Virginia Arrests Man for Spam

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by StormBringer
I would like you all to stop for a minute and think about all the spam you get, and how many of those have made you buy a product.

I seem to recall from a documentary on spam that it's less than one for every 10 000 spam that actually reads it, and somewhere in the vincinity of 1 in a 1 000 that buys something (the numbers might be a bit off, but it's very seldom anyone buys anything from spam)...
And because of this, spammers are spamming several millions... Thus congesting the internet and being a general nuisance to most of us...

So only a small fraction of us are interested in what the spammers sell...

Originally posted by BrownPaper
the article did not say he was going to get 20 years in prison; that was just the maximum sentence. with a lesser sentence and a decent lawyer, he'd probably get a year in prison if he was convicted.

Yes, I realized that, but still... Having 20 years as a maximum punishment for sending spam is just crazy...
See my prev post for why I think that...

MoRulez> Yes I do see some similarities, but I would argue that it's not the same problem...
Spamming is something that only a few people do, which annoys most net users, and cost many companies a lot of money.
Downloading mp3's is something that is quite common and costs the record industry a lot of money.
And both of it's against the law.

But let's look a bit more closely at the motives here...
Spammers send out spam to make money... It's not like a hobby, or something they do with their friends...

People download mp3's because it's an easy way to get the music they want... They don't have to go to a store and buy an entire cd because they like one or two songs on that cd. And downloading doens't cost much, as there are no middle men nor a greedy record company pushing the prices up... And it's very very convienient...

But if there was a legal alternative with the same "qualities", I think most, if not all, would use that...

Why, because they're tired of spending way too much money on a product that isn't up to par...
Why should you have to buy a full cd when you only want one song? And why should you have to go to a store to get it, when you can allmost anything else on the net? And why are the online services selling the music at such a low quality with so many restrictions?

So I'd say that even if there are similarities between spamming and mp3 downloading, those are only superficial, as the latter is the consumers rebelling at an industry which has lost track with "the real world"...

Sorry for going so OT, but.....

 

[StormBringer]

Crazy, your solution is unacceptable for me, probably for others as well. 10+, try 300+ a few times a day before the filters became available, now its not as bad but its still a real pain, and wastes much of my time having to delete the junk.

3 years is not something that people will fear. The way most cases go in the US courts is that people only get a fraction of the max, and only serve a fraction of that. So this 20 years max, means very little. The guy will likely get a coupl of years and a fine and will probably serve less than a year of that.

 

[poertner_1274]

Very true Storm. The possibility of parole in the US is very large. If someone gets a murder sentence and gets 25-life in prison, they could still be elligible for parole in 10 years (for example) on good behavior. And I'm sure that someone who goes to jail for sending spam isn't going to be causing any trouble in a prison, and will definately get out on good behavior in a fraction of the time.

 

[XtR-X]

20 years is a very long time. I also think its in violation of the ammendment that states "No cruel and unusual punishment." Well yeah, he may cause many people arround the world 2 more minutes at their inbox deleting the spam, but 20 years is too much.

I know some people who have been to jail for a year, even less, and it's changed their view. Just like my good cousin, his newborn baby choked on his own bottle when sleeping and died, he totally had nothing to do with it, as we all know he wouldn't hurt anyone. His wife pressed charges and at the last minute she realized it was an accident and tried to stop the charges but the authorities said it was too late. He was sentenced for 4 years to prison. It's really sad.

 

[poertner_1274]

That is very unfortunate. I'm sorry to hear that XtR-X. It seems that sometimes people act before they think things through because they are upset, and it could very well be for a misled reason.

My best regards to your cousin and his wife.

 

[khosw]

"Roughly 50 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through Virginia"

This sort of gives you a clue where to look, no.?

-Another scumbag down the tubes.

 

[SNGX1275]

I think maybe some of you didn't read the article.

Jaynes was charged with violating limits on the number of messages a marketer can send and falsifying routing information, both illegal under the Virginia law that carries penalties of 1-5 years in prison on each count.

So he's not getting 20 years for sending a SPAM e-mail, he's violating the amount and routing information, and he did that multiple times, apparently is being charged for 4 said violations.
There is a chance this dude can be sentenced to 4 years and get out in less.

 

[agrav8r]

No matter what this begs the question of whether he could do this in prison. Some get TV, libaries, records, and books. I thought i had seen an article on giving them computer training(can't find it now, so I will just run with it and be proven wrong), which if they have access would allow them to do this from prison.
unlikely but possible

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by agrav8r
No matter what this begs the question of whether he could do this in prison. Some get TV, libaries, records, and books. I thought i had seen an article on giving them computer training(can't find it now, so I will just run with it and be proven wrong), which if they have access would allow them to do this from prison.
unlikely but possible

Him being able to spam from prison? Yeah right. People thrown in prison on computer crimes don't get access to computers even much less the internet. It's like giving a weapon to a murderer (in the sense that they're giving them the means to do what they were imprisoned for).

Plus I'm sure he was only spamming for money, and now he won't get any and I'm sure it isn't worth it to get caught. His prison term would only get longer.

And XtR-X, that is truly horrible. I wouldn't wish that happened to anyone. I do hope your cousin gets out soon, because that really is unjust. I wonder how, on such flimsy evidence, it even got passed on in court?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by SNGX1275
I think maybe some of you didn't read the article.

Guilty as charged

I just took what was written in the thread as what the story said...

I think I'll start reading a bit more carefully before posting...

Originally posted by SNGX1275
So he's not getting 20 years for sending a SPAM e-mail, he's violating the amount and routing information, and he did that multiple times, apparently is being charged for 4 said violations.
There is a chance this dude can be sentenced to 4 years and get out in less.

When that's the case, I think the law is reasonably good... Or at least it isn't as whacko as I thought at first... But I still prefer community service and fines instead of prison..

 

[poertner_1274]

But the only bad thing about that Mr. G is that the person that is guilty, and sentenced to community service and fined, will still have access to the internet and the means of doing it again. It's just like someone who is a theif. Once they start stealing things it will be in their blood and they will keep doing it, even if they get jail time to 'think' about what they have done.

I feel this would be the same way. If the guy is making, for example, $100,000USD a year, and gets community service and a fine of $50,000USD, what is to keep him from continuing to send spam and just pay the fines and do the service, if he is still making a reasonable amount of money (after the fines and such)?

Something needs to be done to show that what has been done is wrong, and take them away from what got them in trouble in the first place(the internet).

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Well, let's include a visit from a parole officer (or someone similar) on a daily basis, and limit his access to computers to just a lap-top..

Granted, that won't do the trick entirely, but it'll hamper the persons ability to spam...

But think about it... It really shouldn't be that hard to find a way in which (s)he no longer has the ability to spam, and still keep the person out of prison...
Just because we haven't come up with an idea of how to do it, doesn't mean there isn't one... Just that we haven't thought of it yet...

By saying that just because I didn't come up with a plan on how to stop the guy from spamming whilst doing community service it isn't possible, you limit yourself to a very in-the-box thinking... Which is imo a very defeatist way to think...

Just like a total ban isn't the best answer to everything potentially criminal, prison isn't the best answer to every punishment... But it requires more thought to find those solutions...

.02$

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by SNGX1275
point 1 - spam is not THAT BAD come on now guys, you spend a few seconds a day decidign whether to read something or not, if not you delete it, its over, done.

point 3 - we are going to send people to jail for spam? yet at this identical time the majority of the people are against the death penalty.
well I'll tell you what - I'd rather get SPAM filtered by my already in use SPAM filter (and delete it later) than have my tax money supporting some do0d that didn't do anything with his life and is now getting free food and housing. While I, at the same time, am struggling to get a master's degree and pay my heating bill.

Overall point - get a spam filter, have it filter the stuff you don't want, delete the stuff you don't want after its filtered automatically and be done with it. Everyone is getting pissed off about something that is fairly controllable.

It's true that consumers can install spam filters, but that won't help the main problem here: sending spam hogs the network bandwidth.

It doesn't hurt people (at least directly) but companies might have server slowdowns & crashes because of this, thereby possibly causing financial losses etc.


I have nothing against people who want to send me a free digital camera or a ticket to Bahamas, but every time I click those ads they either redirect me somewhere else or are for US residents only

 

[agrav8r]

Originally posted by MrGaribaldi
Well, let's include a visit from a parole officer (or someone similar) on a daily basis, and limit his access to computers to just a lap-top..

Granted, that won't do the trick entirely, but it'll hamper the persons ability to spam...

But think about it... It really shouldn't be that hard to find a way in which (s)he no longer has the ability to spam, and still keep the person out of prison...
Just because we haven't come up with an idea of how to do it, doesn't mean there isn't one... Just that we haven't thought of it yet...

By saying that just because I didn't come up with a plan on how to stop the guy from spamming whilst doing community service it isn't possible, you limit yourself to a very in-the-box thinking... Which is imo a very defeatist way to think...

Just like a total ban isn't the best answer to everything potentially criminal, prison isn't the best answer to every punishment... But it requires more thought to find those solutions...

.02$

Why not a small emp device that goes off if they get near a computer....
I think that if he had to hand write apology letters to each person he spammed, one for each occurence, would be enough to make him stop. i figure a minimum of a page a letter, and he can't go free until he is done writing them. The more you spam the more time you get. and snail mail is so fun.

 

[XtR-X]

He's out of jail now, he's been out for a while (few years). He divorced his wife. And he's married to someone else and he has another baby due soon. Lets hope the same thing doesn't happen... oh God no don't let it happen, he's had plenty of time of misery for something he didn't intend to happen, he's not going to even risk leaving the baby alone with any food.... or even out of his sight.

Have you guys ever heard that even one year in jail is a VERY long time? Well it truly is. I've been to jail for 2 hours before just for street racing and it was horrible! DONT GO THERE!!! Finnally my parents came to pick me up! Phew. And thank God that I was caught before July's street racing law that stated that any street racer caught in the act will have the car and license permanently confescated, and [the car] auctioned off.

I still think it was wrong for them to put me (a minor) in jail! I mean a waiting room or something but a temp. jail! WTF.

Well, I'm derailing the topic, I'm sorry, continue on everyone.

 

[Adron]

Originally posted by MrGaribaldi
But doesn't it also risk giving of a punishment that is way to big for the crime commited? What about the next case where the guy had spammed 100 million people every day for 4 years? (just an example)
Shouldn't be be punished harder than the one who'd only spammed 1 million people in a year?

I'm not saying this to bash you in particular, but did you all actually read the article referenced? It does say that the penalty might be up to 20 years, but that'd be an application in 4 instances of a 1 to 5 year penalty.

Presumably if this guy spammed a little, he will end up at the lower end of the spectrum, and if some other guy has spammed a lot, he might have more than 4 instances. This should scale just fine for any spammer.

Newspapers write about "20 years" in big letters, but that's just the maximum penalty. You'll have to trust the courts to pick a proper sentence for each particular offence. You do trust the law, right?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by Adron
I'm not saying this to bash you in particular, but did you all actually read the article referenced? It does say that the penalty might be up to 20 years, but that'd be an application in 4 instances of a 1 to 5 year penalty.

If you'd have read a bit further, you'd see that you are correct, and that I hadn't read the article...

But even if I based my ideas on different punishment on the wrong basis (that you could get 20 years in prison for spamming), they still stand...

 

[agrav8r]

Sort of a side note, Bush signed the anti spam law today. all the dirty spammers will burn, burn, bur... sorry having a moment there. i will post an article in the news section as this thread seems to be getting a bit long.