Oh, stop your kvetching. How on earth can you find fault with them for offering $10 a month DSL? Seriously?
I use AT&T and it works fine. I never have any problems with the service nor the customer service. Actually, their customer service is way better than most companies I have dealt with.
Why is it that people here seize on one phrase and totally miss the whole point of what you are trying to say? Thanks for not being one of them and taking the time to say it.
I think you make good points, because I am sure that he contributed to a lot of IT headaches. I work in IT and that pisses me off. Truly.
I guess the legal system and justice are two different things. I really think that what this guy deserves would be classified as cruel and unusual. Now, if you offered him one of my above punishments or something equally cruel and humiliating and his lawyers fought it, then 20 years would be a nice round number for a prison sentence because that would show that he is not sorry for what he has done and has no interest in making right. But something other than prison would be preferable, for many reasons. If you have the choice between making him pay some restitution OR just making him suffer in prison (while you, Joe Taxpayer, feed, clothe, and entertain him), don't you see how the first alternative would be desirable?
"It is. Spam harms far more people than manslaughter but with far less pain to each victim. However, in aggregate, the "pain points" from spam add up to far more pain than some dude getting shanked." Good grief. I am kind of on the edge on whether your next question even deserves a response after that stinker of a statement. I hope you weren't serious. I am sure you'd rather be neck deep in gay kiddie llama porn spam than have your wife|mother|girlfriend raped.
ok...Enron guys, worse than manslaughter? The effects are not worse than killing someone. Are they personally worse than someone who commits manslaughter? Sure. They did what they did with intent to defraud. Manslaughter (not murder) could just me or you falling asleep at the wheel and killing a pedestrian. Negligence, but no malice.
The problem with this kind of discussion is that it degrades to a game of moral three card monty in which you start asking me if it's bad to kill someone even if that someone is planning to detonate a nuclear bomb in NYC, etc. It's a slippery slope, and not a road I want to go down. Geez, if they give the guy 50 years I don't care. Just let the punishment fit the crime, that's all I am saying.
Great. Clearly, then, spam is WAAAY worse than manslaughter.
I understand what you are trying to say. But come on now, surely you know it doesn't work that way. That's the logical equivalent to baking a pizza at 600 degrees for 10 minutes when the instructions tell you bake at 300 for 20 minutes.
"I would offer him a deal though - stay offline for 10 years and only do a year in prison. If caught online for any purpose, back to the federal prison for 20 years..." That's actually a very good and fitting punishment; if only it weren't almost unenforcable. Even if that's not possible, the guy should definitely do some restitution, even if he goes broke in the process. The guy does not deserve the lifestyle he obtained from his ill-gotten gains. This guy should be bankrupted and forced to earn a living like the rest of us.
"Say I fraud you out of your entire life savings. " etc... Well, as long as you're taking my arguments waaaaaay past the intended point and carrying the logic to the nth degree, I guess some turnabout is in order here. "If judges keep letting Spammers get off light, without ever setting a heavy-handed precedent, why would they ever even consider stopping the SPAM?? Sometimes a little scare is good." It sure is a good thing the RIAA is suing elderly grandmothers. Maybe the real pirates will think twice if someone's grandmother gets slapped with a $100K fine! Riiiiiight. First it doesn't work. Second, it's not justified.
No, I used to get spam. But then I had the sense to leave hotmail in like 2001 and go to something better.
My point is this: the subject of this thread is "spam has caused a HUGE cost to society". Isn't that being just a little over the top? Spam sucks, but at worst it's nuisance. What, we are imprisoning people for annoying us now? Well, all the homeless people, hare krishnas, and weirdos downtown had better look out!
"messages are very likely to be buried in a flood of spam, or automatically deleted by imperfect spam filters." Maybe. I dunno. I never get any spam in my gmail address, which I use for all online activities. My sbcglobal address (AT&T DSL, cobranded with yahoo) never gets ANY spam...oh wait, I stand corrected, I got one last year.
Not justifying his actions, just saying (once again) that prison time seems draconian. Surely there are more fitting punishments.
"It is not the victimless crime that supporters of spam like to make out." I hope you aren't putting words in my mouth.
As for the rest of your post, you've gotta be kidding. As I said, spam is bad and nasty. I never said he didn't hurt anyone. I said he didn't physically hurt anyone. Financial restitution is in order.
Maybe some jail time is in order. I mean, the punishment seems a little excessive. But as another poster replied to me, they are making an example out of him. That's the only thing I can come up with as to why he gets so much time. I am not defending him.
I don't know anything about the guy, but what if he was just some geek who thought of a way to make some money? Maybe he didn't even realize what the impact would be. I dunno, that much jail time just seems crazy. This is precedent-setting. What other online activity could be made illegal next? How much jail time could you do? This is just as ridiculous as an SA who once worked for a p2p service getting jail time. What, we are giving out hefty prison sentences for relatively innocuous (read, online) crimes that don't result in loss of life?
Then maybe the right punishment is that he has to pay back the money he "earned" or go broke, and of course he'll go broke. Prisons are full enough, and there are much worse people to send there. Make him go broke and then do some community service. Seems like sending him to jail is a bit draconian.
Plus, I can think of a few things he could do for community service: 1) since people once referred to the net as the info superhighway, make him the highway dept's official roadkill scraper for a few years 2) make him clean out some tubes...that's right, get them sewers real clean, boy! 3) let him go work at a nursing home where they give the old men free v!agr4 -- while dressed up as the girl from St Pauli Girl beer bottles. Ouch! 4) he has to clean all the restrooms in NYC's entire subway system.
Of course he won't serve that. And of course, spam is bad. But 11 years?
Who was harmed in the process of his sending spam? How many people did he physically hurt? Even, how much money did he take from people? Ok, so the spam consumed bandwidth and wasted people's time. And he gets 11 years for that? Seems a little inappropriate given the crime, don't you think?
I could a large fine, community service, and a year in prison. But, sheesh! A manslaughter charge won't get you 11 years. Are we that out of whack that you get more time for spam than for killing someone?
Couldn't find them on eMusic or iTunes. That's unfortunate.
I found their site, interesting to say the least. I like real country (Old Crow Medicine Show, Hank Williams, Doc Watson, Buckaroos) and I like electronic music (Thievery Corp, Colder, Thunderball, Portishead, etc). I don't know if they do as much for me, but I'll give it another listen. Interesting mixture of music, though. Not many folks fusing country and electronic, you know?
"I personally haven't watched a single episode of the Soprano's. But, I came in here to read the comments"
Same here. There are a lot of angles you could take on this story as to why its posted here. I for one find it interesting to see how people react to a television show ending in such an unorthodox way. Television is so pre-packaged and easily digestible and it has affected our perception of reality. People want quick fixes, they want stuff to resolve, all within the space of one hour. Well, sometimes it doesn't work that way. I for one, not having watched the show, find the concept of this particular ending ingenious.
Plus, in accord with GP's point about/.'s editors choosing stories...I remember reading an interview with Taco here about a year or two ago. He wrote something to the effect that this site started as what would today be called a blog site -- his blog site. So Taco or his editors can post whatever the heck they want. If you don't like it, don't read it.
People who complain about this story is a bit like me grousing about another article about the end of BSG just because I don't particularly care for the show: Frankly, nobody gives a damn.
Yeah, and most people are also stupid. They'd rather snooze through a boring baseball game or watch all the primadonna antics at NFL or NBA games. I agree, spectator sports are usually lame as all get out. One big thing that prevents hockey from being more popular is the sub par officiating, IMHO. Public perception of the sport would be much better if the referees and linemen were just a bit more observant than WWE referees.
Yes, that's exactly it. If they had focused on making an OS and maybe an office suite, or maybe dropped the whole OS thing and focused on a cross-platform.NET or server stuff like IIS, SQL Server, ASP, etc, they'd have a lean, mean set of software.
Better to do one thing well than a hundred things poorly.
This is the same company who released the Zune, which doesn't play playsfornotsure. Media player 11 which doesn't support Zune. IE7 which fixed few real IE bugs but instead added chrome like tabs and phishing filters. Vista which is un-compelling enough to ensure most people will be on XP until developers stop writing software for it. Need I go on? Microsoft isn't evil like many think. They just suck. Totally clueless.
Ok, troll, I'll bite. The whole copyright bit here is secondary. The totally outlandish thing here is they lauded the guy's efforts. Then they turn around and sue him.
No, no. Dell *knows* what Shuttleworth and company up to: Ubuntu is a large global conspiracy to convert everyone's innocent home PCs into an army of walking drives. This way, they can make PCs walk all over town and commit heinous acts of deviance and wreak havoc in Smalltown, USA. It's a conspiracy, man! What, you though zombie PCs referred to those taken by some virus? You ain't seen nothin' yet, baby!
The whole linux/foss movement has all been for this moment. March forth, my minions! Mua...muaha...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"USA has never really been expanisionist in the same sense" Manifest destiny was all about expansionism. Worse still, giving it a title like "Manifest Destiny" gave it a religious justification.
Anyway, the US as a young nation grabbed up land much like the young USSR did, and using roughly the same tactics (Siberia, Indian reservations, same thing really). But in the late 19th century the US moved from being expansionist to imperialist (as you said, "they do like to make their influence felt strongly").
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Oh, stop your kvetching. How on earth can you find fault with them for offering $10 a month DSL? Seriously?
I use AT&T and it works fine. I never have any problems with the service nor the customer service. Actually, their customer service is way better than most companies I have dealt with.
Sounds like they need a scatologist to get that thing fixed!
no way, dude! Zombie computers would take on a whole new, different, and frightening meaning.
And remember, when trying to escape a level 4 zombie outbreak, a dirigible is an excellent means of escape.
Why is it that people here seize on one phrase and totally miss the whole point of what you are trying to say? Thanks for not being one of them and taking the time to say it.
I think you make good points, because I am sure that he contributed to a lot of IT headaches. I work in IT and that pisses me off. Truly.
I guess the legal system and justice are two different things. I really think that what this guy deserves would be classified as cruel and unusual. Now, if you offered him one of my above punishments or something equally cruel and humiliating and his lawyers fought it, then 20 years would be a nice round number for a prison sentence because that would show that he is not sorry for what he has done and has no interest in making right. But something other than prison would be preferable, for many reasons. If you have the choice between making him pay some restitution OR just making him suffer in prison (while you, Joe Taxpayer, feed, clothe, and entertain him), don't you see how the first alternative would be desirable?
"It is. Spam harms far more people than manslaughter but with far less pain to each victim. However, in aggregate, the "pain points" from spam add up to far more pain than some dude getting shanked."
Good grief. I am kind of on the edge on whether your next question even deserves a response after that stinker of a statement. I hope you weren't serious. I am sure you'd rather be neck deep in gay kiddie llama porn spam than have your wife|mother|girlfriend raped.
ok...Enron guys, worse than manslaughter? The effects are not worse than killing someone. Are they personally worse than someone who commits manslaughter? Sure. They did what they did with intent to defraud. Manslaughter (not murder) could just me or you falling asleep at the wheel and killing a pedestrian. Negligence, but no malice.
The problem with this kind of discussion is that it degrades to a game of moral three card monty in which you start asking me if it's bad to kill someone even if that someone is planning to detonate a nuclear bomb in NYC, etc. It's a slippery slope, and not a road I want to go down. Geez, if they give the guy 50 years I don't care. Just let the punishment fit the crime, that's all I am saying.
Great. Clearly, then, spam is WAAAY worse than manslaughter.
I understand what you are trying to say. But come on now, surely you know it doesn't work that way. That's the logical equivalent to baking a pizza at 600 degrees for 10 minutes when the instructions tell you bake at 300 for 20 minutes.
"I would offer him a deal though - stay offline for 10 years and only do a year in prison. If caught online for any purpose, back to the federal prison for 20 years..."
That's actually a very good and fitting punishment; if only it weren't almost unenforcable. Even if that's not possible, the guy should definitely do some restitution, even if he goes broke in the process. The guy does not deserve the lifestyle he obtained from his ill-gotten gains. This guy should be bankrupted and forced to earn a living like the rest of us.
"Say I fraud you out of your entire life savings. " etc...
Well, as long as you're taking my arguments waaaaaay past the intended point and carrying the logic to the nth degree, I guess some turnabout is in order here.
"If judges keep letting Spammers get off light, without ever setting a heavy-handed precedent, why would they ever even consider stopping the SPAM?? Sometimes a little scare is good."
It sure is a good thing the RIAA is suing elderly grandmothers. Maybe the real pirates will think twice if someone's grandmother gets slapped with a $100K fine! Riiiiiight. First it doesn't work. Second, it's not justified.
yes, and of course that's a perfect analogy. Nice work, Mr. Coward. Flawless logic as always.
I should have just ignored you like I usually do with all other ACs.
well, now that you say it like that...that is kind of funny
No, I used to get spam. But then I had the sense to leave hotmail in like 2001 and go to something better.
My point is this: the subject of this thread is "spam has caused a HUGE cost to society". Isn't that being just a little over the top? Spam sucks, but at worst it's nuisance. What, we are imprisoning people for annoying us now? Well, all the homeless people, hare krishnas, and weirdos downtown had better look out!
"messages are very likely to be buried in a flood of spam, or automatically deleted by imperfect spam filters."
Maybe. I dunno. I never get any spam in my gmail address, which I use for all online activities. My sbcglobal address (AT&T DSL, cobranded with yahoo) never gets ANY spam...oh wait, I stand corrected, I got one last year.
Not justifying his actions, just saying (once again) that prison time seems draconian. Surely there are more fitting punishments.
"It is not the victimless crime that supporters of spam like to make out."
I hope you aren't putting words in my mouth.
As for the rest of your post, you've gotta be kidding. As I said, spam is bad and nasty. I never said he didn't hurt anyone. I said he didn't physically hurt anyone. Financial restitution is in order.
Maybe some jail time is in order. I mean, the punishment seems a little excessive. But as another poster replied to me, they are making an example out of him. That's the only thing I can come up with as to why he gets so much time. I am not defending him.
I don't know anything about the guy, but what if he was just some geek who thought of a way to make some money? Maybe he didn't even realize what the impact would be. I dunno, that much jail time just seems crazy. This is precedent-setting. What other online activity could be made illegal next? How much jail time could you do? This is just as ridiculous as an SA who once worked for a p2p service getting jail time. What, we are giving out hefty prison sentences for relatively innocuous (read, online) crimes that don't result in loss of life?
Then maybe the right punishment is that he has to pay back the money he "earned" or go broke, and of course he'll go broke. Prisons are full enough, and there are much worse people to send there. Make him go broke and then do some community service. Seems like sending him to jail is a bit draconian.
Plus, I can think of a few things he could do for community service:
1) since people once referred to the net as the info superhighway, make him the highway dept's official roadkill scraper for a few years
2) make him clean out some tubes...that's right, get them sewers real clean, boy!
3) let him go work at a nursing home where they give the old men free v!agr4 -- while dressed up as the girl from St Pauli Girl beer bottles. Ouch!
4) he has to clean all the restrooms in NYC's entire subway system.
Cruel? Unusual? Yes! Fitting? Yes!
In all seriousness, though...11 years?
Of course he won't serve that. And of course, spam is bad. But 11 years?
Who was harmed in the process of his sending spam? How many people did he physically hurt? Even, how much money did he take from people? Ok, so the spam consumed bandwidth and wasted people's time. And he gets 11 years for that? Seems a little inappropriate given the crime, don't you think?
I could a large fine, community service, and a year in prison. But, sheesh! A manslaughter charge won't get you 11 years. Are we that out of whack that you get more time for spam than for killing someone?
Couldn't find them on eMusic or iTunes. That's unfortunate.
I found their site, interesting to say the least. I like real country (Old Crow Medicine Show, Hank Williams, Doc Watson, Buckaroos) and I like electronic music (Thievery Corp, Colder, Thunderball, Portishead, etc). I don't know if they do as much for me, but I'll give it another listen. Interesting mixture of music, though. Not many folks fusing country and electronic, you know?
"I personally haven't watched a single episode of the Soprano's. But, I came in here to read the comments"
/.'s editors choosing stories...I remember reading an interview with Taco here about a year or two ago. He wrote something to the effect that this site started as what would today be called a blog site -- his blog site. So Taco or his editors can post whatever the heck they want. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Same here. There are a lot of angles you could take on this story as to why its posted here. I for one find it interesting to see how people react to a television show ending in such an unorthodox way. Television is so pre-packaged and easily digestible and it has affected our perception of reality. People want quick fixes, they want stuff to resolve, all within the space of one hour. Well, sometimes it doesn't work that way. I for one, not having watched the show, find the concept of this particular ending ingenious.
Plus, in accord with GP's point about
People who complain about this story is a bit like me grousing about another article about the end of BSG just because I don't particularly care for the show: Frankly, nobody gives a damn.
Yeah, and most people are also stupid. They'd rather snooze through a boring baseball game or watch all the primadonna antics at NFL or NBA games. I agree, spectator sports are usually lame as all get out. One big thing that prevents hockey from being more popular is the sub par officiating, IMHO. Public perception of the sport would be much better if the referees and linemen were just a bit more observant than WWE referees.
Hey, someone else who wants to admit they are from St Louis! Right on!
Agreed. The Cardinals get way too much coverage here. As if it weren't already hard times for Blues fans. Sheesh!
In Soviet Russia, lame was that joke.
Hey, what do you know? Some things ARE universal.
Yes, that's exactly it. If they had focused on making an OS and maybe an office suite, or maybe dropped the whole OS thing and focused on a cross-platform .NET or server stuff like IIS, SQL Server, ASP, etc, they'd have a lean, mean set of software.
Better to do one thing well than a hundred things poorly.
Yes, Microsoft obviously doesn't get "community".
This is the same company who released the Zune, which doesn't play playsfornotsure. Media player 11 which doesn't support Zune. IE7 which fixed few real IE bugs but instead added chrome like tabs and phishing filters. Vista which is un-compelling enough to ensure most people will be on XP until developers stop writing software for it. Need I go on? Microsoft isn't evil like many think. They just suck. Totally clueless.
"Blind MS haters, as usual."
Ok, troll, I'll bite. The whole copyright bit here is secondary. The totally outlandish thing here is they lauded the guy's efforts. Then they turn around and sue him.
No, no. Dell *knows* what Shuttleworth and company up to: Ubuntu is a large global conspiracy to convert everyone's innocent home PCs into an army of walking drives. This way, they can make PCs walk all over town and commit heinous acts of deviance and wreak havoc in Smalltown, USA. It's a conspiracy, man! What, you though zombie PCs referred to those taken by some virus? You ain't seen nothin' yet, baby!
The whole linux/foss movement has all been for this moment. March forth, my minions! Mua...muaha...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"USA has never really been expanisionist in the same sense"
Manifest destiny was all about expansionism. Worse still, giving it a title like "Manifest Destiny" gave it a religious justification.
Anyway, the US as a young nation grabbed up land much like the young USSR did, and using roughly the same tactics (Siberia, Indian reservations, same thing really). But in the late 19th century the US moved from being expansionist to imperialist (as you said, "they do like to make their influence felt strongly").