop the flow of money to spammers we effectively stop the spammers

It seems there is an echo here...

I've been saying that about spammers for some time. That, however, doesn't change the fact that you will still have people yearning for blood over the matter - even though it would be a useless guesture.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

i cannot believe this got modded interesting. It's spam for god's sake. No one died. Some people may have had some full inboxes or some irritating email.

You dicks

Re:Time for the death penalty

[baKanale]

On one hand Microsoft constantly wastes centuries of manpower.

On the other hand, since corporations are essentially immortal, Microsoft has an infinite number of life hours left...

Re:Time for the death penalty

[10101001 10101001]

You agreed at some point to buy a Microsoft product. You or someone you are helping opted in. And most likely once you've got it working you will actually have saved time overall.

I and someone else didn't opt in to Microsoft wasting our time. More importantly, me helping someone else doesn't save me any time overall. Perhaps that someone else bears some of the blame, but I don't think all the blame can be shifted on people who quite clearly are incapable (either intellectually or through gross lack of information available) of having truly opted in to all that was entailed.

There's no claim that a) people opted in to Wallace's crap or b) that anyone will save time overall from what Wallace is doing.

People opted in to Wallace's crap the same way they "opted-in" to Microsoft's crap: it's a consequence of using the system for which most people acknowledge there really is no solution, short of avoiding the system. With e-mail, you can't hold the system at fault nor can the system be fixed, but in Microsoft's case you can hold them at fault and in many cases they can fix the problem. As for saving time overall, presumably somewhere Wallace spammed someone who actually bought what Wallace was peddling, thereby saving themself time overall. Your argument only plays well if you look at overall societal utility, but then I'm not really sure Microsoft gets a positive score in that area either (perhaps they and all OS makers (and Wallace) do by shear inherent increased efficiency due to computers and telecommunication.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[plague3106]

I and someone else didn't opt in to Microsoft wasting our time. More importantly, me helping someone else doesn't save me any time overall. Perhaps that someone else bears some of the blame, but I don't think all the blame can be shifted on people who quite clearly are incapable (either intellectually or through gross lack of information available) of having truly opted in to all that was entailed.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to install MS software? If not, and you still did, you opted in.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese water torture. One drop of water per spam occurrence.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[corbettw]

Sorry, but that won't work. The people of the Hawai'ian Islands have proven over the years you can subsist on only spam for many decades.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[corbettw]

Sorry, you asked for it.

Your post advocates a

( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
(x) Nice try, asshole! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

Re:Time for the death penalty

[BlackSnake112]

I'd say he should be the one to power computers. Make him be the one on the bicycle powering the prison computers. He he stops or goes too slow, let the other prisoners deal with him. I wonder how long he could keep on peddling.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[BlackSnake112]

How could putting someone to death (that is assuming that the person is put to death within a year) cost less then keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives?

One year jail time+method of execution has to cost less the care and feeding of said person for the rest of their lives.

If you have the death penalty, use it. If the criminals know, that if they do something that society can and will kill them for it, we might have less crime. The biggest issue is the criminals know that they have years (if not decades) on death row before their day come up. In the mean time they can take law classes to figure out ways to keep their date of execution from arriving. I am sorry but if you are on death row (or have life in prison) you should not be allowed to take classes at all. You did a crime, you lost your rights, you should just sit there with nothing and think about your crime.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[mcgrew]

Bleeding heart conservatives...

Look, when I die, it's likely to be a horrible ordeal. Have you ever seen anyone in the last stages of Alsheimer's or cancer? You're going to die in a car wreck or other accident, of some terrible disease. Very few are as lucky as my late ex-mother in law, who just stopped in mid sentence like a robot whose battery was yanked out.

We're all under a sentence of death, and most of us are sentenced to death by torture. And we have no idea when it will happen. You might live to be 110, or you may keel over ten minutes from now.

The man condemned by other men to die, on the other hand, know exactly when they're going to die. They have a chance to make their peace with any creator they happen to believe in. Then they are painlessly and without muss or fuss humanely put to sleep like a beloved pet.

I'd rather they die naturally, in prison, when their time comes, letting them think about the horror they have wreaked on people.

You capital punishment advocates are far too kind.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a country without death penalty, but support the death penalty.

The only argument against the death penalty for me is that people make mistakes and if you put an innocent man in prison, you can release him 10 years later and say "sorry" while you can't do that to someone who is dead. But this is not a problem with the death penalty, it's a problem with the whole system (punishing someone for a crime he did not commit is wrong).

As for the costs - this is stupid - a bullet (or rope or a few kWh of electricity) cannot cost more than feeding the criminal for 30 years. Also, the family of the people the criminal killed might do that for free and even bring their own tools.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[10101001 10101001]

Oh, were you forced at gun point to install MS software? If not, and you still did, you opted in.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to use e-mail? If not, and you still did, you opted in to spam.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to eat that peanut butter? If not, and you still did, you opted in to contracting Salmonella.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to cross that street? If not, and you still did, you opted in to being ran over by a car.

Gosh, that's a silly argument.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[amicusNYCL]

Sure, we normally only use the death penalty for heinous crimes, but from a utilitarian perspective it is quite clear that people like Sanford Wallace are doing far more damage to society. If Wallace is taken out and shot he'll lose about 365*50*24= 438,000 life hours. On the other hand, even a year or two of Wallace's normal behavior causes the rest of society to lose far more time. We should consider a death penalty

Chairman Mao, is that you?

Re:Time for the death penalty

[amicusNYCL]

steel buildings fall at the speed of gravity

Does gravity not act on steel buildings in other countries?

Re:Time for the death penalty

[sabt-pestnu]

Just have a small pebble thrown at him, (and it can be thrown lightly), for every spam he sent...

Um... I'd rather not.

Choose instead: grain of sand, placed as close to his feet as possible.

Best performed in an open yard, to make space for the new sand dune...

Re:Time for the death penalty

[sabt-pestnu]

How could putting someone to death (that is assuming that the person is put to death within a year) cost less then keeping them in jail for the rest of their lives?

Automatic appeals. Court time.

An anti-death penalty site which relies in large part on this study.

Cost to incarcerate one person, one year is about $50k, currently.

A $1 million trial thus costs about the same as 20 years of imprisonment. If the cost differential between a death penalty trial and a life incarceration trial exceeds about $3 million, the incarceration becomes more cost effective pretty much 100% of the time.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[pclminion]

If Wallace is taken out and shot he'll lose about 365*50*24= 438,000 life hours. On the other hand, even a year or two of Wallace's normal behavior causes the rest of society to lose far more time.

We're losing time, but we're not dying. Wallace can lose his 438,000 hours behind bars. I seriously don't know what's with some geeks who seem to get so upset about antisocial behavior on the Internet that they seriously suggest things like the death penalty for non-violent offenses. Honestly, this kind of attitude is terrifying and something other (normal) people really need to be aware of and actively speak out against.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Spamalope]

The solution is to stop making a death penalty case a $3 million windfall to the lawyers then.

If the cost differential between a death penalty trial and a life incarceration trial exceeds about $3 million, the incarceration becomes more cost effective pretty much 100% of the time.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[cheros]

I'm more in favour of hanging, just not by the neck :-)

On the (only slightly) more serious side, I wonder what would be an appropriate punishment. Making the guy go through 30 commercials before he can collect his food, go to the toilet or go to bed? Barring him from ever receiving soap on a rope so he'll always have to collect it off the floor in the showers?

No idea, but I feel that locking up will probably not be that effective.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, it saves money, too. (or would if we didn't allow so many appeals)

Re:Time for the death penalty

[plague3106]

Yes, your argument is silly. You know what the benefits and the downsides of using Windows is upfront. You choose to use it because its the best tool for the job. If it wasn't, you'd use Linux or BSD or Mac instead.

I'm not going to be drawn into your strawman argument. Make your point discussing the issue at hand. Spam is unwanted communication from a usually unknown third party; whether or not you use Windows is a personal chose you make, with full knowledge of the consquences.

How is Facebook going to distribute...

[JBL2]

... the money to the users who suffered damage?

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[aicrules]

By continuing to provide a free service??

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[arthurpaliden]

Become a pay site and give them all free accounts?

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, ha, ha, hah.

Hint: they probably aren't.

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[fulldecent]

>> How is Facebook going to distribute... ... the money to the users who suffered damage?

coupons with no monetary value... and no non-monetary value.

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[omnichad]

They can't do that. They've finally found a business model! Suing people that bother their users.

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[Anonymous Coward]

By continuing to provide a free service??

Surely you say this in jest. As anyone with half a brain knows that purchasing items from Facebook advertisers pays for the service. Thus, buying any product from any of their advertisers makes it not such a free service after all.

Re:How is Facebook going to distribute...

[amicusNYCL]

If Facebook users want compensation then they can file a class-action suit, Facebook itself doesn't really have a responsibility to file a class-action suit for it's users, Facebook is able to go after him with bigger guns in criminal court.

Where do I add this new app?

[Sebastopol]

"Facebook's application for a default judgment against Wallace for violating the Can-Spam Act"

Cool new app!

I crack myself up.

No facebook profile?

[funehmon]

NO!!!

This sounds like a fantastic business model...

[Gybrwe666]

1) Start Web 2.0 web site utilizing every buzzword you can find
2) Desparately woo users until you get large enough to matter
3) Sit down a year or more later to desperately figure out a revenue model
4) Provide Spammers a way to proliferate
5) Sue them!
6) PROFIT$$$$$$$

Not only that, but this also avoids the usual problem in Slashdot business plans in that there is no question marks in either steps 3 or 4.

Anyone got a good idea?

Re:This sounds like a fantastic business model...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, doesn't any of the fault lie with Facebook for not providing protections to their users against some of this spam? I realize that social engineering tactics were used but it seems to me that it would be possible to detect scripted mass "wall postings" and that sort of thing.

Re:This sounds like a fantastic business model...

[Anonymous Coward]

woh woh woh... you're business model is seriously flawed, where is your ????

Re:This sounds like a fantastic business model...

[Vegeta99]

Oh, there's definitely a ????? step in there. If he's facing a criminal contempt charge, he might go to jail. Then he ain't payin' nobody.

Re:This sounds like a fantastic business model...

[amicusNYCL]

This isn't Wallace's business model, it's Facebook's (notice steps 4 and 5). Facebook isn't going to jail, they get to put $700 million on their books.

Facebook business model unveiled!

[Lazy Jones]

Nobody expected it, I guess.

Re:Facebook business model unveiled!

[czmax]

Nobody expected it, I guess.

Nobody expects the Spamish Inquisition!!

Facebook for Grand Nagus. Re:A Time Line

[Forge]

Unwritten Rule of Acquisition #317-: " If you are a big bully, go beet up on someone who annoys the hell out of everyone else. It's highly profitable in direct Latinum and customer willingness to give you more Latinum."

Facebook should be appointed Grand Nagus for coming up with such a lucrative idea.

Re:Facebook for Grand Nagus. Re:A Time Line

[maxume]

I shall spray you with my purplish juices!

Or did you meen something else?

Re:Facebook for Grand Nagus. Re:A Time Line

[petermgreen]

LOL

Re:Facebook for Grand Nagus. Re:A Time Line

[Anonymous Coward]

Unwritten Rule of Acquisition #317-: " If you are a big bully, go beet up on someone who annoys the hell out of everyone else. It's highly profitable in direct Latinum and customer willingness to give you more Latinum."
Facebook should be appointed Grand Nagus for coming up with such a lucrative idea.

Maybe... but what does borsht have to do with this?

... and why should they?

[phorm]

If the users wanted momentary damages, they should have formed/joined litigation or a class action against Wallace themselves.

That aside, you don't get money for criminal charges, so it's not always about the cash. Having facebook actually go after guy - hopefully enough to get contempt charges and have him thrown in the slammer - will hopefully help deter him from further victims, and give a similar "moral victory" to those that were wronged.

If somebody did something to screw me out of $100, it might not be worth it for me alone to sue for damages in court. However it would likely still put a smile on my face if $BIGCORP managed to wipe them out.

Wrong "Method and Process" for stopping spammers

[PolygamousRanchKid]

We were stabbing voodoo dolls with his picture on them more than ten years ago.

Obviously, stabbing the voodoo dolls had no effect.

I would suggest that the Court anoint its forearm with Tabasco, and fist Mr. Wallace.

. . . and I do mean him, and not the voodoo doll. Then, he might get the message.

Stop the invites

[adosch]

Now if only people would stop 'spamming' me with their Facebook invites...

Re:Stop the invites

[omnichad]

If I get one more invite to the "Watch Grass Grow" app, I'll just poke out an eye. Seriously - if it's not fun in real life, what makes people think it's fun because "it's on Facebook"

And yeah - I did a sanity check. Thankfully, no such app actually exists on Facebook...yet.

Re:Stop the invites

[DigitalSorceress]

If I get one more invite to the "Watch Grass Grow" app, I'll just poke out an eye. Seriously - if it's not fun in real life, what makes people think it's fun because "it's on Facebook"

And yeah - I did a sanity check. Thankfully, no such app actually exists on Facebook...yet.

Don't worry, Rule 34 has you covered.

Ooh, you mean you didn't want there to be grass growing porn? Shouldn't have thought about it.

Oh, or the Verruca Gnome.

Don't hold your breath...

[damn_registrars]

... waiting to see a collection on that. Most likely he won't pay a dime of that fine. There is no reason to expect otherwise.

What's in a name?

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

"Wallace and his company Smartbot.net" Sort of like naming your firm "Ruthless Swindlers, Inc."

Re:What's in a name?

[corbettw]

Funny, ruthlessswindlers.com is already taken:

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Will you take a check?

[damn_registrars]

Just let them know where to send a check for zero dollars and zero cents to, and whom to bill for the postage. There is no reasonable chance of them collecting money from the spammer, so there won't be any money to distribute, either.

Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

There's a certain point where we need to consider the death penalty for this sort of thing.

Are you trying to actually accomplish something or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?

from a utilitarian perspective it is quite clear that people like Sanford Wallace are doing far more damage to society

OK, we'll go for the latter (much) more so than the former.

There are multiple reasons that any sensible person can quickly come up with as to why this would be a useless guesture:

• There are too many spammers to kill them all (or even make a dent in the spam volume by trying)
• Spammers are stateless, and will just flee to countries where spam laws don't exist - where they can continue to make money through spamming
• There is too much money in spam to prevent people from going into it just because there is a remote chance of facing criminal charges in one country for it

And thats just getting started...

You'd might as well use a voodoo doll, it would be just as effective and far less expensive.

Re:Are you for real?

[TubeSteak]

There are too many spammers to kill them all (or even make a dent in the spam volume by trying)

We offer up bounties on pests like nutria and gophers and there's far more of them than there are spammers.

Re:Are you for real?

[Urza9814]

Add to that list that it's more expensive to kill someone than to give them life in prison. From a utilitarian perspective, unless the person has a high risk of somehow escaping or continuing their crimes from inside prison, the death penalty really makes no sense.

Re:Are you for real?

[Nimey]

A round of .30-06 is probably a dollar at the most, and even cheaper if you use surplus ammo.

I'm quite certain you could find volunteers to do the work, ones who will provide their own firearms.

Re:Are you for real?

[winthrop]

You'd might as well use a voodoo doll, it would be just as effective and far less expensive.

Been tried. Apparently it doesn't work: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1425321&cid=29926417

Re:Are you for real?

[Urza9814]

Yea...if you want to say that anyone you arrest on certain charges is instantly shot without any trial....then sure, you could round up all the Bad Guys and take them all out for about $100. Hell you could probably just post a list somewhere and say 'there will be no charge for murdering the following individuals' and let people take care of it themselves. Then it'd practically be free. But that's not the way society works. In the real world, we have trials. We give people a chance to attempt to disprove their guilt. And in the real world, it's been proven many, many times that it is far cheaper to keep someone in prison than to execute them.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

You'd might as well use a voodoo doll, it would be just as effective and far less expensive

Been tried. Apparently it doesn't work: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1425321&cid=29926417

Thanks for proving my point. Spammers have been killed in the past, and that didn't work either.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

And in the real world, it's been proven many, many times that it is far cheaper to keep someone in prison

I think the state of Texas claims otherwise.

Oh, wait, we're talking about the real world. Nevermind.

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

Well just wait until the Gopher Rights bill gets passed, it's coming..

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

Spammers have been killed in the past, and that didn't work either.

Sort of depends on how you define "work", doesn't it? Did one spammer dying stop the global spam problem? No. But that one guy's spam output has fallen quite a bit.

Re:Are you for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are too many spammers to kill them all

Oh, I think killing one spammer would decrease the number of them quite significantly.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

Spammers have been killed in the past, and that didn't work either.

Sort of depends on how you define "work", doesn't it? Did one spammer dying stop the global spam problem? No. But that one guy's spam output has fallen quite a bit.

Which made no noticeable change in the global spam problem whatsoever. Hence it did not work if the goal was to make a difference in regards to the greater spamming problem; and why someone would ever feel killing is justified either way is beyond me.

Re:Are you for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are you trying to actually accomplish something or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?"

A little of both. Actually, I have an idea to recover the $700 million: sell tickets at $100 each for people to have an opportunity to hit him in the face with a pipe. I'll bet there would be about a million people willing to pay, and you would save on costs associated with the death penalty because after a few hundred tickets he'd be dead. Cheaper than chemicals.

Re:Are you for real?

[Spamalope]

We start something like a dead pool with a bounty for spammers. The top 30 list of rokso spammers are put in a drawing. The pot money is used to by a hitman for the winner. We don't have to kill them all, just make being a top sender an eventual death sentence. It would be far cheaper than the bandwidth and manpower expenses we pay now.

Mafia anti-spam anyone?

There are multiple reasons that any sensible person can quickly come up with as to why this would be a useless guesture:

• There are too many spammers to kill them all (or even make a dent in the spam volume by trying)
• Spammers are stateless, and will just flee to countries where spam laws don't exist - where they can continue to make money through spamming
• There is too much money in spam to prevent people from going into it just because there is a remote chance of facing criminal charges in one country for it

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

That's a good laugh.

The pot money is used to by a hitman for the winner.

So you propose openly raising money to openly break the law (I'm not aware of any country where murder for hire is legal)? And who is going to fund the act of tracking down the actual whereabouts of the spammers? For example, Leo Kuvayev (frequently in the top 5) has been wanted for years, after failing to show up in court in MA back in 2005. Nobody who knows where he is (domain registrars in particular but other business partners as well) will tell us what they know about his whereabouts.

In other words the pot of money would be spent long before the hired gun would find the spammer, because the best spammers are hiding well (and have help doing so). In the meantime you are associating yourself with organized crime - smart move.

We don't have to kill them all, just make being a top sender an eventual death sentence.

That won't work, for the reasons that I just described, as well as others. You'll only prove the old saying "a fool and his money are soon parted". Meanwhile your spam-hunters would be enjoying nice vacations at varied locales while chasing down leads on spammers who they will never find.

If you'd like, I would happily fly to Finland and Tahiti on your dime to look for Kuvayev.

It would be far cheaper than the bandwidth and manpower expenses we pay now.

You're only throwing good money after bad. Although here you do have a bit of a point; indeed spam is an expensive - and also highly profitable - venture.

If you want to stop spam, you and the rest of the world will never accomplish it with guns or laws. You need to stop spam economically because spam is an economic problem. Until an economic solution is deployed, every other attempted solution will, at best, leave the situation just as bad. We already know that there are plenty of spammers in the world, and when you get rid of one (by laws, death, or whatever else you imagine) more will pop up in that person's place. And they do this because ... they make money doing it.

This isn't brain surgery.

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

Which made no noticeable change in the global spam problem whatsoever.

You can't really prove that, maybe spam volume would have been larger if the guy remained alive.

Hence it did not work if the goal was to make a difference in regards to the greater spamming problem;

Maybe the problem was that not enough spammers were given the same fate.

why someone would ever feel killing is justified either way is beyond me.

Some things are just for the sake of argument.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

Which made no noticeable change in the global spam problem whatsoever.

You can't really prove that, maybe spam volume would have been larger if the guy remained alive

No evidence whatsoever has been presented to support the notion that the assassination of a spam king reduced global spam volume. Spam volume continues to rise worldwide, and no difference in the reported increase was seen after the previous assassination.

Hence it did not work if the goal was to make a difference in regards to the greater spamming problem;

Maybe the problem was that not enough spammers were given the same fate.

So then are you suggesting that if a little bit of criminal activity didn't solve the problem, somehow it could be aided by more criminal activity?

And are you aware of the fact that while much of the world's spam comes from systems within the US, many of the spammers are themselves in other countries? For that matter, the best known assassination of a spammer took place in Russia... how many people do you know who would be willing to pull off an assassination in another country for your cause?

why someone would ever feel killing is justified either way is beyond me.

Some things are just for the sake of argument.

Some people see outright murder as just simply wrong.

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

No evidence whatsoever has been presented to support the notion that the assassination of a spam king reduced global spam volume.

And exactly how many studies were commissioned to study the impact of this specific murder on the global spam volume?

So then are you suggesting that if a little bit of criminal activity didn't solve the problem, somehow it could be aided by more criminal activity?

I'm suggesting that removing a single spammer isn't going to have a large impact on global spam, but if you remove many more spammers, then you will see more of an impact. It's some tough logic to follow, I understand.

And are you aware of the fact that while much of the world's spam comes from systems within the US, many of the spammers are themselves in other countries?

Yes, I am aware of that.

how many people do you know who would be willing to pull off an assassination in another country for your cause?

Considering that "my cause" is playing the Devil's advocate, I doubt many people would be willing to kill someone for the sake of argument. But I'm also not trying to recruit people for assassination missions, I'm just having a theoretical argument with you.

Some people see outright murder as just simply wrong.

Actually, I would say that the majority of people think that outright murder is wrong. But I would also say that there are several people who think that it's not morally acceptable to allow someone who only exists to damage society to continue damaging society. In other words, sacrifice one for the greater good of everyone else. There are several world governments that subscribe to that ideal.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

So then are you suggesting that if a little bit of criminal activity didn't solve the problem, somehow it could be aided by more criminal activity?

I'm suggesting that removing a single spammer isn't going to have a large impact on global spam, but if you remove many more spammers, then you will see more of an impact.

So then we are in agreement that you are arguing in favor of murdering more people. I'm glad we can at least agree on something.

It's some tough logic to follow, I understand.

You seem to be oblivious to the fact that the logic you present in favor of murder falls apart due to the assumption it is based on. Your assumption that murder will solve the problem is based upon the assumption that there is a small and finite supply of people who want to make money as spammers. There is no evidence to support either of those assumptions.

how many people do you know who would be willing to pull off an assassination in another country for your cause?

Considering that "my cause" is playing the Devil's advocate, I doubt many people would be willing to kill someone for the sake of argument. But I'm also not trying to recruit people for assassination missions, I'm just having a theoretical argument with you.

If you are opposed to murder, feel free to say so. But so far your argument has been staunchly pro-murder.

Some people see outright murder as just simply wrong.

Actually, I would say that the majority of people think that outright murder is wrong.

And on what side are you?

But I would also say that there are several people who think that it's not morally acceptable to allow someone who only exists to damage society to continue damaging society

I'm not sure who these people might be, those whom you claim "only exists to damage society".

Spammers make a lot of money. And money buys power, and influence. With the amount of money spammers pull in it is not difficult for them to get people to turn a blind eye to their work. I suspect if you were to talk to someone involved in spam they would very strongly disagree with an assertion that they "only exists to damage society".

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

So then we are in agreement that you are arguing in favor of murdering more people. I'm glad we can at least agree on something.

I'm in favor of reducing the total number of spammers. I never claimed that murder was the solution nor the only way to accomplish that goal.

Your assumption that murder will solve the problem is based upon the assumption that there is a small and finite supply of people who want to make money as spammers.

The only thing that I'm assuming is that right now the risk associated with spamming is far lower than the possible rewards. That is what needs to change. The risk that spammers face needs to be higher than the possible gains that they might see. You're fixated on murder being the only possible solution, but that's not the case either.

If you are opposed to murder, feel free to say so. But so far your argument has been staunchly pro-murder.

My argument has been in favor of reducing the total number of spammers. You're starting to sound like Glenn Beck. If I don't explicitly state that murder is not an option then you're going to assume that murder is my #1 option. Those aren't the only two possibilities.

And on what side are you?

Since you asked, I think that people just running around murdering each other is not a good thing.

I suspect if you were to talk to someone involved in spam they would very strongly disagree with an assertion that they "only exists to damage society".

Yes, I am sure they would disagree with that. Much like Tony Soprano would say that he performs a valuable garbage disposal service.

Re:Are you for real?

[damn_registrars]

So then we are in agreement that you are arguing in favor of murdering more people. I'm glad we can at least agree on something.

I'm in favor of reducing the total number of spammers. I never claimed that murder was the solution nor the only way to accomplish that goal.

If you return to the start of this discussion you will find it was started by someone who voiced themselves in favor of murdering spammers.

I responded with my opposition to such a proposal, and pointed out that it has not been effective in the past.

You attempted to contradict my statements with your opinions. You have not offered up any ideas for dealing with spammers, in a discussion that has thus far been about whether or not to murder spammers. You certainly have not voiced opposition to murdering spammers, so it is reasonable to expect that you are in favor of murdering spammers.

Your assumption that murder will solve the problem is based upon the assumption that there is a small and finite supply of people who want to make money as spammers.

The only thing that I'm assuming is that right now the risk associated with spamming is far lower than the possible rewards. That is what needs to change. The risk that spammers face needs to be higher than the possible gains that they might see.

Care to suggest how you could make that possible?

You're fixated on murder being the only possible solution, but that's not the case either

Actually you are quite wrong there. I am pointing out that murder is not a possible solution. There is a profound difference here.

If you are opposed to murder, feel free to say so. But so far your argument has been staunchly pro-murder.

My argument has been in favor of reducing the total number of spammers. You're starting to sound like Glenn Beck. If I don't explicitly state that murder is not an option then you're going to assume that murder is my #1 option. Those aren't the only two possibilities.

As I stated before, this thread was started by someone who was in favor of murdering spammers. I pointed out why that won't work. You have suggested no alternatives to either murdering or not murdering spammers.

And on what side are you?

Since you asked, I think that people just running around murdering each other is not a good thing.

So then if we replace "each other" with "spammers", is your statement still true?

I suspect if you were to talk to someone involved in spam they would very strongly disagree with an assertion that they "only exists to damage society".

Yes, I am sure they would disagree with that. Much like Tony Soprano would say that he performs a valuable garbage disposal service.

One way to look at your statement could be that you are trying to de-humanize spammers by reducing them to fictional characters. I'm not sure if that is part of your strategy or not; however the truth of the matter is that spammers are not in business simply to "damage society". After all, wouldn't anarchists be more inclined to refuse payment? Spammers pull in significant payments for their services. Just because you may see them as sub-human doesn't mean that there is no demand for the work they do.

Re:Are you for real?

[amicusNYCL]

You attempted to contradict my statements with your opinions.

I did no such thing. I asserted that the spam volume of the murdered spammer had dropped, and claimed that the fact that his volume had dropped may provide proof for the hypothesis that killing spammers reduces spam volume. In fact, I haven't really given my personal opinion on anything during this discussion except that I don't think that people should go around murdering each other.

Care to suggest how you could make that possible?

If that were known then we wouldn't be having this discussion. All that I can say is that since the current set of punishments have not been successful in reducing spam volume, that harsher punishments are called for.

I am pointing out that murder is not a possible solution.

Well then you're simply wrong. Murder exists in the set of all possible solutions. Issues such as morals and ethics do not enter into things that are or are not possible. Morals and ethics involve things that are or are not acceptable to society, not what may or may not be possible.

So then if we replace "each other" with "spammers", is your statement still true?

More often than not. Typically I don't think that it is reasonable for regular citizens to take the law into their own hands. There are extreme cases where justice is unserved where I feel a bit more lenient.

however the truth of the matter is that spammers are not in business simply to "damage society".

Correct. Spammers, and other "social parasites", are in business to make as much money for themselves as they possibly can. The defining characteristic that sets those people apart from most other members of society is that social parasites typically don't care who or how many people they burden or hurt in their quest to collect wealth. For them, the detriment of society is not a factor that they take into account in their business dealings. Because of this, one could argue that removing those individuals from society would be better for everyone else. The extreme of this position is that since those people show a disregard for the welfare of society in general, then society should similarly show a disregard for them.

Facebook is now the government?

[Chapter80]

From the summary:

Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace

I thought criminal cases were always "The State v. ___" or another government agency. I have a hard time believing that Facebook has a criminal case against the guy.

Is there a lawyer in the house (or at least someone who plays lawyer on Slashdot)?

Re:Facebook is now the government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try not to read too much into the summary. If there is a criminal contempt case, it likely involved Facebook complaining to the court that Wallace isn't complying with the order, and the court handling the matter as a criminal one, probably due to well, gross contempt of it.

That's just a bit of speculation though, haven't read the matter enough to certify my explanation.

This is why death penality is appropriate

[Lead Butthead]

The man is clearly a sociopath that does not give a flying f_ck about what he done to others. There's no cure for people like that, and the only benefit they can provide for the planet is as fertilizer. If our legal system pursued spammer with the same vigor as copyright violators, we would've rid them some time ago.

Re:This is why death penality is appropriate

[Golddess]

If our legal system pursued spammer with the same vigor as copyright violators, we would've rid them some time ago.

Erm, since that same vigor hasn't stopped copyright violators, what makes you think it'd succeed in stopping spam?

Re:Wrong "Method and Process" for stopping spammer

[maxume]

If you aren't willing to carry out the sentence yourself, with your parents watching, you don't really believe in it.

A few notes about Wallace

[efalk]

Wallace is the guy that invented mass email spam. If his ISP had shut him down on day 1, the world might be a different place today. Spam exists because ISPs tolerate it.

It is almost unheard of for a plaintiff to collect money from a spammer. They're either broke, or they've successfully hidden their money. The $711M judgment is purely symbolic. Facebook knows full well that they'll never collect a dime.

I agree that jail time is the only solution. Wallace is the recidivist's recidivist.

Re:A few notes about Wallace

[jcr]

Wallace is the guy that invented mass email spam.

No, he's not. He's just a rather large-scale perp. There were others before him.

-jcr

That is not funny at all.

[Suzuran]

Prison rape is a serious problem and should not be taken lightly. I am appalled and disgusted by your suggestion that some poor criminal should be forced to have sex with Sanford Wallace. There is no law on earth that can sentence a man to such an awful fate. Our constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and it would do you well to never forget it!

Re:That is not funny at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the impressively enlarged size of Wallace's penis it would definitely be cruel and unusual punishment for his cell mate.

Re:That is not funny at all.

[Klaatuu]

I guess I don't understand Slashdot. Why is Suzuran's comment "Funny." I thought the comment was not meant to be funny and it is something I would strongly subscribe to. Prison rape should not be an expected consequence of sentencing. I don't believe that any judge and jury has sentenced anyone to repeated rapes. Or prison murders, for that matter. Prisons should be safe places of incarceration. I know that's not easy to achieve, but we need to reiterate what we expect. Throwing in the towel is cowardly.

Re:That is not funny at all.

[Suzuran]

My guess is you didn't read it far enough to see the joke, or you saw it and didn't think it was funny. It happens. Different people have different ideas of what is funny, and that's just fine. It'd be boring if everyone was the same.

Spamford Wallace talks to the judge

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge: Mr. Wallace, we find you guilty on all charges, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Mr. Wallace: Ma'am, I'm sorry. I am a product of my surroundings. The internet is a dirty place.
Judge: Mr. Wallace, we need to make sure they you can never commit another atrocious crime like this ever again. Bailiff, whack his pee-pee.

Double points if you can name the movie this came from.

Re:Spamford Wallace talks to the judge

[armareum]

What's the question that awards only single points?

this web 2.0 thing...

[mathfeel]

Does this make facebook profitable now?

So...

[Mister Whirly]

So that was Rupert Murdoch's plan for making money with Facebook - sue spammers. And here I thought he was stupid for buying it thinking he would never make a ton of money from it.

DIY

[Anonymous Coward]

The facebook invites includes text that reads:

If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click here to unsubscribe.

Was that so hard?

Anyone interested in suing LinkedIn

[abbe]

Came across this[1] few years ago, not sure if this is still applicable...

References:
[1] http://wahjava.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/linkedincom-violating-can-spam-act/

abbe