Malicious Online Retailer Ordered Held Without Bail

Zaphod_85 writes "You may remember the New York Times story from a couple of weeks ago regarding Vitaly Borker, an online retailer intentionally harassing customers in order to gain linking points in Google's PageRank algorithm. Now, not only has Google altered their algorithm in order to prevent this tactic from being effective (Though according to Katherine Noyes at PCWorld, this tactic may never actually have been benefiting the website in the first place), Now Mr. Borker has the Feds to deal with. He is being charged with cyberstalking, wire fraud, mail fraud, and making interstate threats, and faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Given his disturbing behavior that brought about the charges, a federal judge has ordered he be held without bail while he awaits trial."

Comments

Queue the libertarians..

[Eskarel]

saying that the guy is being railroaded and it's all just free speech.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Afforess]

As I understand it, this guy was very very careful at how he worded his "threats" to his customers. I suspect any half-rate lawyer will be able to get him out scot free.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

...and cue the people who can't tell queue, cue and que apart.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ZipK]

OP was suggesting that objecting libertarians be formed into a line.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[shawb]

What...? He wants all the libertarians to stand patiently in a line. At the end of the day, isn't that what we all really want?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[gman003]

Really? The NYT article described it as "too graphic and violent to print in a newspaper", which hardly sounds like "carefully worded". Besides, "taking a picture of someone's home and sending them a message saying 'I'M WATCHING YOU'" is not only a verbal threat, but one involving an action. Frankly, I'm surprised it took two years to arrest this guy - if he tried it on me, I would have filed a police report within minutes.

And that still does nothing for the identity theft charges or the fraud. Hell, maybe we can get him on ACTA or something for selling counterfeits.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[corbettw]

"Fraud" has fuck all to do with free speech. You won't find any "libertarian" defense of stalking one's customers and threatening people with bodily harm.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

With 10 libertarians you would have 10 lines each 1 libertarian deep

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[larry bagina]

was he also very careful about the mail fraud and wire fraud?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean cue the dishonest scumbags who hate libertarianism but know they aren't mentally competent to make an intelligent argument against it, and as such are willing to settle for implying that it means something entirely different from what it actually is.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue the morons that don't know what a libertarian is.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't take a picture of her home, he found it on street view.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Firethorn]

Indeed, you'd probably find more libertarians who'd support the right of the stalked to shoot said stalker. Especially when he's threatened them.

Indeed, fraud is very much NOT on the list of things that libertarians want to legalize.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, "taking a picture of someone's home and sending them a message saying 'I'M WATCHING YOU'" is not only a verbal threat, but one involving an action.

Yeah, it involved him finding a picture of her address on google street view.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Afforess]

But threat's like "I'M WATCHING YOU", are completely legal under the first amendment. The Cyberstalking and interstate threat's charges are going to be kicked out pretty quickly. I'd be a lot more interested in the fraud accusations.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Megahard]

This is what came to mind for a line of people for this guy.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

he also threatened to rape a female complaining customer which is why he was being charged according to another site.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarians don't like threats to extort money, whether it's email or enabled by the politics of envy.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[blueapples]

OP was suggesting that objecting libertarians be formed into a line

and shot?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[bhartman34]

Technically, "I'm watching you", while it certainly sounds menacing to me, probably doesn't qualify as a threat, per se. It sounds creepy, certainly, but it doesn't threaten violence.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[jcr]

Apparently you don't know many libertarians. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to make threats with impunity. Libertarians want criminals punished just like anyone else does.

-jcr

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Now some stranger says that to your wife. I'd take the fucker apart.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Indeed, fraud is very much NOT on the list of things that libertarians want to legalize, if they are not benefiting from its commission."

FIFY.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[cayenne8]

There is a federal cyberstalking law?!?!?

Ok...what exactly does this law entail? I'd have to guess it was so broad that almost any internet action would be illegal??

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck don't you know the difference between "queue" and "cue?" You ignorant, slack-jawed sack of shit. Cue the slash-fags taking a hot load of jizz in the face.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

I say we take said libertarians, this guy, and lock them in a windowless room together. Give the Libertarians that say people should be able to defend themselves, violently if necessary, an appropriate sidearm. And, then take the "libertarians" that say this asshat should be able to do whatever the hell he wants to anyone he wants and bind their wrists to their ankles. After all, who are they to try to stop him? The ones that mention the free market get to go in without any pants. Protections hinder the free market after all.

Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'm bitter when it comes to the libertarian equivalent of the Green Party's watermelons.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[wickedskaman]

Are you having an affair with his wife? Is that why it would anger you so?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, snorted.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[retchdog]

You mean, the libertarians?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[igreaterthanu]

he found it on street view.

He stole Google's intellectual property and sent it to his customers? That is a matter of national security!

This man must be stopped at all costs.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you're insane. You're just waiting until most of society will sympathize with your actions.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hearsay. I hate to take the role of devil's advocate, but you really think a pissed off customer wouldn't fabricate claims to exact revenge on an online seller?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[countertrolling]

Yes, call the po-lice

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Bigjeff5]

Indeed, you'd probably find more libertarians who'd support the right of the stalked to shoot said stalker.

That's the part people forget.

We wouldn't need so much protection by the government if we were allowed to protect ourselves.

A response of "Try it and I'll cut your fucking balls off" would have sent this guy off looking for easier prey, particularly if castration was considered a legitimate defense against rape.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

The libertarians want the criminals punished, but don't want courts, police, jails, or the like. I guess they just want a tree and a rope. They believe that whatever crowd has the better numbers and armament to pronounce sentence.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[MillionthMonkey]

Under 18 U.S.C. 875(c), it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, to transmit any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person of another. Internet-based communication is not exempt. Is this something you do a lot?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

You have never met a libertarian who believes that. You cannot name a single one.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[circletimessquare]

the libertarians would consider the regulatory and law enforcement infrastructure to catch and punish the stalker to be intrusive expensive bureaucracy our taxes shouldn't pay for

additionally, they would insist on taking justice in their own hands, since every yahoo with a gun is a perfect judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to matter of justice

libertarianism is mirror image of communism: equally foolish and equally destructive. communism's folly is altruism conquers all. libertarianism's folly is selfishness conquers all. both mirror image ideologies fail, because true human nature is both altruistic and selfish at the same time, like two sides of a coin. the only effective ideology in this world is one which reflects the nature of the humans you are attempting to foist it on: a moderate mix, not an extreme like communism or libertarianism. socialism with a capitalist engine, or capitalism with socialist safety nets: these are the ideal ideologies. moderation is the king. all other ideologies fail

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[jcr]

>The libertarians want the criminals punished, but don't want courts, police, jails, or the like

Only the anarchists. Most libertarians have no issue with government operating a criminal justice system. What we object to are things like embargoes and undeclared wars.

-jcr

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[cayenne8]

"Under 18 U.S.C. 875(c), it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, to transmit any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person of another. Internet-based communication is not exempt. Is this something you do a lot?"

Ok..thanks. It mentioned "commerce" in there...I was wondering how the feds could do this. Bastardizing interstate commerce again.

After reading this law...I have to ask myself, does ANYONE do this often? Is this really a problem that required a law?

Or..are the Feds just now trying to make any law for anything, and stick commerce in it, so they can try to enforce something?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy question. Most people I know are capable of doing the above, provided they meet their own personal definition of justice.

IME the people's sense of justice is determined by two factors: how closely the person is intimately involved, and the lovingly embraced coverage by the media.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[erroneus]

Where you get this idea I am uncertain, but that's not how it works.

Libertarians want the government the U.S. originally intended to have. It was all a REALLY good idea based on the notion of getting rid of all the crap and nonsense that England's government was imposing and never wanted to see again. Well, it's back and stronger in many ways. For example, the tax rates imposed by England would be a dream come true by today:s standards.

As for justice, no. The Libertarian stance on crime in general might appear as if it is a criminal's "free for all" position, but that would be a mistaken interpretation. Laws based on morality would be removed, but not laws based on individual safety and good public conduct. For example, it would still condemn the case under discussion. But matters between consenting adults and the right of people to put whatever crap they want into their own bodies [drugs] would be defended. Not that it is relevant here, but Sane Libertarians also seek to protect child development by defending them against child labor, sexual molestation and other forms of abuse that would inhibit them from growing into healthy adults who are capable of leading healthy, self-sustaining lives.

Libertarianism just seems far too different from what we generally accept as common sense and wisdom. But when you think it through rationally, it makes a lot more sense than what we are doing now. The short of it is "your rights end where mine begin." Once you adapt your view around that simple notion, you will begin to see where things are wrong. For you to tell me that I should be forced to live my life based on YOUR ideals and morality is just as stupid as you being forced to live your life based on MY ideals and morality. But there are some constants that must still be maintained and I see those as self-evident as well.

"Don't want courts"? Really? It:s provided for in the US Constitution. Libertarians just want the constitution followed in spirit and intent. This includes the institutions of courts, police, prisons and more. They are simply necessary for a healthy society. As you see things for the way they are, you will find that a lot of violent crimes (certainly not all) are connected with the operation of business that is determined to be illegal. For example, the drug trade sees gang violence just the same as it was when alcohol was illegal. Why we repealed prohibition of alcohol but not other drugs is pretty stupid -- the truths are pretty much the same. Once alcohol was legalized and controlled, violence related to the alcohol trade all but disappeared. The same would be true of the drug trade.

Many people fail to see cause and effect for what it really is. Crime is very often the effect of bad law.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[RedWizzard]

I guess it's hearsay to you and I since we're getting our info from the media rather than the complainant. The FBI, OTOH, have no doubt spoken to the complainant directly so it is not hearsay to them. It may still be a false complaint, of course. Or there may be a record of the threat if it was made by email or a phone call that was recorded.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[mysidia]

to transmit any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person of another.

It would have to be something more than "I am watching you".

There exist ways for evil people to send things that will scare people, with outright threatening they will injure the person.

If the shopkeeper sent a forged document or other communication to the bank withdrawing a credit card dispute, however, misrepresenting their identity.... that would seem to be a clear fraud; no different than posing as a bank account owner, at a teller window, and convincing the bank to let you "withdraw" $500 cash...

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, much better if everything is legal if it occurs in a grey area between states where neither state really has jurisdiction.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[c0lo]

After reading this law...I have to ask myself, does ANYONE do this often? Is this really a problem that required a law?

And... what answer did you get from yourself?

WHO@ stats (one of the sources, may be others):

WHOA receives an estimated 50-75 cases per week. If victims fill out the entire questionnaire, which includes demographic information, that is what we use to properly calculate our statistics.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[nbauman]

If Vitaly Borker was calling Ms. Rodriguez repeatedly, especially after 10pm, he was violating New York State laws against telephone harassment.

I had somebody calling me repeatedly late at night. I traced his phone number, complained to the local police station, and two detectives came to his house (several times until he answered the door) and arrested him. He finally left New York City, and stopped bothering me, so I didn't prosecute.

You can get more information about handling these calls at The Verizon Unlawful Call Center http://www22.verizon.com/residentialhelp/phone/general+support/support+tools/general/95622.htm

Examples of unlawful calls:

        * Threat to Life (yours or someone else's)
        * Bomb Threats
        * Bodily Harm
        * Excessive Obscene or Harassing Calls (The definition of excessive varies by state but generally means more than two to five calls.)
        * Kidnapping

Verizon regularly works with Law Enforcement agencies to resolve unlawful call complaints. The Law Enforcement agency investigates all calls involving bodily harm, bomb threats and kidnapping.

Unwanted Calls are usually not against the law and typically include:

        * Fax calls
        * Hang-up calls
        * Computer calls
        * Solicitation calls
        * Telemarketing calls
        * Debt collection calls
        * Obscene or Harassing Calls*

*If calls of this nature are deemed excessive, and you are willing to prosecute, we will handle as an unlawful call.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Mr. Slippery]

You mean cue the dishonest scumbags who hate libertarianism but know they aren't mentally competent to make an intelligent argument against it, and as such are willing to settle for implying that it means something entirely different from what it actually is.

'

You mean like the dishonest scumbags who started the Libertarian Party, who implied that "libertarianism" meant some form of capitalism when the term had a long history of use by socialists opposed to both direct government power and state-backed private power?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Local ID10T]

Conga!

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Weaselmancer]

No, that's still one line, ten deep. Just orthogonal.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[nospam007]

Most of these 'threats' are worded carefully.

Somebody has been naughty.
Nice place you have here.
It would be a shame if something happened to it.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[MillionthMonkey]

Is this really a problem that required a law?

A state with a low population like AZ (not to pick on AZ undeservedly here) would be presented with a good motive to set itself up with a predatory policy based on e.g. light criminal penalties for making threats against people in general. (Which it wouldn't for crimes of local consequence, like car theft or vandalism.) The benefit would be to make AZ more attractive to anyone looking to set up shop who plans to make money ripping off and abusing customers who are mostly going to live out-of-state anyway. If the population of your state is low enough, policies start to look attractive that encourage picking on people in other states by encouraging picking on people in general.

This is similar to how NV legalized gambling, or how the credit industry is based in ND. In general interstate commerce is something that presents a conflict of interest to a state legislature, so crimes involving it get singled out for federal nitpicking. I'm not surprised that there's a law against threatening to injure the person of someone in an interstate business conversation. Interstate commerce gets used like a hat rack by the feds, but a law like that seems pretty basic if you're going to submit interstate commerce to any regulative structure at all. /IANAL

This case is different from your typical predatory industry. A collection agency for example is trying to get money out of people; it may be perfectly willing to abuse them, but only in order to get the money. What makes this guy weird is that he stalked people in order to get free advertising.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Man On Pink Corner]

(Shrug) Capitalism is exactly what happens when you give people the liberty to trade with each other. The only way to stop capitalism is to shoot people for practicing it. Is that what you, personally, advocate?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, the tax rates imposed by England would be a dream come true by today:s standards.

As would the roads, city plumbing, heating, electricity (including street lights), fire department, equipment for emergency rescue personnel, military, etcetera. Oh, if only our horrible modern moral intrusiveness wouldn't get in the way of us going back to those terrific times!

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[rahvin112]

According to the NYT Time article, Ms. Rodriguez was using T-Mobile and attempted to get them to do something but was told by T-Mobile they could do nothing because he was calling from a blocked number. All utter bullshit from the T-Mobile rep and a very good reason to NEVER use T-Mobile.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[honkycat]

Perhaps, but if a reasonable person would interpret it as a threat, if there is clear evidence that it was intended to have that effect, and if there's a pattern of that behavior, it may be hard to sneak out of it on the technicality that you didn't use particular keywords.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[someone1234]

50 years for threatening of rape, interstate?
Whoa. That's gross.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lets not forget Dude that keeping wildlife, um... an amphibious rodent, for... um, ya know domestic... within the city... that ain't legal either." - Walter Sobchak

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[erroneus]

Seriously. Would you be okay if the Taliban were in charge of making law in this country? If so, then your perspective would be consistent. If not, then you most certainly understand my point. My point is that "morality" is a point of view, not a universal constant. The government's job isn't to push a limited point of view, but rather to do what the constitution says it must.

Where you get that this other stuff wouldn't happen, I don't know. You are apparently unable to form more than a few words in series to actually make a coherent point. Besides that, your ridiculous list includes electricity -- not paid for by government.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[JohnRoss1968]

Wouldn't you have to call the Police on the Police after that video ?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[JohnRoss1968]

Thanks I needed a good laugh

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[JohnRoss1968]

How does one sign up to become a Libertarian ?
I cant stand the Republican viewpoint anymore. And as for the Democratic party the dont seem to have the will to to what it takes.
They had the Presidency and both houses of congress and still didn't get much done. With the exception of 2 things.
1. Credit card changes. This one I liked
2. Health care changes. So far I have not been effected by this either way.
But having the political advantages they had they should have gotten a lot more done.
No offense to anyone who is a Republican or Democrate here but I for one am sick and tired of Politics as usual in DCland.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[julesh]

All utter bullshit from the T-Mobile rep and a very good reason to NEVER use T-Mobile.

So which phone company doesn't have any incompetent staff and therefore never makes an incorrect statement to a customer?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ArsenneLupin]

Why are "Interstate Threats" punished more severely than local threats? It's not logical, local threats are more credible (does anyone really believe a thug would come extra from California to NY to vandalize the home of an unhappy customer?), and thus more frightening ("I've just a bridge to cross..." is way more scary than "I'll hop into the next plane and come to ..."). So Interstate threats should be considered less server, not more.

Oh, I see, the commerce clause...

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ArsenneLupin]

Or..are the Feds just now trying to make any law for anything, and stick commerce in it, so they can try to enforce something?

The Feds have been abusing the "commerce clause" since ages. Almost any federal law has some bizarre reference to "commerce" in it to justify how the Feds had authority to pass the law in the first place.

The most funny application was how a Californian resident was tried under a federal law for growing pot for her own consumption. You see, if she grows her own pot, she doesn't need to buy it, and thus her dealer doesn't need to import it from another state. That way, by growing her own she was "distorting interstate commerce", giving the Fed jurisdiction over a "crime" which should have been a local matter.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[wampus]

She is obviously a CIA plant making shit up to besmirch his good name.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[websaber]

That is not the point, he was obnoxious and and maybe financially criminal, Is he facing financial penalties? No he is facing the loss of his life (I.E. the loss of 50 years of his liberty) for never physically harming anybody. Beware of the government that so enthusiastically protects you for what will they do to you when they decide you have horrifically offended them. Even if there is a low chance of him getting it the fact that he faces is it is what should be taken into account.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[SleazyRidr]

But won't the free market sort it out?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[supercrisp]

The people I just read above taking exception to the federal government using the commerce clause to prosecute this guy.... They're not libertarians then? Maybe they're liebertarians or libretarians or something else? OK. That was a little snarky, but the assertion to which I'm responded is too funny. Liberal, right-winger, or what-have-you, people don't come out and openly say that they want to protect child molesters, or companies making exploding toothbrushes, or snaggled-toothed halfwits with epic gun collections. No, they come out in public to talk about big gubmint or mean rich people or the Consteatution. And they may not even hear the 60-cycle hum of the cognitive dissonance between their ears. (This includes everyone, including yours truly.) So, of course, a libertarian isn't going to come out and say "What this country needs is more sketchy guys threatening a smackdown because you don't like the fraudulent crap they sold you." No, libertarians are more likely to come out plucking one of the well-worn 5 or 6 strings on their little lyre, just like the rest of us.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Eskarel]

I know what a slashdot libertarian is. It's a selfish git who could never actually live without any of the government services like police, or roads, or hospitals, but thinks that there's a magical way where they don't have to pay for them. Somewhere there may be libertarians who truly believe in civil liberties, but everyone I've ever met has had a philosophy which basically boiled down to "Hands off my wallet fuck the rest of you". Even the religious right has more integrity than that.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Taxman415a]

It depends. Some hard core libertarians believe there is no such thing as fraud. If you've been "defrauded" it just means you haven't done your research and haven't made good choices. You could have gone out and found out more about this transaction or this seller, etc if you really cared to avoid fraud.

Now to me that's a pretty messed up philosophy given the extreme costs in research time that it would add to every transaction. At least the current situation where in general parties are expected to be honest about the information they disclose and to disclose enough in certain transactions that it reduces the likelihood that parties will attempt to defraud others. If there were no legal teeth to enforce those provisions I can only imagine fraud would increase.

Now on the other hand there would indeed be less fraud if people held more of the attitude that it was up to them to do their homework to make sure they weren't getting scammed. Those that do don't get scammed much.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[gstoddart]

After reading this law...I have to ask myself, does ANYONE do this often? Is this really a problem that required a law?

Ummm .... if you and I are in the same room, and you threaten to injure me, it's an illegal act and in most jurisdictions counts as assault and you can be charged for it. See, if someone reasonably believes you have made a threat against them, you have committed a crime.

In the case of interstate commerce, communicating a threat across state lines or internationally, you have now turned it into a federal crime.

Or..are the Feds just now trying to make any law for anything, and stick commerce in it, so they can try to enforce something?

I'm pretty sure the cited law has been on the books for a long time.

Are you laboring under the belief that it is perfectly legal to go around making threats against people? The interstate commerce parts is to mostly make sure that things like organized crime don't send a threatening letter to someone in another state and be able to act with impunity -- the Feds take such things really seriously.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[gstoddart]

He didn't take a picture of her home, he found it on street view.

Which demonstrated that he actually took steps that would lead someone to reasonably conclude that he both could, and would, act on his threats.

If the person on the receiving end of the threat reasonably believes you will carry it out, you have committed assault. If you do this across state lines, you have turned it into a Federal offense.

I suspect this guy is going to be on the receiving end of a world of hurt.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Libertarian stance

The problem with "Libertarians" is that there's no consistency in who calls themselves a Libertarian. Ranging from the most bat-shit crazy militia kind of people to the Tea Party wanks.

Those who claim to be "Libertarians" often are the ones pushing for morality based laws and regulation of other people's stuff.

In short, unless you can get a single, consistent, set of people saying they're Libertarians, the whole lot gets lumped in with every ranting idiot who wants to change the world to be the way they want it, and be able to opt-out of any taxation and other program they don't want so they can undermine the whole system.

I've never met two Libertarians with the same point of view, so I more of less have to discount the whole lot. The term is essentially meaningless -- but usually accompanied by some ranting screed that is anything but Libertarian.

And, like pure free-market worshipers, Libertarians make some awful assumptions about how their perfect utopian society would operate -- assumptions for which there is no evidence humans can live up to en masse. It's just way too overly idealized, and generally, downright naive.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[mcgrew]

if he tried it on me, I would have filed a police report within minutes.

Filing a police report is often futile. I filed a police report about a theft a few weeks ago, even gave them the thief's name. I found out after I filed the report that I wasn't her first victim, but she's still not in custody.

About thirty years ago my home was burglarized, and I later found out that they caught the burglar, who was let off in return for turning in some drug dealers, and they even let the guy keep the stolen propery -- I heard this from a policeman I knew.

The police are a boon to the rich, but they're useless to the middle class and dangerous to the poor.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[gstoddart]

I believe it's because historically things like kidnapping and extortion used to be readily conducted across state lines and made it almost impossible to track down and police due to jurisdictional challenges.

When the FBI and others decided that they were going to go after kidnapping with a vengeance, that was one mechanism they had available to them. The phone and mail system allowed them to hone in on the method of transmission.

This wasn't case of "Hey, let's expand the commerce clause just for fun", this was a case of trying to prosecute real and very serious crimes.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[corbettw]

The people complaining about the Feds using the commerce clause to smack this asshat down are simply misinformed, whatever their political inclinations. Doing business over the Internet, especially* when the buyer and seller are in different states, is most definitely interstate commerce and has to be policed by the Feds.

*I say "especially" because it's possible for a buyer to be in one part of a state and the seller in another, but their transaction runs across routers and/or servers in other states, making their transaction fall under interstate commerce. A small mom-and-pop retail store in Oklahoma that hosts with GoDaddy in Arizona is going to be engaging in interstate commerce regardless of their buyer's location (someone will surely correct me if I'm wrong on the legal details involved).

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[TWX]

Given that there was the whole New York vs. New Jersey angle in the case (IIRC), and since basically all of the people involved either bought or attempted to buy something from this person, I'd say that Interstate Commerce was full engaged in and fully applies...

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[TWX]

I don't think that the Federal Government has any misdemeanor-class laws, only felonies. Plus, if you've gotten to the point that the Feds have to get involved, my guess is that they aren't necessarily too worried about overkill.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[nyctopterus]

No, capitalism is when you allow pretend "persons" (companies) to raise capital without liabilities for real people. It works, but it's a kludge, and doesn't sit comfortably with the moral responsibilities implied by enlightenment individualism.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[gophish]

qui homo libertarian est?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[cayenne8]

I guess I am having a hard time imagining "abuse" over the internet with respect to commerce at all as a concept??

I mean, if someone is trying to sell me something, and starts acting like and ass...they've lost a sale.

Where is the benefit of acting an ass if they're trying to sell something to you? Again...is this really a problem?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

Well, the woman in the linked article had already bought some stuff from the guy, for which she was over-charged and given the wrong goods.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[MillionthMonkey]

It's not logical, local threats are more credible (does anyone really believe a thug would come extra from California to NY to vandalize the home of an unhappy customer?)

That's a pretty silly example. Lots of thugs in CA visit their grandmothers in NY. Are you saying they should be no federal law prohibiting them from making a hit or something while in town, because they can't be expected to make an extra trip back to NY to vandalize a house? It's not logical.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

to transmit any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person of another.

It would have to be something more than "I am watching you".

There exist ways for evil people to send things that will scare people, with outright threatening they will injure the person.

If the shopkeeper sent a forged document or other communication to the bank withdrawing a credit card dispute, however, misrepresenting their identity.... that would seem to be a clear fraud; no different than posing as a bank account owner, at a teller window, and convincing the bank to let you "withdraw" $500 cash...

If I had had an argument with someone and they then let me know "I am watching you" to me, I would sure as fuck take it as a threat and do something about it.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

"Demanding money with menaces" doesn't mean you have to catch the gangster in the act of swinging a baseball bat at someone's leg.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

Isn't this due to the way that you can have cumulative sentences in the US, whereas in most of the rest of the world you have concurrent ones?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[mcgrew]

Besides that, your ridiculous list includes electricity -- not paid for by government

The electricity or infrastructure isn't paid for by government, but rights of way are enforced at the end of a government gun.

The GP isn't very good at expressing himself, I think.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

Hearsay. I hate to take the role of devil's advocate, but you really think a pissed off customer wouldn't fabricate claims to exact revenge on an online seller?

It's not hearsay if it's something somebody has said directly to you. Hearsay would be "my friend told me that X threatened to rape her".

However, to paraphrase Samuel Goldwyn, verbal evidence isn't worth the paper it's written on in the absence of corroboration.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

We wouldn't need so much protection by the government if we were allowed to protect ourselves..

But we can protect ourselves. We just can't dish out punishments that are disproportionate to a crime.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[tehcyder]

your ridiculous list includes electricity -- not paid for by government.

Street lights are, and GP said "electricity (including street lights)". All the rest of his list were government services.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[DavidTC]

I mean, if someone is trying to sell me something, and starts acting like and ass...they've lost a sale.

Did you read the linked article?

She purchased something. He then had her credit card number. He made at least one additional charge on it.

He also repeatedly contacted her and threatened her. Hell, at one point he called her credit card company pretending to be her and got her chargeback canceled.

I don't know what sort of goofy naive world you're in, but there are crazies out there...and this was a crazy, who revealed themselves to be crazy after a customer had made a purchase on their totally normal-looking web site at the top of the Google search.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Mana Mana]

> "taking a picture of someone's home

Boinker claimed to the Times reporter to have used a StreeView image. *Ahem!*

> and sending them a message saying 'I'M WATCHING YOU'" is not only a verbal threat,

The Times article demonstrates Boinker's astuteness. He used that verbiage in a _following_ missive. The threat was designed for _inference_. The easily/naturally _inferred_ threat was not overt nor linked in one thought, message. You are cherry picking words and conjoining them. In toto, the Boinker's intent is clear, oh! but he's a slippery one.

> but one involving an action. Frankly, I'm surprised it took two years to arrest this guy -
> if he tried it on me, I would have filed a police report within minutes.

Now I know you didn't read the article. The centerpiece piece victim in the story, a Spaniard residing in NYC, did just that. Repeatedly. Contacted the Attorney General's office, and the feds I believe to little avail. Their response in essence was, we are collating. It was the The New York Times publicity that has greased the wheels!

> And that still does nothing for the identity theft charges or the fraud. Hell, maybe we can
> get him on ACTA or something for selling counterfeits.

Frankly I was mystified about one aspect of the reportage that was not mentioned at all, that we know works.

(1.) Why were not the eyewear designers notified about this. Why did she not Tweet about this; it is not an urban myth that companies consider Tweets so magical currently that complaining on Twitter will get you high level support ASAP. This dude lives in NYC, Mayor Mike (Bloomberg) has been on a rampage to clean up NYC's Canal Street for bootleg LV, Gucci, Rolex purses wallets wares that even in these extremely short fiscal budget times he finds the money to fund the copyright NYC cops. Combining the former idea with this suggestion you would get a response ASAP from your Tweet about "piracy," "Canal Street," "Mayor Bloomberg," "fake Yankees merchandise?"

(2.) Why wasn't a DMCA notice(s) used?! This guy is bright but for most folks the DMCA is legal dynamite. It tends to stupefy. This guy would have been slapped around a whole new set of regs, threats, and no one would have said do you have proof Ms. Jane Q. Public.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Firethorn]

It depends. Some hard core libertarians believe there is no such thing as fraud. If you've been "defrauded" it just means you haven't done your research and haven't made good choices. You could have gone out and found out more about this transaction or this seller, etc if you really cared to avoid fraud.

That's a pretty 'hard-core' libertarian then. I generally call myself a moderate. There's a difference between somebody who wins a $200 auction for an Ipod Box(that clearly says 'empty box') and somebody who wins a $200 auction for an Ipod and gets an empty box. One has been defrauded, one is just stupid.

At least the current situation where in general parties are expected to be honest about the information they disclose and to disclose enough in certain transactions that it reduces the likelihood that parties will attempt to defraud others. If there were no legal teeth to enforce those provisions I can only imagine fraud would increase.

This isn't the sort of situation I want to change. I want people to be free to write pretty much whatever contracts they want to, but I also want all parties to be *INFORMED*.

Deliberately misleading, outright lying, misrepresenting, are all things that make a contract one-sided(both parties should benefit). They should be treated harshly.

Now on the other hand there would indeed be less fraud if people held more of the attitude that it was up to them to do their homework to make sure they weren't getting scammed. Those that do don't get scammed much.

True.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Firethorn]

I'll echo corbettw here. They're either misinformed, not libertarians, or got a really weird philosophy that doesn't fit into 'standard' libertarian views.

I'm a libertarian and I have no problems with what the feds are doing. As stated, it's federal jurisdiction, ergo federal involvment is the proper level. He WAS threatening people and committing fraud, both crimes with victims, which SHOULD remain crimes. He should get hit hard for what he's done.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[DavidTC]

How 'credible' the threat is has nothing to do with the severity of the crime.

Either it would be credible to a hypothetical ordinary person, and hence is illegal assault, or it wouldn't be credibly to a hypothetical ordinary person, and hence isn't assault. There's not some fractional credibility where the offense scales. Either normal people would find it a threat, or they wouldn't.

Interstate threats are more serious to because to be credible, the threatener must put more planning into it generally. Or, at least, used to be...now you can look up all that info on the internet and pretend to be local, which makes you credible, without actually being local. (I'm not sure 'the internet makes it easier to threaten people' is a very good reason for making threatening people less punishable.)

Of course, interstate threats aren't punished 'more severely' than local threats. Different states have different punishments, and I suspect the Federal crime is in the middle somewhere.

As for the commerce clause's applicability...more interstate threats have something to do with money. This crime was actually about interstate commerce, so pretending it's some overreach of Federal jurisdiction is stupid...this is exactly the sort of thing the Federal government is supposed to be dealing with.

You can argue non-monetary threats should be dealt with locally. Technically, if you commit a crime in one state on a victim in another, both states can punish you for it. (Strangely, it's not double jeopardy. That's per-jurisdiction.) However, the problem is it's difficult to investigate such a crime....one state cannot issue a search warrant for a location in another state, or arrest someone in another state.

Even if the two states were working together, that doesn't solve the problem. You could easily end up in circumstances where evidence at the victim's end of the crime would easily justify a search warrant in the victim's state to search the criminal's house, but can't be used as evidence in the criminal's state (Because it's not actually part of that case, but of a case in another state.), so the criminal's house can't get searched, thus ending the investigation.

At some point, nearby states would start changing the law and making permanent joint task forces (Which essentially have dual-jurisdiction) to deal with this crap, which means that everyone would simply start doing crimes from states farther away. It gets really complicated, really quickly.

In the end, you'd end up with all the states operating some joint investigative force that looked near identical to the FBI, but had to deal with the minimal intersection of 50 state laws instead of Federal law. It is hard to see how this benefits anything or is somehow magically more 'democratic'.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[supercrisp]

To which of the standard libertarian views do you adhere? Wikipedia lists nine.... My point here and above is that claims about orthodoxy are a useful way to police an image but they are often deceptive, intentionally or unintentionally.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[spun]

Is ANYTHING really a problem for libertarians, except "government regulations?" You demonstrate the utter moral bankruptcy of libertarian ideals. "You're not the boss of me" is not a valid political system, it is the cry of a selfish child.

Yes, this is a problem. Many people here have demonstrated how and why, and given you evidence that it is a problem. The article gives evidence that it is a problem. And yet you continue to ask "Is this really a problem?" This is the heart of libertarian "justice." No laws or regulations detailing what constitutes harm. In each case, the victim must prove harm, but the libertarians will always blame the victim, saying "Is this really a problem?" and "If this is a problem, it is YOUR problem." Libertarians will claim the victim should have known better, they should have protected themselves, they should just shut up and shop elsewhere.

This is because libertarians are at heart authoritarian. They believe they are better than others. They believe that the superior have a natural right to profit from the inferior. Protecting the victim is going against nature. The victim was weak, the abuser was strong, the abuser won and the victim lost, and now, a bunch of inferior little people are going to band together to try to subvert nature and punish the strong? Outrageous!

Libertarians will never believe any evidence that the strong profiting off of the weak is a problem because to them, it is not a problem. To them, the core assumption is flawed. The strong should profit off of the weak. Anything else is unnatural. Not that they will ever come right out and say that, it will always be cloaked in some other argument. They know that most others do not share their authoritarian beliefs. In Libertopia, when you are victimized, the authoritarians will always be there to ask, "Is this really a problem? Didn't you bring this on yourself?"

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[spun]

So all those posters above defending Mr. Borker are not libertarians? Obviously not, because No True Libertarian would defend something like this. Except they do. And your sig gives us a clue as to why they do.

Your sig is quite telling. All libertarians feel superior to others. They feel that in a libertarian system, they would be highly rewarded for their excellence. Libertarians are authoritarian at heart. They do not want government interfering with their ability to force others to recognize their superiority. Libertarians believe the strong have a moral right to profit off of the weak. Like all authoritarians, they worship power. They do not want an egalitarian society where "all men are created equal." They want a society where the weak do not have access to justice. Just like the defenders of Mr. Borker, they will always ask the victim "Is this REALLY a problem? Why didn't you protect yourself? Why didn't you perform due diligence? Why did you let yourself be taken advantage of? What's wrong with YOU?"

The desire for libertarianism is founded on the belief that the weak are the natural prey of the strong.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Firethorn]

Using the wikipedia site,

Mostly Civil, with a good dash of Minarchism*, a bit of conservatism, a moderate amound of Green, and a smidge of transhumanism. For a libertarian I can get downright socialistic when it comes to taking care of people, but I'm all about giving a 'hand up' rather than a 'hand-out'. IE I don't have welfare, I have workfare. Instead of extending unemployment, I get very generous with retraining programs(yes, I'll provide support while you're in class).

I'm pretty standard on the 'victimless crimes' aspect, and believe that any rules should be held to an effectiveness standard. Want to keep DUI illegal? Show some proof that it's more effective at saving lives and property from DUI accidents than other methods.

*While a pure Minarchist would still be nailing this guy - he managed to do all three things they say government courts should still handle. Personally, I think that the government still needs to be involved in a bit more. For example, I have no problems with going entirely towards private schools, but I believe that they still need a bit of government control/funding. It's in my and the state's interest to make sure education standards are reasonable(teaching evolution over creationism), and that the kids of even the poorest/most negligent parents still get a practical education.

Basically, I don't want to have to support people, but as long as we're not willing to let them starve, we might as well be efficient in our support. If an education program is more efficient than policing after the fact, why NOT do the education?

I disagree with most parts of anarcho-capitalism, left-libertarianism, socialism, and geolibertarianism*.

*I'm going to have to look more into this one. How the heck do you set the rent rate? Can you not pay rent on land your house is on, and still exclude people from the house itself(it's a product of labor, after all)? What about land improvements?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ZipK]

This is similar to how... the credit industry is based in ND.

I think you mean Delaware. More specifically, Wilmington, DE.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Very well said.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that it is relevant here, but Sane Libertarians also seek to protect child development by defending them against child labor

Be careful not to equate "defending them against" with "outlawing" child labor. The reason children worked for thousands of years is because it was necessary and a pleasant alternative to starvation. As our productivity increased sufficiently, child labor became increasingly unwanted and less desirable. This may be a case where the law was more descriptive of a trend thand prescriptive in altering the trend itself.

Also, I doubt you speak for any number of libertarians beyond one. Firstly, they do not just "want the government the U.S. originally intended to have". There were clear mistakes then and now in the constitution. Also, you show some ignorance of history: "Once alcohol was legalized and controlled, violence related to the alcohol trade all but disappeared." We did not need the "and controlled" part. Not then, not now. Also, the more common term is "decriminalized" (among the libertarian circles you so clearly do not hang). It is the difference between "everything is illegal but for what we say" and "everything is legal but for what we say".

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ArsenneLupin]

"Interstate Threats" still sounds ridiculous. If you feel that the 10th Amendment gets into the way of efficient law enforcement, then repeal it, rather than playing semantic games about what is or what affects interstate commerce. The commerce clause jumped the shark when they punished a medicinal marijuana user for growing it herself rather than buying it from a dealer smuggling it in from out of state

Here's where lack of democracy comes in: politicians (rightly or wrongly) feel that they would never get the necessary majority to repeal or supersede the 10th Amendment, and thus they prefer to play silly word games around "commerce". If your argument is so compelling, bring it before the people to convince them to make a democratic decision to fix the constitution, rather than working around it. Anything else is just hypocrisy.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[ArsenneLupin]

Maybe. But I'm still more worried about somebody shouting at me who sits next to me, than about somebody with a sticky caps lock key halfway across the globe :-)

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[DragonWriter]

We wouldn't need so much protection by the government if we were allowed to protect ourselves.

The thing is, before organized governments, and in areas without effective governments, that's generally the case (self-protection was allowed not just in the form of proximate self-defense, where it remains allowed in, e.g., the modern US, but also in retaliatory or pre-emptive action against those who had caused harm or who showed signs they might do so), and as it turns out, while it requires less self-protection against government, it doesn't actually lead to results that most people approve of, which is why in antiquity concepts of law like the lex talionis (the "law of retaliation" of "eye for eye and tooth for tooth") appeared, not to mandate harsh punishments (as it might seem to a modern eye unfamiliar with the context), but to dictate limits on punishments and to assign the judgement of retaliation to social magistrates rather than involved individuals.

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[MillionthMonkey]

Ah, but if you live near a state line (assuming relatively uniform population density in your area for sake of argument) you're only well-protected by state law from about half the criminals in your local vicinity; felonies committed against you by the other half can really only be prosecuted successfully by the feds. They're much harder to prosecute at the state level because of all the legal complications between states. Not every victim in NY gets murdered by someone in CA- there are troublemakers in NJ too!

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

where are my mod points when I need them

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Coren22]

WhAt Do YoU hAvE aGaInSt StIcKy CaPsLoCk KeYs?

Re:Queue the libertarians..

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be Bare Assertion Saturday. I didn't think it was that time of the month yet, silly me...

DecorMyCell.com

[ZipK]

How long until he gets his new business rolling?

Re:DecorMyCell.com

[clem.dickey]

Modded funny. Okay, but perhaps the moderators have forgotten the case of Norman Henry Hunt. Mr. Hunt was convicted of mail fraud (phony computer parts). He escaped from prison, was caught and convicted again (more mail fraud, plus the escape). After the second conviction, he was found to be running a mail order business out of a P.O. Box at NNCC. His ads represented NNCC as the Northern Nevada Computing Center; it was actually the Northern Nevada *Correctional* Center.

Re:DecorMyCell.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I've googled the name "Norman Henry Hunt" and don't see any information. Perhaps you could provide a link as I'm interested in reading about this.

Re:DecorMyCell.com

[Wumpus]

Google harder: http://www.trs--80.org/world-power-systems-fraud/

Third result from the top.

Re:DecorMyCell.com

[clem.dickey]

Did you put the name in quotes, to get an exact match? There is a good summary in this InfoWorld article. Note that in his first computer scam he passed as "Col. David W. Winthrop, USAF retired" in a Santa Maria CA computer club. Santa Maria is a stones throw from Vandenberg AFB, and I imagine that a large part of the tech community there worked at Vandenberg. Amazing, I think that he pulled it off. I never met him, but heard that he was a *very* personable fellow.

In those days (1977 or so) it was common for computer start-ups to take money in advance of shipment and use that money to fund development. Hunt used that model, except that he was planning to skip town with the money. He did hire engineering staff and a receptionist to make DataSync (no relation to any current company using that name) look legitimate. I understand that the staff were made corporate officers, which meant they were working for stock options rather than salary.

After Hunt was caught the staff - which had not known that they were working for a con man - tried to make a go of what was left. The receptionist was required to warn customers with a script that went something like this: "I must inform you that the advertisements placed by DataSync were fraudulent, and the person responsible for them is now in jail. Knowing that, would you still like to order quality products from DataSync?" But DataSync finally folded before filling any customer orders.

Real-life trolls

[KublaiKhan]

This would be why trolling doesn't tend to work as well in real life, when there are real-life consequences, as it does on the internet when there's little chance (absent clever data-wrangling techniques and a little stalking) of your words coming back to bite you.

Re:Real-life trolls

[RsG]

This guy wasn't trolling.

Trolls are in it for the pleasure they get from pissing people off. This guy was in it for the money. Everything he (allegedly) did was motivated by greed.

Which is why he gets the metaphorical book thrown at him and 4chan does not. The scumbag sold counterfeit goods and made threatening phone calls to people who complained or disputed the charges; he generated a paper trail in the form of credit card charges, phone records, etc. Finding him would be trivial for the courts.

All he could do once the matter came to light was cut and run, which he didn't do (might be overconfidence, ignorance or stupidity).

Re:Real-life trolls

[wickedskaman]

One could argue he did it for the moneys AND the lulz. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:Real-life trolls

[krazytekn0]

Just to clarify, the courts don't find him, the Cops do. Courts don't really care if they find anyone with subpoena's orders or anything else. It's up to flatfoots (feet?) to make it happen.

Re:Real-life trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, pendantic much?

"The courts" as used here is a colloquial term for the law enforcement and justice system in general. I don't think anybody here was under the impression that actual judges were getting up out of their chambers and hunting down criminals undercover.

Re:Real-life trolls

[fast turtle]

"Geez" Coloquial Enough?

Peace Officers are considered Officers of the Courts by the Law. So He was correct to begin with.

Re:Real-life trolls

[mcgrew]

Oh, there's plenty of meatspace trolling; I've journaled about it.
Fun with offline trolls
Trolling for Dollars (and other Springfield nonsense)
Trolling at the Springfield St. Patrick's Day Parade
Trolling at Farley's

Re:Real-life trolls

[tehcyder]

This guy was in it for the money. Everything he (allegedly) did was motivated by greed.

Which is why he gets the metaphorical book thrown at him and 4chan does not.

Personally, I find it more morally objectionable to (even threaten to) injure and rape people for a laugh, rather than for the money. Call me old-fashioned.

Re:Real-life trolls

[krazytekn0]

wrong, peace officers are in a totally different branch of government, Judges are considered officers of the courts

Oh well.

[orphiuchus]

I was hoping this guy would get murdered when he ripped off the wrong guy. I guess getting raped in prison for 50 years will have to do.

Re:Oh well.

[enderjsv]

He's not going to jail for 50 years. Journalists love to quote maximum jail sentences even though it's rare the maximum sentence is ever dealt.

Re:Oh well.

[DragonWriter]

He's not going to jail for 50 years. Journalists love to quote maximum jail sentences even though it's rare the maximum sentence is ever dealt.

This is especially true with federal cases, where there are seperate explicit sentencing guidelines which work out so that, particularly with multiple charged counts, adding up the maximum available sentence for each offense is often vastly more than the sentence that would be justified taking the charged facts at face value with the sentencing guidelines applied.

Re:Oh well.

[theskipper]

Agreed. Though this particular asshole deserves the full stretch.

Pun intended.

Re:Oh well.

[Zaphod_85]

Sadly, you're completely correct. Though from other stories I've read (that I wasn't able to find to quote in the post) he may also be facing charges from New York state as well as federal charges, so maybe we'll all get lucky and this guy will go away for the rest of his life.

Re:Oh well.

[billcopc]

Death is too good for this slime. Rape is too good for this slime. I say toss him in a cell with Sanford Wallace and let them duke it out. Oh, I forgot to mention, cut off their limbs first so we're left with two screaming torsos.

Yeah.

Re:Oh well.

[ushering05401]

If we got lucky he would repent and spend the rest of his life doing something productive, or at least not harmful. Imprisonment is a pretty shitty outcome for society as a whole.

Re:Oh well.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That's an ideal, but I just don't see it. Given how flagrant and shameless this man sounded, I'd be skeptical of any repentance if it was ever made. Feigned repentance is usually a con's way of trying to get out of being punished.

Re:Oh well.

[bieber]

I would never wish such things on a person, but I am genuinely surprised that none of his burned customers ever tracked him down and beat him. You would think that ripping people off that blatantly when they can get a hold of your real name would be more dangerous...

Re:Oh well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you didn't read TFA, where he sounded quite stable, logical, and aware of his actions. He was even able to behave normally, as shown by his Amazon dealings. Really, the only outstanding thing here is, this man is a simple commoner extorting people, and not a powerful and above-criticism CEO or lawyer.

Re:Oh well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell I'd go so far to say he sounds the typical manager. Total asshole to everyone... by 5 o'clock puts on batcape and becomes hero to family. Some people would commit murder if it meant their wife/kids living well.

Re:Oh well.

[rahvin112]

I agree he won't go to jail for 50 years. But he was denied bail and has a public defender. Given the wait to trail that the PD will need to build a defense the guy will be in Rikers for at LEAST a year till the trail.

Even if the court slap his hands after a conviction he going to be incarcerated for year. If he's lucky his wife will wait for him, chances are she won't. So by the time he gets out he'll be homeless, broke and divorced with child support due. I don't have a lot of sympathy for him after reading the times article and just how threatening he got.

By all accounts by the time this all over he's going to be starting his life over with a felony conviction, no job prospects, probation terms that bar computer use, a large fine to pay and very little education or experience. Given the raw fear he put so many people through I can't say he doesn't deserve it. He threatened to kill people, their children, rape customers and burn peoples homes down. He needs counseling and probably to be put on a permanent watch list because he appears to be a sociopath to me.

Re:Oh well.

[slackbheep]

I believe prison should be a reformative experience, but I also believe it's simply unrealistic to expect shitbags like this guy to do anything but be shanked.

Re:Oh well.

[slackbheep]

And some bags of garbage would commit murder because the money was easier than working at FedEx.

Re:Oh well.

[Arccot]

Agreed. Though this particular asshole deserves the full stretch.

Pun intended.

I'm disappointed this was modded funny. Rape in any form isn't funny, its a nightmare.

A society allowing it to go on in prisons and then making jokes about it is all kinds of screwed up.

Re:Oh well.

[mcgrew]

Not much chance of that, the guy sounds like a psychopath. Psychos never repent.

Re:Oh well.

[randyleepublic]

I laugh through my tears at the smug fellows who are so quick to judge others, and then gleefully cosign vengeance.  The refreshing part is when people like you and Arccot confirm that not all of humanity is like that.

Re:Oh well.

[SmirkingMan]

Loosen up man, it's a JOKE, and quite a reasonable pun at that.

Time to change his name...

[stavrica]

From Borker to Borkee...

Re:Time to change his name...

[slashgimp]

wow - a guy named Borker being sent to prison really puts a new spin on "bork bork bork" :D

Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Constantin]

... and hey, it's nothing more than an online article, I say good riddance. Threatening folk repeatedly with bodily harm, impersonating them to credit card companies, etc. should be a fast-pass lane to being disbarred from operating a business and going to jail without passing go and without collecting $200.

What troubled me about Mr. Borkers story more than anything is how easily he circumvented the various red-flag tripwires that credit card companies allegedly employ. And the allegation that he successfully impersonated a customer withdrawing a claim against him shows not only chutzpah but a big security hole over at the credit card company.

Bottom line is that the internet has allowed all sorts of scams to go nationwide and unless one can interest the Feds (via publicity in this case), one is SOL. Thus, he may serve as a business blueprint for a lot more scammers going forward.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[MightyMartian]

As far as the credit card company is concerned, I suspect intentional gullibility. "Oh really, Mrs. So-and-so, it's odd that you sound like a man, but you said the magic words 'I'm dropping the request to reverse the charges', and that's good enough for us."

If all it takes to nix a credit card holder's attempt to reverse charges is a phone call saying "I'm so-and-so", then there's a serious problem with verification of identity.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> What troubled me about Mr. Borkers story more than anything is how easily he circumvented the various red-flag tripwires that credit card companies allegedly employ.

More than that, what took it so long to nail him? There has been over 200 complaints filed with FTC against him, but it had to be reported by NYT for the US attorney to wake up?

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Pharmboy]

"Oh really, Mrs. So-and-so, it's odd that you sound like a man, but you said the magic words 'I'm dropping the request to reverse the charges', and that's good enough for us."

I don't know about your credit card holder, but I have to enter a fair amount of data to prove I am who I say I am with American Express. I am pretty sure you can't just call up an 800 number and say "this is sally johnson, forget about reversing the charges on card number 1234..." and have them take it sincerely.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[billcopc]

I have to enter a fair amount of data to prove I am who I say I am with American Express

Right... and most of that information is available to an online retailer once you've made a purchase. Home address, phone numbers, legal name, heck you could easily ask for a DOB even though it's not required, and most people will blindly enter it. That pretty much covers most identity questions, and a simple "friendly" phone call can fill in a few other blanks like spouse's name, stuff like that. If credit cards were even borderline secure, I'd still have one. I prefer cash, because if someones screws with my cash, they have to be within pummeling distance, and that's the kind of security I like.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[ushering05401]

Good point. So maybe some soc. engineering. And hey, he used a website.

They'll be painting this guy like a super hacker by the morning edition...

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Bigjeff5]

This should make you feel real good about your credit card security:

http://www.zug.com/pranks/visa/index.html

It's a few years old now, but I don't think things have changed all that much in this arena.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, the guy who runs Rip Off Report (which claims to be a consumer site where you can complain about businesses) continues to get unfair high google ranking (above almost all other results in many cases), despite it being an extortion scheme. They don't respond to any contacts and will never remove anything and anyone can place complaints about anyone on the site. The presentation of the site gives the complains credibility even though there is none and the ONLY way to get complaints removed is to PAY the guy behind the website a significant sum of cash. Google clearly promotes this site in their results, while Yahoo and other sites intentionally DEMOTE them (they also commit a huge amount of black-SEO tricks).

I broke up with a girl that I only dated for a few months and next thing I know, there's a complaint on there about me - by name and using my address and contact information - while she remains semi-anonymous in the listing.It accuses me of doing fruadulent business, even though I don't even DO any business of any kind anywhere ever at all. Of course, when someone (future date, friends, family, potential employer, etc) googles me, all they'll see is this unfairly promoted result in google by some person talking about how I conduct fraudulent business practices.

The only way to remove it? Pay a few thousand bucks to the owner of the site, who pretends to be a "consumer activist". You can google around for plenty of information about others having this same complaint, including famous bloggers and technologists who have also been the victim of this scheme. So why doesn't google do anything for US?

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Inda]

That's not the first time I read that and it still amuses me.

I always spell my mother's maiden name differently; sometimes with two Bs, sometimes with two Ts and, as she's been married more than once, I sometimes use a different name.

I don't think I've ever been rejected from a website for using the wrong name.

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Jason Levine]

Just need to point out that, even if a credit card company asks for information, it doesn't mean they verify it. I had my identity stolen. The thief used my name, address, SSN and DOB to open up a Capital One credit card account. They put in the wrong Mother's Maiden Name, but that apparently didn't raise any red flags. Neither did them immediately changing the address to one in a different state or requesting a $5,000 cash withdrawal before the card was activated. Oh, and when I called to report the fraud, they refused to give me any information on the identity thieves. They literally told me "if you go there and shoot them then we'd be liable." Thanks for protecting identity thieves, Capital One! (No, I'm not bitter or anything.)

Re:Based on what I have read about the guy...

[Raenex]

As far as the credit card company is concerned, I suspect intentional gullibility.

Probably not, as failing to reverse the charges often results in the cardholder dropping their credit card. It's also expensive to get new cardholders, so they really don't like losing a customer without a good reason.

Additional charges being considere

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI - from the article it appears that there are potential weapons charges coming (unlicensed possession of an automatic weapon) and possibly kiddie pr0n. That, and the guys lawyer doesn't seem good - "No one suffered any physical harm". Buddy, good luck with that one.

Re:Additional charges being considere

[MightyMartian]

I'm thinking the guy is probably a lunatic, and it seems to me that the real fault lies with a whole lot of other entities from the credit card company to the cops who dropped the ball on this one. Clearly they were not taking this seriously, even after this lunatic had made explicit graphic sexual threats against the woman and had committed a clear act of fraud and identity theft by posing as her to get the reversal of charges reversed. A whole lot of people should be hanging their heads in shame for letting this poor woman suffer so much because of a whacko. They're the ones that deserve the jail sentence just as much as him.

Re:Additional charges being considere

[wickedskaman]

The problem is the police needed EVIDENCE for all these allegations. If the police arrested based on every passionate claim there would be a lot more wrongful arrest suits.

He dun goofed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cyberpolice backtraced him, and consequences will never be the same!

I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[mikestew]

I don't mean to play anonymous Internet tough guy here, but I'm really surprised that someone who tells customers with a legitimate complain "I know where you live" still has full use of both knee caps. I would have thought by now he would have pissed off the wrong person who happens to be within driving distance. Then again, when it comes to the stacks of money he's making, maybe he's full of shit and doesn't have that many customers to piss off.

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[bieber]

I was wondering the same thing after reading the article. My guess is that he probably has body guards who deal at his level of shadiness...

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Dutch Gun]

I think he simply banks on the likelyhood that his customers are not sociopaths (unlike him), and prefer to go through the proper channels of authority when confronted by clearly illegal and threatening behavior.

Yeah, I hear you though. I got pretty steamed reading that story. Part of me does sometimes wish someone would take matters into their own hand and turn his kneecaps into jello, but that course of action rarely ends well, even in the movies.

About the best you can say about the authorities is, apparently, I guess they eventually do their job if you scream loud and long enough. Sort of depressing...

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Eil]

Three points:

1) He lived in NYC, where being a humongous dickhead is basically the norm, especially in business. (I know some very nice people from NYC, but I've been there before and I've done business there, so I'm not just reciting a tired stereotype.)

2) I would guess that the demographic of people buying glasses over the internet via their computers are not usually the violent type.

3) When someone this batshit-crazy harasses and threatens you, your self-preservation mechanism tells you to just call it a loss and stay as far away as possible.

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Fantastic Lad]

I'm not surprised at all. While this is an extreme example, it remains standard practice.

The system, and by that I mean, "ALL HUMAN CULTURE" is designed to allow psychopaths to ply their trade. We are pre-programmed to let this kind of shit go, to avoid it, to assume that the aggressor really IS the victim. We think, "Nobody would behave so utterly contrary to the unspoken social laws which govern the tribe, therefore we must be perceiving this incorrectly." The bigger the lie, the easier the sell. It's true.

The truth is also, and yes, it does seem surprising but it's just the way of a psychopathic society, (and Yes, America the Competitive, IS a society based on the rules of the psychopaths who we allowed into politics and business). -That an innocent man can wind up in prison for not lifting his drawers for the airport security while a true monster can roam free for years before finally being locked up.

And this Borker freak is basically a failed model. His psychopathy was too extreme. There are MANY successful ones, who torment their victims and climb the success ladder without even a spark firing in their Frontal Lobes, all because they have better learned how to manipulate. Even Borker had learned how to extract the maximum amount of psychological pain from his victims while evading the traps of the law.

He says the case was dismissed but contends that since then, he's been careful not to make physical threats against customers -- Ms. Rodriguez included.

I mention that sending that photo of her apartment building sounds kind of threatening.

Nothing but an image he copied off of the Web, from Google Earth, Mr. Borker says. He says he sent it to her only to underscore that when it came time to hire a process server to commence litigation, he'd find her. The "hand in fire" threat? Metaphorical, he says. Then again, he acknowledges with a sly grin, if Ms. Rodriguez thought that Tony Russo seemed a little scary, that was fine.

But in his telling of events, he is her victim, not the other way around.

The psychopath always blames the victim of the very crimes committed against them. In the case of Bush and Cheney, they blamed the Iraqis and Afghans while merrily singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb. . , Bomb, Bomb Iran." The lies are huge and ridiculous and the crimes are sickening, and because the rest of us are programmed to be human, we go along with it.

And that, folks, is why the world is as it is today. Because we haven't learned how to identify and put down our human waste.

There are tests, you know. Both brain scans and personality tests which are very accurate. We could have prevented the collapse of the economy and of several wars with ease, but we didn't. Consider that. There are people who are living on the street, starving in America and all over the world because we simply didn't know about the Psychopath. The false humans walking around among us who feed on the creation of misery.

Read that original article again, and recognize that this kind of behavior is happening everywhere, that you have encountered it many times in your life, and that the psychopath wishes to create a culture which is friendly toward psychopaths. That's why the banks are insane, why the government is insane, and why we have been killed by BP. (The Gulf is still leaking, folks.)

-FL

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you have almost no knowledge of psychology.

1) The word 'Psychopath' is no longer the official name of the disorder you seem to be thinking about. I think the disorder you are thinking of is 'Antisocial Personality Disorder', Some psychologists argue that Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder are in fact two distinct disorders, but unless you have the expertise to take part in the debate

2) Personality tests don't detect disorders. Diagnostic tests do. Personality tests analyze personality, not mental health.
Disorders are not visible on brain scans either, unless they result from damage to the brain. In which case a brain scan would only tell you that there is damage which could cause a disorder but won't tell you what the disorder is exactly.

3) No test is accurate enough to be used to "identify and put down" people. The tests are accurate, but there is a bit of room for a false-positive. In therapy false-positives are not a problem, for several reasons that I will list below:
a) Only part of the population takes those tests, so less false-positives than if everyone did.
b) People usually see a therapist because they have problems, not just to make sure they are sane. That reduces the chance of false-positives dramatically. In fact systematic testing is considered unethical due to the large room for error.
c) The therapist sees the patient regularly and if tests gave a false-positive, the therapist would realize the error after just a few interviews. Interviews are considered part of any psychological assessment, tests on their own are not enough to reach a diagnosis.

4) Killing people suffering from mental disorders is unethical. These people are not murderers, the disorder they suffer from (and never asked to have) is making them harm others.

5) It is suspected that many people who support things such as the death penalty or who simply seek legal or moral justification to do harm to others actually suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorder themselves. One aspect of the disorder is that patients either lack empathy or they try to justify the harm they do in order to avoid legal consequences or to prevent feelings of guilt.

6) And then one has to love how you diagnose people.

"The psychopath always blames the victim of the very crimes committed against them."

You make a diagnosis based on an article? Seriously?

"In the case of Bush and Cheney, they blamed the Iraqis and Afghans while merrily singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb. . , Bomb, Bomb Iran." The lies are huge and ridiculous and the crimes are sickening, and because the rest of us are programmed to be human, we go along with it.Seriously?"

You also diagnose politicians without testing or interviewing them (and probably without any psychology degree)?

You are either the Einstein of clinical psychology or really ignorant of psychology. I assume it's the second option, which is why you should not advocate for things as drastic as executing mentally ill people.
If you want to have your opinions, fine, but at least don't speak like you know anything of psychology because it's obvious you don't.

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Fantastic Lad]

1) The word 'Psychopath' is no longer the official name of the disorder you seem to be thinking about. I think the disorder you are thinking of is 'Antisocial Personality Disorder', Some psychologists argue that Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder are in fact two distinct disorders, but unless you have the expertise to take part in the debate

You didn't finish your sentence, but I'll go ahead and assume you meant to imply that not having a certificate in a given field means that I am not allowed to think or speak about a subject. That's bullshit. If you disagree with me, go for it, but I'm afraid pulling the idiotic, "Are you a doctor?" argument isn't going to work here. Are you a mathematician? No? Then you're not allowed to discuss math. Are you an astrophysicist? No? Then you're not allowed to discuss the solar system. This is a PUBLIC discussion forum, not a court of law.

In any case, the term "Psychopath" "sociopath" "Narcissist" are indeed labels which have numerous definitions depending on who you read. I'm only talking about those who were born incapable of experiencing compassion. Those who CHOOSE to suppress emotion are a whole other ball of wax, and I feel comfortable leaving them in the purview of the legal system. (Though, I'd feel a lot better if we purged the legal system of psychopaths first.)

2) Personality tests don't detect disorders. Diagnostic tests do. Personality tests analyze personality, not mental health.
Disorders are not visible on brain scans either, unless they result from damage to the brain. In which case a brain scan would only tell you that there is damage which could cause a disorder but won't tell you what the disorder is exactly.

You're both wrong and you're splitting hairs at the same time. I would recommend a battery of "Diagnostic" (See? I used your word. Happy?) personality tests which look for warning flags, followed up with imaging scans which would determine whether or not the frontal lobe is active in a given subject.

3) No test is accurate enough to be used to "identify and put down" people. The tests are accurate, but there is a bit of room for a false-positive.

I agree. It's a huge hair ball of a challenge and one which is not best serviced by error-capable humans. But it is necessary. We identify child molesters and track them, we don't let them become teachers, etc. The issue here is that we are talking about a non-treatable genetic condition resulting in shrewd calculating biological machines with no community value, who by default, are highly destructive. AND we can start tracking from the moment of detection. We should make such tests mandatory for high public offices and law-enforcement professionals. (At which point, who cares about the label you choose? If there the person is only wearing the mask of sanity, they should be prevented from entering any office, period.) Further, if we prevented these types of biologicals from infesting our community systems, (including the medical and medical insurance fields), then I suspect misuse of these kinds of regulatory powers would be nowhere the problem it is today.

4) Killing people suffering from mental disorders is unethical. These people are not murderers, the disorder they suffer from (and never asked to have) is making them harm others.

Of course it's unethical. But I'm not talking about killing people. If you are a calculating shark in human form with no possibility of understanding ethics, let alone compassion, then you are not a person. You are a dangerous animal which should be treated as such. Extending compassion to biological Turing machines (which would kill you if they got the chance to do it and get away with it) is foolhardy. But I DO understand the difficulties you are expressing, and those difficulties are exactly why the psychopath has been able to f

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Dragoness Eclectic]

You want big red behavioral warning flags? A really big one?

Dehumanizing other people in order to justify exterminating them is #1.

Sociopaths have caused far less evil throughout history than fanatic idealists have. Sociopaths stop at "What benefits ME, personally"; idealists can rationalize mass murder and genocide in the name of their ideals.

By the way, calling politicians you don't like "psychopaths", which you claim are inhuman monsters deserving of death, sounds just a bit over the line of reason to me.

Re:I'm Surprised He's in Good Health

[Fantastic Lad]

You want big red behavioral warning flags? A really big one?

Dehumanizing other people in order to justify exterminating them is #1.

You think I've not considered this? Trust me; I've given it long hard thought.

Psychopaths are not people. They never were. This is entirely new. It's not racism, or nationalism or jingoism or propaganda or class warfare. No. This is a medical, clinically measurable reality. This is NEW.

Sociopaths have caused far less evil throughout history than fanatic idealists have. Sociopaths stop at "What benefits ME, personally"; idealists can rationalize mass murder and genocide in the name of their ideals.

It appears that you have done no real thinking or research on this subject whatsoever. You need to inform yourself. Also look up "Stockholm Syndrome" whilst you're at it. Do you understand who you are protecting here? Monsters. Abusers. Rapists. Murderers. And yes, those masquerading as fanatic idealists who, really, are just more sociopathic egomaniacs using chaotic social climates to find personal benefit.

Saying that sociopaths stop at "What benefits ME, personally" as though this were some sort of consolation or that it means they do not have a hand in the political sphere is, I'm sorry, entirely wishful and naive. Did you not read the article this story is attached to? Go back and read it and ask yourself if that psychopath stopping at "What benefits ME, personally" would have been a valid excuse to not identify and deal with him. If he had decided, as many clearly do, to seek "personal benefit" through the climbing of political ladders, (where there is great wealth, ego-power and the opportunity to bully and torment people to be gained), then do you think that, "What benefits ME, personally" will allow a real human standing in the way to escape unscathed? Or entire populations?

Apply some deductive reasoning please.

By the way, calling politicians you don't like "psychopaths", which you claim are inhuman monsters deserving of death, sounds just a bit over the line of reason to me.

That's because you are not using reason yet. How would you know where the line of reason is if you don't even understand what basic sociopathy encompasses?

I know that suggesting that we identify and destroy certain individuals is upsetting. Society has followed the road of dehumanizing people in order to justify genocide before. It's horrific. And that is what a purge looks like at the hands of a political psychopath. This is very different. For one thing, I am not dehumanizing anybody. If compassion is an essential part of the human equation, as I believe it is, then psychopaths were not human to begin with. Further, I have no desire to torment or extract punishment or pain. I just want to identify and remove non-humans from circulation because they are KILLING us. -Not metaphorically. Not in some jar-headed racist notion of the term. I mean Directly. They are directly responsible for the destruction of humanity both in the small sphere and the large. It is a plain fact that psychopaths cause harm as a basic function of their being, they cannot be rehabilitated, and they will not stop if they do not have to. If you don't want to kill them, then that's fine. Identify and contain them. That alone would prevent enormous suffering. We wouldn't have to go to war anymore. This is a world-wide issue.

This is what you need to understand. . . All of the old models of thinking about managing society fail because they assume that all the participants are Human Beings capable of compassion. We KNOW now that this is NOT the case. If we solve this oversight, then we solve just about everything.

-FL

I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Moraelin]

I don't think I'd call this guy just trolling.

On the internet even from the start trolling meant just something crafted to create as many responses as possible, rather than rape threats. As the dictum went, "Confucius say: successful troll is master baiter" ;) Really, it didn't even have to be offensive or explicit or illegal. It could be something as indirect as asking which Linux distro has IE.

And in the meantime it's largely become a synonym with "someone saying something I disagree with." Someone calling one's pet conspiracy theory a conspiracy theory? Someone else posting a bit of textbook science that contradicts one's ID beliefs? Someone else disagreeing that <insert game flop> is TEH GRATEST GAME EVAR? Someone else disagreed in another thread entirely? Well, they must be trolls and only saying that to get attention ;) But seriously, I've even seen textbook physics quotes modded as troll or overrated. It's just become the blanket excuse to not use one's brains and hang on to some pet dogma or half-truth: anyone disagreeing must be just trolling for attention.

What this guy did is a bit beyond mere trolling. And I suspect that even the trolling excuse was just an excuse. Threatening to rape someone asking for a refund and mailing them photos of their home with texts like "I'M WATCHING YOU" and whatnot, is the kind of asshattery even most Internet trolls would distance themselves from very quickly. That's already way beyond just seeking attention.

If anything, this just gives the lie to the old marketing canard that all exposure is good, and there is no such thing as bad publicity. I've seen it repeated in so many places, that it's not even funny. It turns out that, yes, there is bad publicity. Not only it can cross into being flat out illegal, but there's a very good case to be made that all that Google rank via people talking about how badly he treats customers, actually didn't benefit him. Getting mind-share as a dangerously deranged asshat to avoid can be just that: it just moves one from an unknown company to being the well known asshat company to avoid.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Junior J. Junior III]

You composed this comment with EMACS, didn't you?

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

This piece of shit is lucky he didn't pull this shit on me or someone I care about. Instead of arresting him, they'd be picking up little pieces of him from all over brooklyn.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Bigjeff5]

No way, it had to be Vim!

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Dutch Gun]

Yeah, definitely no troll here. This is far worse. If you read the full interview, it's pretty clear the man is a certified sociopath. He has absolutely no moral compass... no notion of right or wrong. No notion that doing something to harm others is something you should even worry about.

I hope they throw the book at him. Unbelievable.

Oh, and I was happy to hear that Amazon doesn't screw around with allowing this sort of behavior (even if he does have an Amazon store). Too many unhappy customers and you're gone. One more reason I'm doing all my Christmas shopping through Amazon this year.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Ash-Fox]

This piece of shit is lucky he didn't pull this shit on me or someone I care about. Instead of arresting him, they'd be picking up little pieces of him from all over brooklyn.

Mr. Internet tough guy posts as an Anonymous Coward, lulz.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been wondering as well, which Linux distro has IE?

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[bidule]

As the dictum went, "Confucius say: successful troll is master baiter" ;)

Not every "master baiter" is a successful troll. Some only surf the Internet to master their "art". Even coming to /. could be seen as mental preparation. Now that I think about it, I have prepared long enough...

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Corbets]

Really, it didn't even have to be offensive or explicit or illegal. It could be something as indirect as asking which Linux distro has IE.

You don't find that offensive???

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything, this just gives the lie to the old marketing canard that all exposure is good, and there is no such thing as bad publicity. I've seen it repeated in so many places, that it's not even funny. It turns out that, yes, there is bad publicity. Not only it can cross into being flat out illegal, but there's a very good case to be made that all that Google rank via people talking about how badly he treats customers, actually didn't benefit him. Getting mind-share as a dangerously deranged asshat to avoid can be just that: it just moves one from an unknown company to being the well known asshat company to avoid.

good moraelin

filme online

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[ArsenneLupin]

One more reason I'm doing all my Christmas shopping through Amazon this year.

... and here is one big reason not to do any Christmas shopping through Amazaon this year.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[tehcyder]

I've been wondering as well, which Linux distro has IE?

All of them.

Everyone knows that Linux Torvalds copied the code for the oddly successful Firefox web browser from an illegally downloaded copy of Mirosoft Windows, which, of course, has the IE engine as its powerhouse.

Re:I don't think I'd call this just trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you going to be buying access to wikileaks? Amazon isn't a saint buddy

All the Brooklyn Camera stores do it too...

[RJarett]

Every electronics/camera store in Brooklyn has been doing this for decades. They are all scammers and conartists.

Shanties and warehouses, or fake addresses, but websites with greymarket and fake products.

Examples of the stores im talking about:
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/

The FTC has done nothing about it.

People place products thinking they can get it cheaper, and then when they talk to the store the sales people scream and cuss at them if they don't buy addons they "must" buy (like power cords and batteries).

For every 1 reputable company based in NYC and NJ there are hundreds which are ran y petty criminals.

Re:All the Brooklyn Camera stores do it too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Before I knew better I bought a digital camera at best price from brooklyn. They called me and asked to add on memory card and crap, I just flat out said no and I got my camera fine, no problems.

Re:All the Brooklyn Camera stores do it too...

[jginspace]

People place products thinking they can get it cheaper, and then when they talk to the store the sales people scream and cuss at them if they don't buy addons they "must" buy (like power cords and batteries).

For every 1 reputable company based in NYC and NJ there are hundreds which are ran y petty criminals.

aah ... brings back memories of tsim sha tsui, kowloon. folks spending two whole days of their vacation getting yelled at and insulted so they can save $50 on a camera.

Re:All the Brooklyn Camera stores do it too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't take that camera over to Sham Shui Poh (sp?) when you go to buy computer software...

Re:All the Brooklyn Camera stores do it too...

[yuhong]

People place products thinking they can get it cheaper, and then when they talk to the store the sales people scream and cuss at them if they don't buy addons they "must" buy (like power cords and batteries).

Yes, I know! It is so common that even Best Buy had to capitulate.

Good! Hope he gets raped!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's to hoping he gets raped repeatedly!

Pinch me....

[scurvyj]

.....this is too good.

Jerseys

[hennyjack]

MLB Jerseys http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ MLB Jerseys http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ 2010 MLB All Star http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Atlanta Braves http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Baltimore Orioles http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Boston Red Sox http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Chicago Cubs http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Chicago White Sox http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Cincinnati Red http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Cleveland Indians http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Colorado Rockies http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Detroit Tigers http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Houston Astros http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Kansas Royals http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Los Angeles Angels http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Los Angeles http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Milwaukee Brewers http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Minnesota Twins http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ MLB Kids Jersey http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ New York Mets http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ New York Yankees http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Philadelphia Phillies http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Pittsburgh Pirates http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ San Diego Padres http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ San Francisco http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Seattle Mariners http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ St.Louis Cardinals http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Tampa Bay Rays http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Texas Rangers http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Toronto Blue Jays http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Washington NBA Jerseys http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ NBA Jerseys http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Atlanta Hawks http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Boston Celtics http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Chicago Bulls http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Cleveland Cavaliers http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Dallas Mavericks http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Denver Nuggets http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Detroit Pistons http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Golden State http://www.jerseysshopsonline.com/ Houston Roc

The return of reputation.

[jcr]

One of the wonderful things about the internet, is that it's restoring some of the accountability that we once had when living in small communities where most people knew each other. For a pretty long time, if an unscrupulous vendor screwed you over, your only options were either to sue them (expensive) or hope that your local government would punish them for you or your local TV "consumer beat" reporter would find your story interesting enough to give it some air time.

Today though, it's amazingly easy to check out anyone you're considering doing business with by looking them up on the net. The guy in this story will most likely be out of business, and soon.

-jcr

Re:The return of reputation.

[theNAM666]

Expensive? It costs me exactly $25 to file small claims in my locality. Long-arm jurisdiction means I can sue any vendor in the US who operates in my county. Maximum amount is $3500. If they don't show up, they lose. What's expensive about this?

Re:The return of reputation.

[Anonymous Coward]

You win.

Now, try and collect.

Re:The return of reputation.

[tehcyder]

Today though, it's amazingly easy to check out anyone you're considering doing business with by looking them up on the net.

Yes, but by that standard you'd never use eBay, PayPal, iTunes, Amazon, Walmart, CitiBank or McDonalds...they have all been fiercely criticised for various reasons on the internet, how do you know which reports to trust?

I think I sat this for all us...

[BlackBloq]

Eat the big dick you fuckwad! Now take your hand, make a big middle finger, turn your hand around and point it at yourself!! mwahahaha!

Finally

[Dthief]

I'm happy this happened. When this story was earlier on /. I was asking where are the police in all of this.....threats of sexual assault and "I'm watching you" accompanied by photos of one's house are quite disturbing.

DecorMyAss

[Christian Marks]

Good thing he wasn't leaking classified documents or he'd be in real trouble.

SEO is dead

[davek]

He is being charged with cyberstalking, wire fraud, mail fraud, and making interstate threats, and faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

FIFTY YEARS? Holy crap. I am so glad I got out of SEO. Shady, shady business is that industry.

Give credit ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to Joe Nocera, the NY Times columnist who wrote the story.

Don't be a Jew on Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

--Salvation Army

The real story here

[initialE]

I recall the article said that her complaints were originally ignored by the police. It takes the NYT to shame your authorities into action?

Borker gets Borked

[Anonymous Coward]

film at 11. Sounds like Straight to Jail is a good start toward justice for this guy. Wonder how the general population will accept his arrogance and attitude. If he turns out to be Russian Mob, then maybe he has a chance at not being someone's boyfriend while he awaits a jury of his peers

Cue the librarians....

[sjames]

To throw the book at him!

Damn right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't agree more

If there's one thing which worries me, it's the lynch-mob mentality that can be seen here. kill him! rape him! put him away for 50 years!

I mean: good he's been caught, good he is put to trial. But the main aim should be to protect society and not to punish. And never forget: he's a human being. Misled, criminal, what not: but a human. No slime. Society has some duties even towards him.

Re:Damn right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely hope you are around in the coming weeks and months. Things are heating up around our community, and we need to be aware of and provide a counter to provocateurs.

The strain you identify is indeed a problem with our crews, but the issues coming out around the last two domestic terrorist arrests and the Irvine mosque situation is of great concern.

The FBI is currently baiting right and left. In Irvine the mole was reported back to the FBI as a terrorist.

In the Maryland case it appears that the 'terrorist' was completely radicalized under FBI influence.

You do not respond to attacks of this nature with violence or hyperbole. We must stand with law and order. It is the strong position and our government has abandoned it - so, charge!

Why Would People Buy From This Guy?

[transportguy]

Wow! I work really hard to provide a high integrity reputation with my company that provides Nationwide Auto Transport Service, EZ AutoShippers. If I treated my customers like that, I would have to believe that no amount of first page Google listings would create buyers. I guess that people ignore the bad press more than I had ever imagined. I truly believe though, most companies would have a complete drought of customers if they treated like Borker does.

Re:Why Would People Buy From This Guy?

[tehcyder]

mod parent -1 unsubtle spam

Citibank

[risinganger]

Over 100 replies and not one person has commented on the fact that clearly Citibank have crap security procedures. According to the article they first accept somebody claiming to be the credit card holder without authentication and then won't re-open the claim after they've been told they've been suckered. Glad I'm not an account holder with those muppets.

Subject

[Legion303]

I think Vitaly will find that intimidating federal prison inmates won't be as easy as intimidating the young ladies. Especially with a pussy name like "Vitaly." I forsee mouth-rape in his near future.

Re:Subject

[ArsenneLupin]

I forsee mouth-rape in his near future.

That's why God gave man teeth.

I believe the T-Mobile representative was correct

[Zero__Kelvin]

T-Mobile is an excellent company, and they are the only one that I know of that lets you call and tell them you cannot pay your bill on time and then schedule a date after the due date to pay, during which time your service will not be interrupted and no additional fees are assessed. I have had to do this on a number of occasions over the years. They also reduced my bill, without me asking them to do so, because I was a long time "preferred" customer, even though from time to time I had to make the aforementioned deferred payments.

Every company has issues, but I doubt anyone would have better luck with another provider, especially since they cannot do anything if someone calls from a blocked number without involvement from the police if I am not mistaken. Blocking your number indicates specific intent to have your number withheld from the called party. For all they know the person calling you is a women you met on the Internet who has not given you her number in case you are a stalker rapist, and you are a stalker rapist trying to social engineer her phone number. Maybe the calling party is your wife, and she is blocking her number because you are estranged but she wants to know why she hasn't received her child support, but doesn't want you to start harassing her again.

Buying cameras online

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I think most people who actually buy any quantity of photo equipment online, who want to shop at a camera store (not a "we got everything" place like Amazon), and who have been in the game for a while eventually restrict their purchases to B&H PhotoVideo, Adorama, and maybe J&R. For high-end product, there's Calumet. There are also a few specialty shops (I really miss Zone VI) and some used dealers (e.g. Keh).

That's about it.

Those thousands of other shops that you've never heard of but who offer screaming deals? There's a 99% probability that they're a ripoff.

Oh, come on...

[Moraelin]

Quoth George Carlin: "Ohhh, some people don't like you to talk like that. Ohh, some people like to shut you up for saying those things.
You know that. Lots of people. Lots of groups in this country want to tell you how to talk. Tell you what you can't talk about. Well, sometimes they'll say, well you can talk about something but you can't joke about it. Say you can't joke about something because it's not funny. Comedians run into that shit all the time. Like rape. They'll say, "you can't joke about rape. Rape's not funny." I say, "fuck you, I think it's hilarious. How do you like that?" I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. See, hey why do you think they call him "Porky," eh?"

More seriously, there's a whole genre of humour about bad stuff happening to someone else. E.g., the so called Gallows Humour or Black Comedy. It being about something bad is an integral part of the incongruence that makes it funny.

I.e., it doesn't mean we approve of anal rape, any more than anyone would need to approve of the Soviet dictatorship to laugh at Smirnoff's jokes about it.

Re:Oh, come on...

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I think gallows and black humor include bad stuff happening to onesself.

Re:Oh, come on...

[Arccot]

More seriously, there's a whole genre of humour about bad stuff happening to someone else. E.g., the so called Gallows Humour or Black Comedy.

Fair enough, and gallows humor can be pretty funny, but there's just something about prison rape jokes that really bother me. I think its because there are many people that genuinely believe prison rape is a justified form of punishment, and making jokes about it makes it sound like its just something to be endured, rather than actively prevented.

Re:Oh, come on...

[Moraelin]

Man, remind me never to tell you my collection of dead baby jokes ;)

That said, dunno, wanting revenge on a horrible scumbag is a rather human thing. Notice I said human, not humane. Some 500 years ago we would have demanded that he be burned at the stake.

Plus, in this case it isn't really a generic punishment. There is an element of an eye-for-an-eye or poetic (in)justice in wishing rape upon someone who literally threatened a customer with sexual assault. I can see how it would give one ideas like, basically, let's see if he still likes it when he's on the receiving end, and all that.

Not as a serious proposal for how justice should work, but, you know, for the purpose of making a nasty joke, the kind of humour where the perp gets a taste of his own medicine is practically its own genre and trope. You rarely have a setup so clearly begging for the application of that trope as this one.

But again, I doubt that most people actually fantasize about this guy getting it up the ass. Mostly the joke works _because_ we take anal rape to be a very bad thing, not something normal.

Re:Oh, come on...

[tehcyder]

it doesn't mean we approve of anal rape, any more than anyone would need to approve of the Soviet dictatorship to laugh at Smirnoff's jokes about it.

The curse of the slashdot analogy strikes again. The whole point of the "In Soviet Russia" joke is that using word play it shows how bad the USSR is compared to the US.

Most rape jokes aren't about exposing how bad the crime of rape is.

The REAL Outrage isn't being discussed.

[MarkvW]

The NYT article said that the customer disputed payment and CITIBANK froze payment.

Payment was then made. The customer called CITIBANK. CITIBANK told her that the hold had been taken away by the customer.

The woman said she didn't do that.

CITIBANK said that that's not their problem.

If this isn't an outrage, I don't know what is. I will never hold a CITIBANK card.

True enough

[Moraelin]

True enough. Thanks for the correction.

I used to work with ‘Vito’ Borker...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work with ‘Vito’ Borker and can confirm that he is a slimeball with no sense of right or wrong. This was about 8 years ago and he was very blatant about the fact that he was running a business on the side and just gave off a vibe of shadiness so I decided to Google him – sure enough I found plenty of complaints and negative comments including that fact that he was using aliases. This was almost ten years ago so he’s clearly been at this for a while. Apparently he bought a million dollar (or something in this range) house around this time – which would have been far more than a rank and file developer could afford – so apparently his side business was very lucrative.

We had lots of Russian developers at this firm and most of them were straight forward decent people but a few of them were into selling counterfeit handbags, watches and eyewear on eBay and other assorted scams. I know of at least one other guy who received a lifetime ban from eBay.

A sort of funny anecdote - I used to listen to him walk across our floor and into the men’s room shouting into his cell phone. He’d continue his conversation in there and flush without even pausing. A real class act.

That's the thing about self defense...

[Firethorn]

We just can't dish out punishments that are disproportionate to a crime.

You know, I hear this arguement alot?

That's the thing about self defense. I'm not being a vigilante when I shoot somebody who's invaded my home, I'm defending myself, it's not about justice or punishment.

That's for if the person survives and is charged, THEN the justice system takes over and may pass sentence and prescribe punishment.

In the home or the alley, it's not punishment; it's defense, even if it kills the attacker. It's just that the same shots with the best chances of stopping an attacker is the best shots at killing.

AUSA & Judge doing something good

[glittermage]

Finally, my tax dollars put to good use.

Web of Trust

[Fartypants]

According to Google's blog post on the issue, automated sentiment analysis doesn't really work...

As it turns out, Google has a world-class sentiment analysis system (Large-Scale Sentiment Analysis for News and Blogs). But if we demoted web pages that have negative comments against them, you might not be able to find information about many elected officials, not to mention a lot of important but controversial concepts. So far we have not found an effective way to significantly improve search using sentiment analysis. Of course, we will continue trying.

which makes it seem like whatever fix they instituted in their algorithm in response to this problem is just a kludge and that the underlying problem remains...

There is a solution to this problem that a lot of people are already using, however: Web Of Trust, which lists user recommendations as to trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. Sure enough, WOT gives decormyeyes the lowest combined rating, which according to my settings would not allow my browser to even visit such a site.

I didn't say "the In Soviet Russia" joke, did I?

[Moraelin]

I didn't say the "in Soviet Russia joke" in particular, I said Boris Smirnoff jokes. Just because some people on Slashdot got stuck in the "In Soviet Russia" meme, most of them not even knowing the original joke, like the stereotypical lemmings following the horde off a cliff, doesn't mean everyone mentioning Smirnoff could only be talking about that one joke.

Frankly there are plenty of Smirnoff jokes that don't really illustrate any reality from the USSR.

E.g., "If you make joke, "take my wife... please", you come home... she's gone." Even during Stalin's worst years it didn't REALLY work that way. He's using the totalitarian regime to make an over-the-top joke, and really we're just laughing at the black humour there, rather than getting an education or anything.

E.g., "In Russia, if a male athelete loses he becomes a female athelete." You probably can figure out that it's not actually what happened in Russia at any time. You might have lost some privileges, but they didn't actually castrate people for losing a sports competition. Again, he's just using the totalitarian USSR setup for his own black humour.

E.g., "Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list." You probably don't believe that anyone actually was trying to get locked up in the horrible communist prisons just for the gay sex.

E.g., "In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One." Not only it doesn't educate you much about the USSR, it doesn't even make any sense as a model.

E.g., "When I got to America, I saw an ad in the paper: "We guarantee our furniture and stand behind it for six months." That's why I left the Soviet Union. I don't want any people standing behind my furniture!" You don't think their way of spying on their citizens actually involved someone standing behind the furniture, do you?

And really, he does the same in his non-USSR jokes. Like the one where a Tennessee farmer let him milk the bull, followed by the remark that once you do that you've made a friend for life. The funny part is his being on the receiving end of something nasty or humiliating, or doing a horrible misunderstanding, rather than any USA-vs-USSR education.

Re:I didn't say "the In Soviet Russia" joke, did I

[Moraelin]

Ugh, I mean YAKOV Smirnoff. Geesh, horrible mind-fart there. Sorry.

50 years in prison?

[shnull]

a cop who molested (read raped as in not just fucked without a condom) two young girls , just got six years here, maybe you should send your criminals overhere they get much better conditions