Slashdot Mirror
Prison Terms For Spammer Ralsky, Scientology DoS Attacker
tsu doh nimh writes "Alan Ralsky, the 64-year-old dubbed the 'Godfather of Spam,' was sentenced to 51 months in prison on Monday, the Washington Post's Security Fix blog reports. According to anti-spam group Spamhaus.org, Ralsky has been spamming since at least 1997, using dozens of aliases and tens of thousands of 'zombies' or hacked PCs to relay junk e-mail. Also sentenced — to 40 months in jail — was Ralsky's 48-year-old son-in-law, Scott K. Bradley, and two other men named last year in a 41-count indictment for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act."
And eldavojohn writes "19-year-old Dmitriy Guzner, Anonymous member and Scientology DDoS attacker, received one year and one day in jail for his admitted crime. His sentence could have been a maximum ten years. According to the Church of Scientology, Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"
Scientology members complaining about being harassed is like Mormons bitching about missionaries knocking on their doors.
Since when is visiting a website vandalism? This is terrifying! /. could have me arrested for almost 10 years of visiting!
'8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'
Well, that's one way to keep busy.
Sorry, what was the website URL again?
He took it right in the ass. It was beautiful.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/06/1554227
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
A direct quote from L Con Hubbard:
Attack...never defend.
Apparently the only way to keep up a teetering "religion" is to attack.
Information is signal, not noise.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
...it's a tax evasion scheme.
do you really want the government deciding which is which?
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Unfortunately someone has to -- if we can't control the flow of noise a bit the Internet will be totally unusable.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
But Scientology is just pure evil. I can't help but sympathize even if I can't condone. I have mixed feelings though...no one should have their lives threatened...but another part of me thinks Scientologists kind of deserve it because of the suffering they cause. Very confusing. It would all be easier if people didn't like and exploit each other. Too bad that will never happen in my life time.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
...Never gonna give you up!
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Rules 1 & 2, buddy.
Brilliant! You have just created a mechanism by which the government can declare all dissent from its policies "noise" and thus be blocked.
Back in the USSR, they used to respond with dissent by calling it the result of mental illness. After all, the dictatorship of the proletariat always had the best interests of the common folk at heart. If you disagreed with its policies, it must be because you are a poor suffering victim of some kind of anti-social personality disorder.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
do you really want the government deciding which is which?
The government doesn't really decide that. We do. We complain, the government investigates. It isn't a proactive measure that the government is taking.
However we could have issues if it grows to something similar to the FCC.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
is not a church.
"So, you're the guy who keeps sending me those male enhancement meds spam huh?"
"No sir, i'm only specialising in female spam, nothing else!"
"Yeah, right! well i'll make an example for the next spammer who dares saying that i need such drugs!"
*drops pants*
"Mommy!"
Legislating against spam has nothing to do with free speech whatsoever. It has everything to do with poisoning the commons. If we, as a society, can enact laws saying it is illegal for a mining company to dump 10,000 litres of cyanide into a river, then we can also enact laws saying it is illegal for Alan Ralsky to dump ten billion rolex spams into the world's routing hardware.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
secularist martyr
you don't fight vile "religions" that zombify and enslave the weak with kind words and cupcakes
this is the way the mafia known as the church of scientology plays:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
turn around is fair play
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Personality disorders, like, extreme anti-government paranoia? Or confusing basic regulations for Stalinist policies?
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
How fitting for the godfather.
Freedom of speech implies that the recipient wants to listen. I should be allowed to post the DeCSS code on the internet, but I should not be allowed to stuff dozens of copies in people's mailboxes.
Freedom of speech implies that the recipient wants to listen.
It does? Then it's not freedom of speech, it's freedom to hear.
Brilliant! You have just created a mechanism by which the government can declare all dissent from its policies "noise" and thus be blocked.
The US Government can do that and already has done so on a number of occasions.
Are you sure it is the same people, or are you just making that assertion because it helps you make a point?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I vastly prefer a technological solution to one that comes at the point of a government gun. Look, if you own the router, it's your responsibility to accept or reject information going into it.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
It's about consent, not about content. Spam, by definition, is unsolicited bulk e-mail. The type of content doesn't enter into it, so any concerns about censorship are misplaced.
What was the sentencing judge trying to say with that sentence? It's a very sort of "traditional" span of time. Was this a "you don't do any real harm, but you must realize that this behavior is not acceptable?" type of message?
I get unsolicited mail in my snail mail box pretty much every day, and that does a hell of a lot more damage to the environment and productivity time (sorting, recycling, et c.) than spam does.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
'8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'
part of me mentally read all of those numbers as 'over 9000'
And if you get caught lying to the tax office about your income, you probably also pull the argument that free speech, as guaranteed by the constitution, also covers lying to the tax office, right?
Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you may (mis-)use any medium to tell your opinion. It just says that you must have the possibility to do so, and to do so in public. It doesn't say you have the right to fill up private mailboxes with it. I reserve the right to decide what I want to have in my(!) mailbox. If you want to tell the world about how great your replica watches are, or how much you like the Democrats or Republicans, you are invited to do on any public channel. But keep it out of my mailbox. It's my mailbox. It is not public.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
IANAL, but I don't think consent is the issue either. You get bulk snail mail delivered to your physical mailbox daily that you didn't consent to receive. But those folks don't go to jail.
I would think the hacking of machines to create their shell boxes and similar crimes would be more the issue.
it was inevitable that a story about someone the hivemind dislikes has a insensitive joke about prison rape.
and of course, it's also inevitable that we'll have some nimby-pimpby sanctimonious PC jerkwad stating that isn't funny.
Though you might agree with this particular case, it opens up the door for more intrusive precedents.
This is insane; like arguing that prosecuting graffiti as vandalism will suddenly descend into house painters doing hard time. Exactly the same kind of "I'm too stupid to distinguish good from bad" as school officials occasionally get laughed at when some draconian rule (say, meant to address gang activity) is applied mercilessly to an obviously good student.
As to DDoS attacks, how many times are you allowed to knock on a church's door before it becomes illegal?
You've been struck dumb by your paranoia. There's a qualitative difference between a knocking on a church's door (accessing a website) and trying to knock down a church's door (DDoS'ing it). No legitimate user, even those employing web crawlers, will generate within orders of magnitude of the traffic as a DDoS attack. Even if a non-malicious user somehow "accidentally" DDoS' a site, that person would still be liable for that negligent behavior.
"Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"
They always say that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church^Wsect leaders
Where do I send fan mail for this guy?
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
--Friedrich Nietzsche
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Anonymous has done a lot since the early days of prank calls and whatnot. The legal protests as well as other actions by Anonymous (also legal) have delivered a crushing and unprecedented blow to Scientology. Anon has probably done more to fuck them over than even the FBI did at the end of the 1970's. Now because of Anon, there is massive negative media coverage of the scilons. Hollywood is rebelling against them and more and more celebs are walking away or saying no. And on top of all that, now the Australian government is taking a hard look at Scientology as a criminal organization with a Senator actually denouncing them in open Parmiment. Anonymous has enabled many ex-scientologists to speak out as well as family of those still inside to seek communication with their loved ones without fear of reprisal. Anonymous enabled this by breaking the back of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs and has them so tied up, they can't prioritize which targets to go after and have lost their effectiveness almost entirely. After nearly 2 years of this, only one conviction against an anon and for a lowly DDOS attack that happened in the early few weeks of the movement is a testament to how good Anonymous is at staying within the law. Sure it may cut out some form of lulz, but we have found that action against the Scientologists that hurts them but leaves us legally untouchable generates way more lulz because it leaves them no lawful recourse against us.
That's cool, I'm going to come knock on your door for the next three years. The knocking is just a bit of a nuisance and since you've done your part and locked me out all is well right?
Somehow I feel that if I did that I would be looking at a solution that comes from the point of a government gun.
Lisa McPherson
Certainly, and making certain speech illegal is not illegal in and of itself, either. Death threats aren't exactly "legal." You can get arrested for spouting off too angrily at your neighbor, too.
"Scientology has harassed and annoyed them with Millions of phone calls, millions of mailed brochures, censoring websites or any thing else they see that doesn't make them money, acts of vandalism against, threats, and death threats against former Church members and non members."
There, fixed that for you.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
They use those same tactics against what they consider to be their enemies, but when someone turns the tables on them, they shed a few crocodile tears and run to the police.
They have broken into the offices of the FBI and have members of their cult have died under suspicious circumstances while under their care, yet they have the gall to call what others do illegal.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
No, not really. We have created a mechanism by which the government can prevent people from using malware to hijack millions of computers without the consent of the users to plug up the series of tubes we call the Intarwebz with unsolicited bulk e-mail. Just by restricting these folks to using their own resources to send the crap mail seriously reduces the harm that they can do -- the real tube-clogging power comes from the huge zombie bot nets.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
On June 22, 2009, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering charges and violating the CAN-SPAM Act.[10] He agreed to assist in the prosecution of other spammers in exchange for sentencing consideration
By comparison, trials for other spammers have been held without them present as they tend to not stay in one place long.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
What prevents Stalin the 2nd from happening in the USA? Have we just been lucky to not have anyone that mean be born here? Are Americans just a better judge of character than the Russians?
I'm not so presumptuous to think that Russia is better at making tyrants than we are, or its people are more predisposed to misjudging politicians.
The difference between everywhere else and the USA is that we wrote down a bunch of rules that the government wasn't allowed to break. That way, when our stupid citizens elected tyrants, those tyrants never had any wind in their sails and we didn't "vanish" millions of people for essentially arbitrary reasons [brown people notwithstanding]
The difference is that our government was designed to put the brakes on itself. So when someone proposes that we give the government power or control to do some act that it didn't previously have the power to do, IMO reasonalbe Americans ought to be concerned.
If we get to the point [assuming you don't think we're there yet] where the political class in this country can do whatever they like, what's to stop them? What prevents Stalin the 2nd from coming to power in the USA? Luck? An educated populace? An insightful press and critical media?
The difference between here and "not here" is that here, we don't beleive Stalin has the right to do what Stalin does, and our laws say so. Let's not be in a hurry to denigrate those who question the relaxation of limits on government power.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
... you'd think he/she/it could keep these simple attacks from a puny unenlightened human at bay.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
It's funny to me that the people who complain about spam the most are also the "information wants to be free" types.
Are they? You have evidence of this? Also, even if it were true (it may be, or it may not) freedom of information is like freedom of speech. I'm free to speak, but I have no right to make you listen.
Few if any advocates of free speech advocate freedom to slander, or otherwise maliciously harm ("Fire" in a crowded theater).
As to DDoS attacks, how many times are you allowed to knock on a church's door before it becomes illegal?
Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a nuisance. If I answer my door and tell you "no thanks, I don't want a vacuum cleaner" and you knock again, I'll have you arrested for trespass.
My right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. Rights go both ways.
Once you allow the government to ban heroin, you give them jurisdiction over your body that will become more and more intrusive.
WTF does that have to do with the argument? If you're wondering why you were modded "troll", look up slashdot's definition of troll. It's in the FAQ.
Free Martian Whores!
IANAL, but I don't think consent is the issue either. You get bulk snail mail delivered to your physical mailbox daily that you didn't consent to receive. But those folks don't go to jail.
Actually if you get a prohibitory order against the person sending you junk mail they can face criminal charges by violating it.
You've been struck dumb by your paranoia. There's a qualitative difference between a knocking on a church's door (accessing a website) and trying to knock down a church's door (DDoS'ing it). No legitimate user, even those employing web crawlers, will generate within orders of magnitude of the traffic as a DDoS attack. Even if a non-malicious user somehow "accidentally" DDoS' a site, that person would still be liable for that negligent behavior.
Wasn't one of the first computer viruses an experiment to estimate the size of the internet that went wrong?
So then you're also against prohibitory orders that can be obtained to disallow anyone from non-governmental sources from sending you mail, right? You've been able to obtain these from something near 4 decades. Why are these prohibitory orders, or the do not call lists, somehow not censorship while blocking spammers is?
So then you're also going to lobby against Do Not Call lists and prohibitory orders as well, right?
I don't see request for Tor by default in Ubuntu. What about other distros or other onion routers? That would increase the base. Amnesty or Human Rights Watch or The Democracy Center all have a stake in onion routing. To take the thread in the same direction, but further, the group that backed Bush may have left the top offices in the administration, but it has not entirely left power. And the voting machine problem is not yet solved. Those are still under their sphere of influence.
Phil Zimmermann's Why I Wrote PGP and OpenSSH's SSH FAQ are two works that come to mind first about privacy. Most countries recognize the natural right to peaceable assembly. Do the corporations that now have larger budgets and more political clout than some small countries also those rights? You know the answer. The price of freedom is not just eternal vigilance, the cost also includes acting to proactively resolve threats to that freedom.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Actually, it's not your mailbox. At least in the States, it's the US Postal Service's mailbox. You're allowed to take things out of it. You're allowed to leave things in it for other USPS workers to deliver. That's it.
To be really pedantic about it, it's illegal for me (a private citizen who doesn't work for the USPS) to put a Christmas card in "my neighbor's mailbox".
I hate junk mail as much as you do, and for the same reasons. But junk mail's not the same as spam. The assholes that send junk mail pay the USPS to deliver it. The USPS delivers it to the USPS's mailboxes, and I'm stuck with the task of shredding it. If I really don't like a particular piece of junk mail, I can go to the USPS and fill out a little form that says (in effect) that I think it's pr0n. If I say those Capital Zero credit card offers are too sexy for my tastes (hey, I know it's weird, but your kink may not be my kink...), the USPS is forced to take me at my word, and they will stop delivering them.
And you can stop delivery of any specific mail anyway, by asking the Post Office.
But, more important, postal crap doesn't hijack random people's houses to get them to spew out mail.
Spamming, at this point, doesn't need to be illegal. What we need to do is lock every single spammer up for the hundreds of thousands of felonies they commit by hijacking computers to send spam. Forget the 'spam sending'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And this is why arguing about the morality of spam is stupid.
Instead, talk about the morality of people hijacking millions of computers. Each one being, you know, a felony.
I swear, this is like someone set up an illegal mail carrier service in competition with the US postal service, and we're talking about the morality of the government monopoly of letter carrying...
'Spam' is a misdemeanor. It is a trivial crime.
Spamming almost always involved committing hundreds of thousands of felonies to accomplish that misdemeanor. It is very surreal to talk about that misdemeanor in any sort of abstract sense, or about the morality of that misdemeanor, or the constitutionality of laws against it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Or to put it another way: Free speech may, indeed, include the right to talk even when people don't want to talk to you.
It does not include the right to grab unwilling sleeping people, stick your hand up their ass, and use them as meat puppets to talk to people who will slam the door in your face if they knew who was really talking to.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So.. you think spam filters should be illegal?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
He got off light. Hanging is to goo for him.
Freedom of Speech devolves from the pamphletting started around the time of King James I (of England) from Holland through James II and William of Orange. William, of course, was somewhat implicated in their distribution as a means by which he could influence the English people prior to his landing there and taking over the government. This started limited rule in England and William of Orange was as annoyed by these published tracts as his predecessor was after he became King of England.
Obviously these pamphlets were designed to "preach to the choir," but they were also written to persuade some of the population that there were alternatives to a Catholic King who was increasingly suspicious of the overwhelmingly Protestant subjects he ruled. In other words, there were people increasingly "wanting to listen."
During the US Revolution against King George III, these exact issues became doctrine in the American Colonies. Anyone today who reads "Common Sense," written by John Payne, will sagely nod their head at how important it was to quit the (seemingly) "despotic rule of an overbearing European tyrant." But, taken in the context of his time, this was just shy of blasphemous, as Kings were assumed to have certain, divine rights that placed them above the masses, and Payne was arguing for mass rule -- something that had never been tried.
Another George -- Washington was roundly discomfited by this "free press," which, in opposition, roundly criticized him and impugned his motives as our first President. I'm fairly sure he would have enjoyed a discussion about this wide freedom with William of Orange.
But in all of these cases, the "speech," was being written for people who were either open to persuasion or more than happy to receive the content.
The Internet is a completely new medium that almost completely democratizes "freedom of speech." I say "almost" because there are areas of the US and income levels here in this country that make access to the Internet pretty close to impossible. And there are areas of the world where Internet access is absolutely impossible and access is carefully limited, as in Saudi Arabia and China.
That said, Internet "Spam" is being touted as free speech. And I have to ask about this ideal of either "openness to persuasion," or "happiness to receive content." Surely George Washington didn't want to read the Philadelphia Aurora publishing their take on his (mis)deeds. I'll bet King James II read some of the published works circulated against him that culminated in what the English call "The Glorious Revolution." I'm also positive that Alan Ralsky and Dmitriy Guzner would style themselves modern day Thomas Paynes.
But this issue does not fall into this area of "free speech."
Where this area ought to fall is in another area, and I like to quote the justification of the law used to prohibit "junk faxes." You send out business cards with your fax number on it and you'll start receiving them. And according to federal law, prohibiting unsolicited faxes, the justification lies in the costs that you have to incur.
You have to buy paper. And if someone sends you a ream's worth of junk faxes yearly, you have to go out and spend more money on paper. Additionally, you have to buy toner (or whatever kind of ink your fax uses, be it thermal paper or whatever) to print those faxes. Also, members of Congress tend to have fax machines in their own offices and they were offended by these same "junk fax" senders. So the law says, each fax sending machine must put its real telephone number on the top of the fax. And the law says that a fax sender cannot keep sending a fax to someone who says they don't want the advertisement. After a few pretty high-profile suits, lots of tho
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Freedom of speech implies that the recipient wants to listen.
It does? Then it's not freedom of speech, it's freedom to hear.
On the contrary, it is freedom to speak—but it's not "freedom to make people listen" or "freedom to use other's property (involuntarily) to reach a broader audience". Freedom of speech means one can say whatever one wishes without interference or reprisal. It does not mean that others are forced to carry one's message, or that one can use deception (fraud) to trick them into doing so.
Stuffing mailboxes is the former; violating others' private property rights to carry one's message. Unsolicited bulk e-mail makes use of the latter, by falsifying source addresses and claiming non-existent prior business relationships. It also deliberately circumvents the target's e-mail filters, which can be classified as harassment—sending messages which are not only unsolicited, but are clearly known by the sender to be unwanted. Much of spam also violates private property rights through the use of botnets, masses of unsecured computers employed without their owner's knowledge or consent.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Do you really not know the difference between transferring and copying data between people and purposefully shuting down someone you do not want to hear from? Attacks are attacks.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
When has our government actually ever given us a new right instead of taking them away? When have they taken useless or wrongheaded laws off the books instead of just throwing more of them out there? Maybe a bureaucracy that became useless that the government shut down? No. The government gets bigger and more intrusive. That is not a crazy conspiracy. It is just the facts. That is what the US government dose. It is what all governments do till threatened by their own people.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It wouldn't be the first time they've lied about bomb threats.
Actually it's not entirely up to you what may or may not go in your mailbox. I believe federal regulations prohibit anyone from placing anything but US Postal office delivered mail, or your outgoing mail intended for the post office to deliver. That's in the US of course, your mileage may vary in other countries.
Putting toilet paper in a toilet is obviously nor vandalism. Putting an entire rol in at once, is.
This isn't that hard to understand is it? The law doesn't fall for such childish wordplay games. Grow up and join the real world.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hate to let the steam out of your engine, but your e-mailbox does not exist as a physical entity. It's just a collection of magnetic states in a virtual environment (kind of like your bank account.) I'm not sure what this thing is you actually think you own.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I was born and raised Catholic. Went to Catholic schools. The parent poster brings up some interesting points.
While many people may agree Scientology is a cult, I suggest we all look inward:
People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
Early Christian followers were threatened, beaten, etc.
Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader;
Jesus is said to have unconditional love for all people.
They get a new identity based on the group;
Followers of Jesus are no longer Jews, Pagans, etc... They are known as Christians.
They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.
The 4 gospels were all pretty much copied from the same source (and long after Jesus died). Each one has a different audience, but the content is largely the same. In this sense, followers have restricted access to information. The Catholic church also regulates which scriptures form the Bible (and which do not). Not all writings of the Dead Sea scrolls made it into the Bible. Throughout time, religion have been used as a means to divide people. In the past, those who have questioned the religious leadership have been excommunicated, or worse...
Even today, try being a Catholic and marrying a non-Catholic in a Church. It is not allowed! The meaning of "Catholic" (as welcoming) only applies to their Cathechism school!
(People may argue that the Catholic Church is no longer a cult, even if there is strong evidence for it being a cult at one time. So I ask you, did the religion change or did society change around it? If you think it is now no longer a cult, does that make you feel better?)
From everything I've read about and seen of Scientolgists and Scientology, they do all of those things.
From everything I have read and know about Catholicism, they do and/or have done all those things.
Contrast that to say...Judaism or Islam, theres a big difference.
Indeed, the other religions spell their name differently.
When has our government actually ever given us a new right instead of taking them away? When have they taken useless or wrongheaded laws off the books instead of just throwing more of them out there? Maybe a bureaucracy that became useless that the government shut down? No. The government gets bigger and more intrusive. That is not a crazy conspiracy. It is just the facts. That is what the US government dose. It is what all governments do till threatened by their own people.
That's easy to fix! Just make SCOTUS take less time off (hear more cases thus declaring more laws unconstitutional).
$ make available
Free speech may, indeed, include the right to talk even when people don't want to talk to you.
I am certain, it does not, however if by any chance it does, or if some asshole lawyers will manage to redefine it so it will be, then I don't want free speech.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
One hit, one miss, so that's a batting average of 500 for the courts.
I'd give them a 750 if they let the 1.1 guy off for time served by virtue of effort - at 19, he is - by definition - thinking of the children.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
But note that I'm free and clear with the photos still of Ralsky's house in my possession and Bradley and Ralsky are both in the can. I'm so sad for them both.
Saying that free speech includes the right to talk even when people don't want to talk to you does not mean that free speech includes forcing others to listen to you (which I suspect is what you're actually against).
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Why is it freedom of religion is so sacred in these modern times?
Because, only with the freedom to believe freely do you have your freedom not to believe. The intolerance you preach is as bad as any Catholic/Muslim/CoS etc.
No... I never said you had the freedom to force me to listen. I can walk away. If you insist on following me, I'll go to my private property (or someone else's private property that I know). If you still follow me after being asked to leave, you're trespassing.
Seems spam filters are basically putting up gates to my private property, in a very vague way.
And either way, I have every right to plug my ears and close my eyes while you try to sell me something. Freedom of speech doesn't imply you are guaranteed and audience :)
Well, yes, but my point is, that philosophical point is completely idiotic in this context.
Free speech may, or may not, include the right to put information in front of people who don't want it, and hence spamming may, or may not, be free speech. I lean towards 'Not' side of that, that people have the right to not be harassed, but whatever, it's moot.
Regardless of where you are on that opinion, free speech does not include the right to take other people and force them to speak for you to other people because everyone is slamming the door in your fucking face when you show up.
Which is, you know, what spammers are actually doing, with the botnets of hijacked machines. Let's stop worry about 'spam', and 'spammers'. Hell, let's just agree that doesn't even exist at all, and forbidding spam is an unconscionable restriction of freedom of speech, and everyone can crap all over everyone's computer all they want if they have an open SMTP port.
And then let's go lock up those people we used to call 'spammers' for hundreds of thousands of unauthorized access to a computer. (Which they then stupidly used to send an entirely legal 'spam' email, which resulted in us knowing they had hijacked that computer.)
Usually that's between one to six months in jail. For one access. So assuming we give them the lowest fine, that's about 10,000 years in jail. That sounds reasonable. Maybe only 7,000 with good behavior.
Forget 'spam'. 'Spam' is not something we need to track down and prosecute. Spam laws have idiotic penalties like fines and rules about opting in or out and marketers who try to clutter the definitions. We can deal with the non-hijacking spammers by simply blocking them from the internet, or blocking the people who give them access.
And the hijacking spammers we can lock up for the entire rest of their life without bothering with a single reference to 'spam' at all.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Don't buy into that bogey man of kiddie snuff. It is being used to get a carte blanche for all kinds of restrictions against democratic principles like freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. The way it works is simple, a corporate or political interest has its skunk works bombard a service or site with offending material then they run to their co-investors in the media and whine for restrictions. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Keeping encryption and privacy in the mainstream is a very strong reason to promote Tor and one of the reasons mentioned for creating PGP in Phil Zimmermann's Why I Wrote PGP. Technology cannot police social problems.
Chauchesku, Big Bush & Little Bush, various politburos and national Party committees have a problem with Usenet, Tor or anything else decentralized. Even e-mail and mailing lists, though centralized, seem a little to Free for them.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'
And still it’s not enough. There is no punishment that equals mass-psycho-manipulating people into religious schizophrenia, to use them as bondservants for the own greed for power and money. It’s on one level with mass-murder.
But since it’s invisible it”s treated as being “not real”. I tell you, it’s a full-scale weapon of mass-destruction. Just a psychological one.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.