Prison Terms For Spammer Ralsky, Scientology DoS Attacker 328
tsu doh nimh writes "Alan Ralsky, the 64-year-old dubbed the 'Godfather of Spam,' was sentenced to 51 months in prison on Monday, the Washington Post's Security Fix blog reports. According to anti-spam group Spamhaus.org, Ralsky has been spamming since at least 1997, using dozens of aliases and tens of thousands of 'zombies' or hacked PCs to relay junk e-mail. Also sentenced — to 40 months in jail — was Ralsky's 48-year-old son-in-law, Scott K. Bradley, and two other men named last year in a 41-count indictment for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act."
And eldavojohn writes "19-year-old Dmitriy Guzner, Anonymous member and Scientology DDoS attacker, received one year and one day in jail for his admitted crime. His sentence could have been a maximum ten years. According to the Church of Scientology, Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"
Church of Scientology (Score:5, Funny)
Scientology members complaining about being harassed is like Mormons bitching about missionaries knocking on their doors.
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Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
Spamming doesn't ruin lives.
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Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK CoS isn't kidnapping unwilling people and forcing them to become members, so it's kind of Darwinian in principle.
No, but as soon as you join they can kidnap you. [wikipedia.org]
To Name One (Score:4, Informative)
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Hmm... [smh.com.au] I don't agree.
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You are mistaken on several counts. One is that they do imprison people, as described by numerous former members at http://www.scientology-lies.com/imprisonment.html [scientology-lies.com]. Some members are kept confined at "Flag Base" without correspondence, telephone contact, or any information from the outside world.
The other is that the "consent" of many victims of Scientology is not "informed consent". The auditing sessions, well-documented as hypnotic conditioning with a lie detector, are used to condition new members to ac
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Tell that to those who fall for the Nigerian scams that are spammed to everyone.
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So stealing 25 cents from every single person in the US is acceptable? Just because your crimes aren't noticeable to each individual victim doesn't mean that the damage doesn't add up on a national scale.
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Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because the government wants to play the role of Chamberlain does not mean Hitler should not be opposed.
Scientology is a patently evil organization and should be opposed by any and all means.
I do not see Anonymous as heroes, I see them as ordinary people doing what needs to be done.
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Indeed.
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But what ever you do, do not post the previously forbidden texts or the Slashdot mods will have to delete your posts.
They do the bidding of the evil organization.
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Its not a DoS, it's a DDoS. Basicly a bunch of people (many underaged) in a home computer with LOIC, not masterminds of crime. They haven't killed anyone or did it for profit (intent is a great part of law); getting one year of jail for rapid firing HTTP requests seems harsh to me. I would think the $37,500 he will have to pay would be enough.
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You lump bomb threats in with spam and DoS, yet I can't recall any incident in the history of computing where spam or DoS directly caused a person's death.
The core of the matter is there are rampant abuses of civil liberties, and the CoS is a highly visible icon of such abuse. If the CoS is allowed to continue, then we open the door for any and all wacked-out works of fiction to be labeled as "religion", and to benefit from the irrational exclusions and bypasses applied thereto.
Really, what's preventing me
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If the DoS here stands for "Denial of Scientology", I'd say it's fair game.
Look at it this way: most Americans of middle-eastern descent or Muslim faith have been steadily harassed and mistreated over at least the past 8 years, even though less than 1 per 100 MILLION have been identified as known criminals, and the supposed Muslim-originated attack on the WTC resulted in 2976 counted deaths. That's two victims for every million Muslims.
Scientologists' numbers are unknown, but are estimated to be less than
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to reply to this, but I'm going to have to have my lawyer check the gag order first.
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
When I woke up today and used the internet.
Scientology was the first organization I am aware of that successfully forced an internet anonymous email service to dig up and disclose information about its clients. All over copyright claims. I am referring to anon.penet.fi, the famous anonymous remailer we all used in the 90s.
In the early days when nobody cared about what "we" did with the internet, we knew that for every asshole that was up to serious evil, there were 10 smart guys who didn't care what your deal was, but hated assholes and could route around them. There were jackasses, but technology always beats jackasses.
Then the law came, and all of that got a lot harder.
Today we have the ability to make "highly" anonymous network connections but we rely on a small group of very VERY dedicated people to make that possible.. [people with the wherewithal to run TOR exit nodes, for instance].
Those entities [be they CoS or rotten governments] who want to destroy free speech must not be tolerated by us.
I remember my senior year of college when I got a takedown-letter about hosting DeCSS. And you know what? I folded, because I had a good job lined up that required I _not_ be a felon. Freedom of speech lost a little bit and I helped give it away, because a warm bed and a normal life are more convenient than principles and freedom.
Our enemies know that, and they attack the weakest of us not to get rid of one or two, but because of the chilling effect it has on the rest of us. No one can escape the law forever, and thus the law, which is supposed to protect the freedom of one man from the encroachments of another, is used as their tool for enslaving us to their desires.
I'm a fallible man and most of us are. That doesn't mean we don't deserve to hate the entites that continue to attack us by perverting the institutions we designed to protect ourselves.
I congratulate the "moralfags" [as they are called within anonymous] who are fighting back. Sometimes, it comes at a high cost, like with this guy.
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Tor by default (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see request for Tor by default [ubuntu.com] in Ubuntu. What about other distros or other onion routers? That would increase the base. Amnesty or Human Rights Watch or The Democracy Center all have a stake in onion routing. To take the thread in the same direction, but further, the group that backed Bush may have left the top offices in the administration, but it has not entirely left power. And the voting machine problem is not yet solved. Those are still under their sphere of influence.
Phil Zimmermann's Why I Wrote PGP [philzimmermann.com] and OpenSSH's SSH FAQ [openbsd.org] are two works that come to mind first about privacy. Most countries recognize the natural right to peaceable assembly. Do the corporations that now have larger budgets and more political clout than some small countries also those rights? You know the answer. The price of freedom is not just eternal vigilance, the cost also includes acting to proactively resolve threats to that freedom.
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct.
And because I've never died, I also do not carry life insurance of any kind.
Because I've never been raped, I don't pay attention to my surroundings or the people nearby.
Because I've never been hit by another car, I don't wear a seatbelt.
Of course, everything I said above is false.
Even though none of those things have happened to me, they've happened to other people who _are like me_. And as a result, I've modified my behavior and in some cases suffered a monetary loss.
This is what is known as a "chilling effect". A great tragedy befalls a handful of individuals, but all individuals realize it could have just as easily have been them. This causes massive behavioral change on a wide scale.
This is exactly the pscyhology used by terrorism, infact. The goal of terrorists isn't to kill all people or even certain people -- it's to kill enough people to effect behaviorial change on a large popupation.
The goal of Scientology [and the RIAA, and other agents of censorship that have the power of the state behind them] is similar. They know they can't get everyone or even most people. But they don't have to -- getting a few people now and then will persuade many others into changing their behavior.
I haven't done a detailed study, but everytime there is a CoS article on slashdot, a LOT of the comments are posted by Anonymous Coward. Why is that? Why are people unafraid to openly criticize the catholic church -- often with blatantly vulgar remarks, and yet so few are willing to do the same against the CoS?
Fear. Fear is the difference. If the CoS wants to rule its own members via fear, that is lamentable and a great reason not to associate with the CoS. But the CoS wants to rule non-members and specifically CoS antagonists via Fear as well.
I don't think it is unreasonable to despise an organization that has already engaged in activities designed to control me via Fear.
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They've got a booth at the mall, it's up there semi-permanently as far as I can tell. They're fairly loud proselytizers.
I kinda've want to go in there and take one of their stress tests so I can fuck with'em, but haven't yet.
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:4, Interesting)
When was the last time you were harassed by a Scientology member?
When one of my University teachers became a scientologist and hijacked the whole class for months to discuss Dianetics as the "new science for management and self-improvement for success in the 21st century".
Problem is that since Scientology is not registered as a religion in my country, the school's heads were not aware of the inappropriateness of her actions and it took over three months of protests from several students for them to find out and sack her.
Re:Church of Scientology (Score:5, Informative)
When was the last time you were harassed by a Scientology member?
When my husband divorced me after the center discovered that while he was a Scientologist, I wasn't. You see, they don't allow you to befriend (unless you're trying to recruit), much less marry, non-Scientologists. This was a number of years ago before most people, including me, knew what a fraud and cult this "religion" is.
They will convince the convert that anything bad that happens to him is because they're not being a good scientologist. My husband was just laid off during the 80's downturn in oil. Although he did get another job right away, it was obvious they impressed on him that being with me was causing all these bad things to happen. Our marriage had been happy until this happened.
One reason Travolta kept refusing to admit his son was autistic, is because (any mental illness or perceived by the church as mental illness) is believed to be caused by their contact with "non-clear" (non-Scientologists). Which means they often blame mental illness on the family.
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141 million hits on its website? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when is visiting a website vandalism? This is terrifying! /. could have me arrested for almost 10 years of visiting!
Re:141 million hits on its website? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, your refresh script obviously failed because you didn't get the first post.
Re:141 million hits on its website? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you do it with the attempt to stop the server... That is vandalism. Slashdot having a lot of people who want to read the content is not vandalism it is not having the correct server capacity. As always the difference is intent.
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It was obviously much more than that, LOIC [youtube.com] does more than that per person, and they were probably a couple dozens, at least.
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Not a lazy man at least (Score:3, Funny)
'8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'
Well, that's one way to keep busy.
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I think my limit for placing calls to complain about something is around 4 - the 5th is to just cancel and move on.
Re:Not a lazy man at least (Score:4, Informative)
He didn't hire a small army, he was part of a small army.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Chanology [encycloped...matica.com] - NSFW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanology [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not a lazy man at least (Score:4, Interesting)
Project Chanology has nothing to do with the orchestration of DDoS attacks and harassment attempts with the Church of Scientology.
The members of the small group that decided to perform these attacks did this on their own which caused losts of infighting between Anonymous since performing anything illegal goes against Project Chanology's cause.
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Re:Not a lazy man at least (Score:4, Insightful)
Just FYI for those who don't have the time or inclination to decipher 'Anonymous' and '/b/'s sarcastic parody insider language: Anonymous is not a "group" in the traditional sense. Nobody "joins" Anonymous. Everybody who feels like doing a prank is a member of Anonymous for the moment they are doing the prank and they are not as soon as the prank is done. Anonymous has no consensus or agreement on their goals or motives. Nobody can request action on behalf of Anonymous ("Anonymous is not your personal army").
More than anything else "Anonymous" is a term or meme that describes the mob effect that occurs in response to shared outrage or shared giggles. In this way it is not entirely unlike Slashdot. It is ridiculous when someone says 'Slashdot believes this' or 'Slashdot agrees with that'.
It is grossly unfair for Guzner to get the blame for over 9,000 phone calls and the rest as a "member of Anonymous". Nobody is a member of Anonymous, and everyone is a member of Anonymous.
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Everybody who feels like doing a prank is a member of Anonymous for the moment they are doing the prank and they are not as soon as the prank is done.
Not true. Anyone who claims to be a member of Anonymous is (whether they are currently participating in a raid or not).
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However I find it funny that Scientology has such specific figures, especially on the phone calls.
If you plan to take legal action for harassment, it behooves you to document that all.
scientology (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, what was the website URL again?
Ralsky's the guy that Slashdot spammed... (Score:5, Informative)
He took it right in the ass. It was beautiful.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/06/1554227 [slashdot.org]
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>> According to the Church of Scientology, Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"
s/harassed and attacked/enlightened/
Guess that Xenu guy isn't all powerful (Score:2)
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Is that link work safe?
Did someone upload the Goatse guy to Slashdot's servers?
God Save us all!
Scientology is not a religion! (Score:5, Insightful)
...it's a tax evasion scheme.
Re:Scientology is not a religion! (Score:5, Informative)
If you had phrased that in the form of a statement backed by references, you might not have been modded flamebait:
"Didn't France convict the CoS of fraud? ( http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/27/france.scientology.fraud/index.html [cnn.com] )"
or
"Arnaldo Lerma tells us that, 'when I asked why Scientology was now being called a church, I was told that it was for tax purposes.' ( http://www.lermanet.com/LRonHubbard2.htm [lermanet.com] )"
Something like that might have gotten the flamebait mods countered by positive ones... even if it (and this post) are likely somewhat off-topic for this particular article.
I know what the guy did is wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
In Defense of Anonymous... (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:In Defense of Anonymous... (Score:4, Funny)
Never gonna C-C-C-break your combos
scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
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Who gave you the ability to decide that, the Pope?
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All real churches involve pasta and pirates.
Re:scientology (Score:5, Informative)
They are a cult.
People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader;
They get a new identity based on the group;
They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.
From everything I've read about and seen of Scientolgists and Scientology, they do all of those things.
Contrast that to say...Judaism or Islam, theres a big difference.
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There's a massive difference between Scientology (and other dangerous cults) and legitimate religion: legitimate religions nowadays never (and I mean never) require monetary payments to learn or take part in the doctrine, history, and basic practices of the church. They don't expect you to pay for the chance to talk to clergy. You can if you so choose walk into a religious building (making sure to follow any customs that members ask you to follow, such as wearing a hat or removing your shoes), take part in
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I was going to say "only on slashdot is a completely ignorant comment be modded +2 insightful", but clicking on the "reply button" I see it was remodded as troll. Good job, mods!
I don't often go to church, but I've been to very many different denominations of Christian churces and have yet to have any of them attempt to scam me out of money. They pass the collection plate around, but nobody ever coerces or forces or shames anyone into putting money into it. In fact, many if not most churches have "food pant
Prison talk (Score:5, Funny)
"So, you're the guy who keeps sending me those male enhancement meds spam huh?"
"No sir, i'm only specialising in female spam, nothing else!"
"Yeah, right! well i'll make an example for the next spammer who dares saying that i need such drugs!"
*drops pants*
"Mommy!"
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*drops pants*
"Mommy! .... Well obviously the drugs have worked for you."
typical /. libermentarianism... (Score:2, Insightful)
and of course, it's also inevitable that we'll have some nimby-pimpby sanctimonious PC jerkwad stating that isn't funny.
Dmitriy Guzner: (Score:5, Informative)
secularist martyr
you don't fight vile "religions" that zombify and enslave the weak with kind words and cupcakes
this is the way the mafia known as the church of scientology plays:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White [wikipedia.org]
turn around is fair play
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How do you use kind words and cupcakes to zombify and enslave the weak? Though I can see why you don't want to fight religions that can do that.
Ah, a sentence he can't refuse. (Score:2)
How fitting for the godfather.
A Year and a Day? (Score:2)
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It's part of the US's Common Law background. A prison sentence for a felony is longer than one year; it's one of the things that distinguishes a felony from a misdemeanor.
Hrmmmm (Score:3, Funny)
'8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'
part of me mentally read all of those numbers as 'over 9000'
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How did you read ten, 22, and 8 as over 9000?
It's mean to point out someones dyslexia.
yah but... (Score:4, Funny)
"Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"
They always say that.
Ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church^Wsect leaders
Where do I send fan mail for this guy?
Fighting monsters (Score:2, Insightful)
He who fights with monsters might t
Anonymous is winning (Score:5, Interesting)
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So, what do you do that's legally untouchable but still bothers them ?
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neah... that's 25$ at least, second-hand ...
Poking a stick at the beehive.. (Score:2)
"Scientology has harassed and annoyed them with Millions of phone calls, millions of mailed brochures, censoring websites or any thing else they see that doesn't make them money, acts of vandalism against, threats, and death threats against former Church members and non members."
There, fixed that for you.
Co$ are a bunch of whiny hypocrites! (Score:2)
They use those same tactics against what they consider to be their enemies, but when someone turns the tables on them, they shed a few crocodile tears and run to the police.
They have broken into the offices of the FBI and have members of their cult have died under suspicious circumstances while under their care, yet they have the gall to call what others do illegal.
Not defined in the article... (Score:2)
On June 22, 2009, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering charges and violating the CAN-SPAM Act.[10] He agreed to assist in the prosecution of other spammers in exchange for sentencing consideration
By comparison, trials for other spammers [wikipedia.org] have been held without them present [bbc.co.uk] as they tend to not stay in one place long.
Re:dark side of the coin (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:dark side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the USSR, they used to respond with dissent by calling it the result of mental illness. After all, the dictatorship of the proletariat always had the best interests of the common folk at heart. If you disagreed with its policies, it must be because you are a poor suffering victim of some kind of anti-social personality disorder.
Re:dark side of the coin (Score:5, Insightful)
Personality disorders, like, extreme anti-government paranoia? Or confusing basic regulations for Stalinist policies?
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What prevents Stalin the 2nd from happening in the USA? Have we just been lucky to not have anyone that mean be born here? Are Americans just a better judge of character than the Russians?
I'm not so presumptuous to think that Russia is better at making tyrants than we are, or its people are more predisposed to misjudging politicians.
The difference between everywhere else and the USA is that
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Brilliant! You have just created a mechanism by which the government can declare all dissent from its policies "noise" and thus be blocked.
The US Government can do that and already has done so on a number of occasions.
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And you can stop delivery of any specific mail anyway, by asking the Post Office.
But, more important, postal crap doesn't hijack random people's houses to get them to spew out mail.
Spamming, at this point, doesn't need to be illegal. What we need to do is lock every single spammer up for the hundreds of thousands of felonies they commit by hijacking computers to send spam. Forget the 'spam sending'.
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Re:dark side of the coin (Score:5, Funny)
do you really want the government deciding which is which?
The government doesn't really decide that. We do. We complain, the government investigates. It isn't a proactive measure that the government is taking.
However we could have issues if it grows to something similar to the FCC.
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That's cool, I'm going to come knock on your door for the next three years. The knocking is just a bit of a nuisance and since you've done your part and locked me out all is well right?
Somehow I feel that if I did that I would be looking at a solution that comes from the point of a government gun.
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Freedom of speech implies that the recipient wants to listen. I should be allowed to post the DeCSS code on the internet, but I should not be allowed to stuff dozens of copies in people's mailboxes.
Re:dark side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom of speech implies that the recipient wants to listen.
It does? Then it's not freedom of speech, it's freedom to hear.
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Certainly, and making certain speech illegal is not illegal in and of itself, either. Death threats aren't exactly "legal." You can get arrested for spouting off too angrily at your neighbor, too.
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And if you get caught lying to the tax office about your income, you probably also pull the argument that free speech, as guaranteed by the constitution, also covers lying to the tax office, right?
Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you may (mis-)use any medium to tell your opinion. It just says that you must have the possibility to do so, and to do so in public. It doesn't say you have the ri
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Though you might agree with this particular case, it opens up the door for more intrusive precedents.
This is insane; like arguing that prosecuting graffiti as vandalism will suddenly descend into house painters doing hard time. Exactly the same kind of "I'm too stupid to distinguish good from bad" as school officials occasionally get laughed at when some draconian rule (say, meant to address gang activity) is applied mercilessly to an obviously good student.
As to DDoS attacks, how many times are you allowed to knock on a church's door before it becomes illegal?
You've been struck dumb by your paranoia. There's a qualitative difference between a knocking on a church's door (accessing a website) and trying to
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It's funny to me that the people who complain about spam the most are also the "information wants to be free" types.
Are they? You have evidence of this? Also, even if it were true (it may be, or it may not) freedom of information is like freedom of speech. I'm free to speak, but I have no right to make you listen.
Few if any advocates of free speech advocate freedom to slander, or otherwise maliciously harm ("Fire" in a crowded theater).
As to DDoS attacks, how many times are you allowed to knock on a church'
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A direct quote from L Con Hubbard: Attack...never defend. Apparently the only way to keep up a teetering "religion" is to attack.
That's a direct quote from me as well, talking about RTS games. Not saying L Ron Hubbard wasn't a douche, just that its common sense and can be applied to pretty much anything...