First Four People Charged Under CAN-SPAM Act 372
friedo writes "Four people in Detroit have been charged with emailing fraudulent sales pitches under the new federal CAN-SPAM Law. 'They were accused of disguising their identities in hundreds of thousands of sales pitches and delivering e-mails by bouncing messages through unprotected relay computers on the Internet.'"
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. It doesn't matter if he relays his computer crimes through the Spirit Rover commlink -- if he's phyically in the US and the Feds have the evidence, he can be arrested and charged.
Bottom line: If the Feds are serious about enforcing the law (which is the real rub), a spammer needs to physically get his ass out of the US, unless he doesn't mind having said ass traded back and forth for ciggies.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
The really sad part is that it took 10,000 complaints, before anything was done about the fraud.
I don't believe that the FTC simply waited for CAN-SPAM's extra three years of prison to come into effect before deciding to look into the fraud.
So, 10,000 complaints, and they'll look into convicting someone. Just remember, every complaint counts, so start reporting your fraudulent SPAMs.
Forgot the fraud complaint link... (Score:3, Informative)
A joint project of consumer protection agencies from 17 nations:
http://www.econsumer.gov/english/ [econsumer.gov]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's stop trying to make excuses; the government has utterly failed in its duty to prosecute blatant, obvious cases of egregious fraud (and many other kinds of criminal activity; pump & dump, illegal drugs, younameit) - that were broadcast to millions of Americans and reached more people than many TV shows.
And if they proceed in prosecuting people at this puny rate, I would say they are continuing to fail.
Yeah, sure, if we lock up all the domestic spammers, we'll still get spam from Africa and China, but let's actually get to that point first, and deal with it then.
I don't know about anyone else, but for many orgs I know spam is reaching a kind of crisis point, where anyone who has to publish their address is, within a matter of months, getting hundreds of spam for every few legitimate messages. It is rendering email useless.
A minor economic setback, I guess? Too trivial for the feds to bestir themselves?
CAN SPAM is a sad joke, but the punch line is that someone may have actually waited for it to go after these guys...
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
And to respond to your post: start reporting my fraudulent spams? I get about 500 to 1000 spams a day. But then I count "undeliverable" messages as part of my spam traffic. Ditto all those stupid MS Outlook worms. Can I report fraudulent use of my em
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually proxy spammers aren't being caught because the open proxies don't have any useful logs at all.
This time a fake proxy network created the illusion of an open proxy to the spammers, but really captured the incoming traffic with source ip adresses into logfiles, so the federal agents had some ip adresses to investigate into as well as spam samples to use for evidence.
Together with those logfiles and the spam samples, it's pretty easy to catch the bad guys, but without such information, it's almost impossible to get them.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
In North-America, using a computer to commit a crime is a crime. Then, using a computer to access a computer to commit a crime, is that also a crime? I think it is and would result in the same charges.
Plus, if a spammer is physically located overseas, if it happens that his spam relays on servers in North-America, then didn't he use a computer to commi
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a rule of thumb that has to be applied,
if the USG, United States Government, wants me more than the effort + the political fall-out from grabbing me costs them, then they are going to scarf me up. If you are very naughty, even being the president of a country might not be enough. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm saying that, that's the way it is. Many things are a crime to th
Re:Good. (Score:3)
If you are sitting in a room in the US sending illegal spam, then you can be prosecuted in the US for sitting in a room sending illegal spam.
Of course if you start breaking into computers in other countries, the governments in those other contries might want to prosecute you for committing offe
Re:Good. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it would in this case. If a spammer is remotely operating machines overseas, they are still breaking the law by sending the unsolicited email to recipients in the United States. If they are caught in the US, they will be prosecuted here. So, they get to choose. They can either enjoy their life as a spammer and never ever set foot in the US again, or they can cease spamming. They may also choose to spam more covertly, but there are no guarantees there.
As some of our friends in Europe have already pointed out, most of the spam messages are advertising "products" available for people in the United States. While that doesn't guarantee that the money paying for the spam is coming from the US, it gives a strong indicator. Therefore, US federal laws WILL do a pretty good job to at least alter the way these people do "business." The end result remains to be seen.
The biggest challenge is tracking down and successfully prosecuting the perps. It will be interesting to see how this trial goes and whether the Feds can make the charges stick.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately? I would say thankfully. And I'm pretty sure most of your countrymen would as well considering that American's complain about bad and ignorant laws that are constantly being passed by the US Congress more than foreigners do. We might sympathize with your situation, but we have our own laws to complain about. But I certainly don't think enforcing the DMCA, or the Patriot Act, or the US Patent Office on the rest of the wo
Agreed - Re: Good. (Score:5, Informative)
This simply a case for the Federal Trade Commission [ftc.gov]. The inclusion of CAN-SPAM law into the criminal charges is merely an after thought (as I mentioned before [slashdot.org]):
From the Article:
By this, as well as the FTC's involvement (see FTC link above), this is a simple case of fraud. The CAN SPAM sentancing guidelines [slashdot.org] provide for tacking an extra couple of years to the sentance in such a case.
The addition to CAN-SPAM in this case will only serve to attract more attention to the problem of E-mail fraud. My previous statement remains, "an extra 1 to 3 years tacked onto a felony conviction is nothing compared to the sentance that is already being faced."
extra 1 to 3 years tacked onto a felony conviction (Score:5, Informative)
Oh yes it is, while you go in thinking it's nothing usualy because it's served concurrently with the primary sentence; I can guarentee that the Parole board will look at it differently. In fact if you cop a plea, you generaly have waived your right to be presumed inocent. The means you did, what you were charged with, not just what you were convicted of. Another Gotcha is these guys now have two felonies, after they do say 7 years of a 7-12 federal sentence, they get out on parole and blow a stop light, in Michigan they are now 3 time lossers and get 1-3 in a MI prison as an habitual offender.
Being in prison is no joke either, think about this;
you're now working for 28 cents an hour, your wife divorces your sorry ass, and child-support leaves you with $7.00 a month disposeable income. If you get sick or injured, medicade has a $3.00 co-pay that's almost half a months income, He'll only tell you "take some asprin and see me in two weeks" so there goes the rest of the months income (don't no-show either, you'll get a ticket for disobeying a direct order, that the parole board won't like). No these guys are going to become four more kiss-ass punks in a world of hurt and are probably too stupid to realise it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Four little fish.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am particularly pleased the government is charging the guy for unauthorized relay. As shocked as he may be at the visit from authorities, I am sure his victims were equally shocked when they discovered that hundreds of thousands of emails were being relayed through their servers.
Re:Four little fish.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Four little fish.... (Score:2)
Re:Four little fish.... (Score:3, Informative)
From my own memory and from googling, Daniel Lin has been involved in operatings with Ralsky as early as 2001. In fact, when I was very actively tracking Ralsky, I wrote the following little gem tying Ralsky, Lin and Ken Holt out of Oklahoma together in their email barrage activities:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=daniel+lin+ral sk y+grindbind&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Re:Four little fish.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Once precedent is set, then they can go after the big boys who will be able to afford higher-priced lawyers. Whether or not they will go after the big boys is another question, but we can hope.
Yee Haw (Score:4, Insightful)
Aw, who am I kidding. Prosecuting people has never been a deterent to the crime.
Re:Yee Haw (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure about that? Have you
Ever killed someone? Beaten them so badly they need medium term hospitilization? Broken the windshield of a car, doused the interior with gasoline, and lit it on fire?
I watched my peers do that (and more) and I watched them get prosecuted. Forget 'right and wrong'. When I get really really (really) mad, the thing that stops me from lighting you on fire isn't the idea that its wrong to do it, but the near certai
Re:Deterent (Score:3, Interesting)
The Soviet Union is the most extreme example in recent history. Their philosophy was the same as that of other nations based on deterence: if the punishment is harsh enough people will be detered from committing the crime. It didn't work, they kept instituting increasingly harsh punishments and crimes continued to be committed. Many people simply do not believe that they wil
Hmmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised... (Score:2)
Four charged... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030_n
Re:And what about... (Score:2, Interesting)
HOWEVER, applying those laws would require judges to take an existing law and stretch it a little to cover a new (to them) situation. Judges are loathe to do this, as they get appealed on it.
But having passed a law *specifically* targetted at the conduct in question, the judge is off the interpretive hook. The law itself may be appealed, but not the judge's conduct.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Tee hee.. (Score:3, Funny)
...all one hundred thousand of them.
maximum penalty? (Score:5, Interesting)
any chance they would see the inside of a jail cell over this?
or is it just a monetary fine (i.e. slap on the wrist)
people who do this should be banned from technology a-la Kevin Mitnick
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, save jail for violent offenders. There's not enough room as it is. Spammers may be annoying, but they won't mug you on the street and rape your kids.
Umm, just because it's a white collar crime doesn't mean they shouldn't see a jail cell. With all that spamming, surely they can pay for their own jail cell. And while they won't rape your kids, they'll show them enough naked old men, kiddie porn, and animal lovin' to make them vomit. Not to mention how they outright hurt the economy. I would
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3, Insightful)
let's say there is one murder per 50,000 in the population. let's say that the murder of this person affects 5 people (including the deceased) so badly that the rest of their life is ruined.
on average, this will happen to each involved at the midpoint of their lives (let's say).
So, in total, murderers remove roughly 1/5000 of life from each individual in society.
Do *you* spend more than 1/5000 of your life (roughly 20 seconds per day) dealing with spam? I do.
So, based on
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, multiply that by 100 million people. That's 70 billion dollars wasted annually.
Now, put 10,000 spammers in jail a year at 70K each. That's 700 million a year on jail costs.
So, for 1 percent of the cost of spam you can effectively deal with it.
For the sake of argument, let's say the cost of prosecution, jail, and all the other fees is really 2 bi
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3)
what would you rather have:
A) no spam email worldwide forever
or
B) one less murder worldwide
Now, if you said "B of course, because all the spam in the world is not worth one human life" then I say to this:
yes, but what if deleting all this spam costs the equivalent of 10,000 lifetimes of people's lives?
If you still say "B", then, well, I hope you never get a job that matters. Certainly don't be president.
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:4, Funny)
Where do spammers fit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where do spammers fit... (Score:3, Funny)
Sat down, after a whole big thing there. I walked up, and I said, "What do you
Want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question: Have you ever been arrested?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Resteraunt Massacre with full
Orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, "Kid, have you ever been to court?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty
make the punishment fit the crime (Score:4, Insightful)
have the judge sentence them to a cleanup job for a few years. preferably something really stinky and disgusting.
slave labor, i know. but it should teach them a lesson, more so than being someone's b!tch in a federal PMITA prison.
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:2)
Re:maximum penalty? (Score:3, Insightful)
I must protest your downplaying of the ever popular "slap on the wrist". Not only does being slapped on the wrist hurt really hard, but the social awkwardness of being accused of having been given only a slap on the wrist far outweighs any alternative methods that may be more violent. Having been slapped on the wrist myself on numerous occasions, I can tell you that one never really recovers from being slapped on the wrist, and the shame of the slapp
Why not go after the buyers too? (Score:5, Interesting)
So why not make it illegal to buy wares from spammers who don't identify themselves [which keeps the door open for free speech by allowing people who do identify themselves a way out]?
E.g. buy V1c0din from "HornyToad@hotmail.com" and get a 2000$ fine. Sadly the only way to really enforce this would be to send out spam themselves....
Or what they could do is when they catch a spam operation keep the website/email live and catch the people trying to buy the stuff.
Anyways, if you make people who are already leary about buying X.@.n.4.x from people off the net even more leary it hurt their business that much more.
Tom
Re:Why not go after the buyers too? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's easy to assess the cost of spamming. How much damages do you demand of someone for buying something as a result of spam? How do you prove they knew it was spam and not something they'd asked to be part of?
> Or what they could do is when they catch a spam operation keep the website/email
> live and catch the people trying to buy the stuff.
Entrapment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why not go after the buyers too? (Score:4, Insightful)
Legally, this will never work. Why?
E.g. buy V1c0din from "HornyToad@hotmail.com" and get a 2000$ fine.
But you are not buying from "HornyToad@hotmail.com"; you are buying from Joe Schmoe via www.cheapdrugs.com. With spam, you never reply back to buy the stuff; you use an alternate method that's given to you in the spam email (such as a website). Unless the product you're buying is itself illegal, you can never be successfully prosecuted for buying it. Proving that you bought it because of a spam you received is impossible, and beside the point anyway.
Even though spam is the only method used to advertise the site, that's irrelevant. The site is there, and is offering a legal product. Anyone is free to visit it and buy whatever they want from it. The spam is the real problem, and can only be tackled directly.
Re:Why not go after the buyers too? (Score:3, Insightful)
Read all the facts for yourself here. [drugwarfacts.org]
I agree that anyone who uses drugs instead of providing for their families or themselves shouldn't get much simpathy. But at the same time, they aren't
Hrmm (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Funny)
http://opt-out-lists.com@oem.com:24.112.8.23/?c
Who will be the first? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who will be the first to blame the owners of said unprotected relays for our spam woes, as opposed to the spammers themselves?
Re:Who will be the first? (Score:2)
It would be nice if it was still the August of the net and running an open relay was considered a courtesy to other users - but the spammers have spoiled that. Nowadays there's no excuse for running an open relay: if you do you're either evil or incompetent, and are a danger to the rest of the net.
Re:Who will be the first? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's not the owners of the relays who should be blamed, but the software suppliers instead. There are laws about defective products and software should be treated the same way. If a product is so badly designed that it becomes a public danger, then the company making it becomes liable, even if the buyer misuses it.
First step (Score:4, Interesting)
* "legal", clearly labeled spam: instant filter-fodder
* clearly illegal spam, where the feds might use their investigative muscle and send the perp to club fed.
While not perfect, I could live with that outcome.
So, how they gonna be sentenced? (Score:3, Funny)
10,000 Complaints (Score:3, Funny)
Not great but I'm hopeful (Score:3, Insightful)
Only 4? (Score:2, Insightful)
Looking in my today's inbox, that's no big difference...
Obligatory Heavy Metal Quote... (Score:3, Funny)
Burrrnin's too good for 'em...
(T)He(y) should be torn into little pieces and buried ALIVE!!!!
I'LL KILL HIIM! KILL!! STERRRRNNNNN!!!
Four charged but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Four charged but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Four charged but... (Score:2)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
CAN-SPAM is simply an enabling law.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those spams are rather easy to filter out, but I suspect it is a fairly small number of those 3,800, and the least annoying ones (because the filters take care of it). This law addresses the illegal spams, which have taken pains to make themselves hard to filter.
Thus far nobody's been prosecuted, and it's only recently that the punishm
People? (Score:4, Funny)
You're giving the spammers too much credit.
Further info (Score:4, Informative)
Note this detail: (Score:4, Informative)
So they do act. Everybody, remember to forward a copy of all your spam to uce@ftc.gov as well as the usual post to nanas and LART to abuse@wherever. It seems that if the FTC build enough info on a spammer then they really will do something about it!
Re:Note this detail: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep.. I was one of the domain owners who was joe-jobbed by these guys, and contacted by the FTC to provide them with copies of the complaints that I recevied.
Apparently anti-spam/anti-virus services were the main targets of their joe-jobbing.
That was a few months ago, February to be exact. It wasn't public because they didn't want to scare these guys off before they were ready.
Sweet! (Score:4, Funny)
As long as they don't have to send everyone an apology...
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
Burn the witches (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Burn the witches (Score:2, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, but they have. These are the two bit tech creeps that have several things that are attractive to Ralsky:
1. Technical knowledge. Ralsky is no technician. He's a sales man and business operator. He pays these guys to run his servers for him.
2. Foreign Language Skills: The Lins and Chung are obviously of Chinese heritage, and probably bilingual or trilingual to boot, able to correspond and communicate with the Chinese hosts who house Ralsky's servers (see this [spamhaus.org] and this [spamhaus.org]).
3. Young guys who can easily take the heat away from the master criminal in this case, Ralsky. Having a layer or two of personnel away from the kingpin is a classic way of lending plausible deniability for Ralsky. When asked if he knows any of the perps, he simply says, "I never saw them in my life." Bingo.
Now, instead of swooping in on Ralsky, you go after the little guys and get them to turn State's evidence in trade for an easier plea. The feds are doing this right: Approach the kingpin slowly via the little guys and *really* mount up the evidence against him, to make their own case against him *incontrovertible*.
As the owner of the negatives of Ralsky's house, I hope he fries, right along with the four other little fish.
Anyone up for a cookout??
Do you need CAN-SPAM insurance? (Score:2, Funny)
Click [here] if you do not wish to hear from any of our exclusive offers in the future.
Chinese servers (Score:3, Funny)
Let's hope... (Score:2, Funny)
Two people... (Score:5, Funny)
DJ245 writes "Two people at Slashdot have been charged with writing bad slashdot stories under the new Slashdot story guidelines. 'They are accused of using improper verb tense and not putting in a final conspiracy or troll wibble at the conclusion.'"
Fun Fun Fun! (Score:4, Funny)
Here's hoping that he sees this as his big chance to try the "insult the judge to his face every fifteen seconds" strategy he daydreamed about in law school.
Serve 1 day in jail for each spam email sent. (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps we could have them write:
"I am sorry for wasting people's time and resourses." Maybe 10 to the power of # spams sent.
--
Evidence??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remarks about spamming itself aside... one has to question the means they are using to charge these guys. How ambigious is this law if the only evidence they needed was, not that they were spamming, but whether the product they were spamming was legitamite.
This proves that politicans don't really care about technology. If this idea were applied to drug law, dealers would get arrested for selling sitty coke instead of getting hit for just selling coke.
but then of course, all these guys are on crack anyways...
-B
Re:Evidence??? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) illegal spamming
2) misleading adverts
3) selling snakeoil
etc.
it's called not putting all your eggs in the same basket. if spammers violate multiple acts and are charged under all of those, the police are likelier to get at least one conviction.
A tough problem (Score:3, Insightful)
My Neighbor Worked on This Case! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not in Detroit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Making the net safe for corporations that spam. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Wyatt Staton; bellyfull contribution father
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Tropes H. Li
Zombied a lawyer's computer (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife is a bakruptcy attorney (in the Detroit area), which means she deals with the federal bar and federal courts, instead of local district courts. Anyway, one of her counterparts across town had an Exchange server zombied. Somehow I think having a pissed-off federal lawyer probably caused more action than the "10,000 complaints" from regular joes cited in the article.
I guess the morale is: If you're going to commit cybercrime, don't do it against a lawyer.
West Bloomfield (Score:4, Interesting)
Complimentary summary & tin-foil discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
My first thought is,"What competent net-admin leaves their mail proxies wide open?" Then I happened across a post from a fellow who claimed that he was one of the victims of the spammers. The post indicated that the spammers had targeted spam-filters and anti-virus software running on his system to relay their material. Has he reported the vulnerabilities in this software? Is there a legitimate case for fraud against anti-virus and anti-spam software producers if their products open up just as many vulnerabilities as they fix? I'm not suggesting that we start feeding the lawyers like we feed trolls but perhaps, rather than laying off thousands of workers, upper management should start taking a more critical approach to the FUD they believe and the software that they buy to soothe their conscience while they're on the golf course.
Next I have to wonder about the 10,000 complaints received by the FTC. I find it hard to believe that most of the complaints were sent by private citizens. I don't know anyone that makes a practice out of e-mailing the FTC every time they receive an unwanted piece of mail. They're either hooked by the scam or they delete the spam. Some of the less educated will click the "remove me" link but I think most of us have learned better than to do that. The same fellow that claimed that he was part of one of the helplessly victimized corporations claimed that he had been sending some of the complaints to the FTC. If he was competent enough to track the spam and send complaints why could he have not simply closed the security holes in his system? Maybe there's no law defining it but this situation seems awfully similar to entrapment--the kind that catches a 12-year old that thinks they're getting away with the cookie jar.
Finally I have to wonder about the FTC and the types of spam you receive. I have a number of e-mail addresses and only one of them receives any spam on a regular basis. It's on hotmail and I've used it for more than seven years. That e-mail address saw my foolish college years and made its way to every mailing list possible when drinking commenced the Friday after final exams or in the extreme boredom of poverty embellished vacation time. Even after making it through those years, my hotmail address receives no kiddie porn, no animal porn, only select adult porn, and mostly just advertisements for home mortgages, debt reduction, escorts, or herbal medicines for weight loss or physical enhancement. So the question is: What mailing lists have people been getting involved in where they're plagued by all of the ultra-filthy, ultra-evil spam? Could the FTC use spam complaints as a method of profiling the alleged spam victim? It would be easy enough to correlate the type of spam that you receive with the places that you frequent on the 'net. Getting people hooked on finching on their neighbor may help them land themselves under surveillance or in hot water. While this is a Good Thing if we feel morally righteous enough to police each citizen as a potential criminal it doesn't help society as a whole to become a paranoid, frightened, distrustful police state. Well, maybe it helps some people. It helps to own the jail contract, the surveillance contract, or be the head of the Clerk of Court office.
While I'm glad to see that something is being done about spam it seems to me that the real solution to the problem lies not in catching the spam senders but rather in reforming the systems which aid them such as fraudulent or excessively marketed "catch-all" security programs, default holes in MS operating systems, less than qualified network administrators that leave their mail proxy open, and opportunistic federal agents that don't act until people band together to bait some dumb sucker and drop him in the lap of the prosecutor.
Typical Penalties (Score:3, Informative)
WANTED - James Lin and Daniel J. Lin (Score:3, Informative)
-
Arrest warrants are outstanding for defendants James Lin and Daniel J. Lin. In a criminal complaint issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office, these individuals have been charged with violations of the federal mail fraud laws as well as with criminal violations of the CAN-SPAM Act.
So if you know the whereabouts of those spammers, please contact the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. [usdoj.gov]The FTC also credits Spamhaus [spamhaus.org] in assisting with the investigation.
Re:Hit hard! (Score:3, Interesting)
Joking aside, the prohibition against "cruel and unusual" punishments simply means that the punishment must be in proportion to the crime according to generally accepted standards of criminal justice. If one adds up the amount of time and money wasted as a direct result of a single spam run, one can make a case that the punishment for spamming ought to be similar to that for kidnapping someone for several weeks and cleaning out