Spammer Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail 565
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, NC now has the dubious honor of being the first spammer sentenced to jail for the felony of spamming. Virginia judge Thomas Horne sentenced Jaynes to 9 years in prison based on a jury recommendation after he was convicted of sending out 10 million e-mails a day. Jaynes, who sent out much of his spam using the name "Gaven Stubberfield", has held a position on the SpamHaus Registry of Known Spam Operations for a long time.
Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed." Commentary on the sentence available at Forbes as well.
good move (Score:5, Insightful)
9 years too long? i don't think so. on what grounds would they win? did the people who bought penis enlargement pills give good feedback? when the law takes effect has no merit, he was sending 10 mil emails a day. just multiply that by 2 weeks.
He also has said the law is an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.
ok, let me come to your house, stuff hundreds of flyers a day at your front door, then say it's an unconstitutional infringement on free speech if i get stopped.
the article didn't mention what type of spam he was sending (but at 10mil/day, my guess is every kind).
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
You could commit a murder and probably get a similar sentence, if not shorter.
It really says something about society when you can get a harsher penalty for sending spam than you could for premeditated homicide.
- Tony
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell kind of world do we live in if a child raping bastard gets a potentially lighter sentence then a spammer?
I don't get it.
The right sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
As for rapists and murderers getting off easily, that needs to be dealt with as well. I'm not willin
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
If a prosecutor in the future can link Joe Spammer and Tom Bittorent user somehow and Joe spammer got 9 years, what do you think Tom's chances are?
Re:good move (Score:3, Interesting)
If they're only annoying because of quantity, but otherwise legitimate services, then I'd agree that jail does seem a dangerous path to be going down. I don't subscribe to jail being a good deterrent for minor offences.
OTOH, if the mails he were sending were badly fraudulent or dangerous, i.e. dodgy mortages, fake viagra (who knows what's in it?), credit card fraud, 419 scams etc then I think jailtime is deserved.
If someone defrauds a lot of people of a lot
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good move (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
When are the fucking ISP's going to be forced to shut these assholes down.
I forgot , they make money off them.
The Internet consortium needs to start shutting down ISP's if they don't act.
Isn't this like telephony fraud ?
Re:good move (Score:3, Interesting)
One murder deprives one person of 60 years. 10,000,000 spam deprive 10,000,000 people collectively of (for argument sake) 60 years. So, why is it more acceptable to harm many people a little? Or is it that the sentence is in line with murder because the collective harm is the same?
I'm tired of the "should someone go to jail for fraud" complaints when billions were stolen from millions of people (Enron, etc.). The harm is gr
Re:Does quantity mean nothing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does quantity mean nothing? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Does quantity mean nothing? (Score:3, Funny)
Yet another annoying opt-out scheme...
Re:good move (Score:3, Funny)
Sure they do. Down here in Sunny Florida, I have heard of two examples. 1. A drunk driver killed an innocent driver. The drunk guy got "involuntary manslaughter". I guess getting trashed and driving is "involuntary". 2. There were these two girls (I think 18+, but still young) that shoplifted some bathing suits. They ran out to their car and the security guard tried to get them to stop. They just ran the poor guy over and killed him! At trial
Re:good move (Score:3, Funny)
Is there _anyone_ that you actually love in life? A wife/husband, child or family member? If so, pretend I killed them when I was driving down the road piss drunk. Would you stand up in court and fight for me so that I didn't get
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
Murder is done purposefully (by definition). Manslaughter is not. Intent SHOULD be considered. The DD case is NOT voluntary, since said driver didn't INTEND to kill someone; it was an accident. Brought about by some poor judgements, but an accident none the less.
Same goes for the two girls (who are also handicapped in their decision making becaus
Re:good move (Score:3, Informative)
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the fact that here in New Jersey, a Rapist gets out in 3 years with good behavior. (They don't even call it rape here, it's 'sexual assault')
His crime was not a violent one, he shouldn't go to jail for 9 years. He should have to pay an insane fine, and be barred from going online for 10-20 years and give him 10 years probation. If he violates any of this, throw him in jail.
It's silly to throw someone in jail in a country where we already have an overcrowded jail system.
This man was simply a victim of being made an example of. There is no doubt that he should be punished, but 9 years in jail for a crime that just annoyed victims is a bit much. I'd much rather see rapists and murders get 20-40 years and let people like this get probation and fines. It's a waste of resources to lock someone like this up.
Re:good move (Score:2, Insightful)
He isn't in prison now while the case is being appealed, and there is a reason for that. On appeal, his prison sentence will be reduced to a slap-on-the-wrist level, or to probation with a hefty fine.
However, the result of his appeal likely won't be widely reported.
Re:good move (Score:5, Funny)
-get a rope......
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
You're comparing apples and oranges here. Time-sentenced is not the same as time-served - the two are very, very different. A sentence of nine years may very well translate to as little as a year of actual time served (with good behavior)!
> It's silly to throw someone in jail in a country where we already have an overcrowded jail system.
That's a separate issue, and I definitely agree with you there. But
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
Once those physical-mail spammers go to jail, I'll support this guy going to jail.
this is completely different and a bad analogy, it cost these stores money to send it out, and they don't send out in massive bulk quantities, once a week from safeway? who cares.
dozens of penis enlargement emails a day? now that's a big deal.
First they came for the spammers, but I wasn't a spammer, so I did nothing
Then they came for the copyrighted music theives, but commercial music sucks, so I didn't care
[cut]
you know how ridiculous you sound? spamming has NOTHING to with free speech, it's all about advertising, go read the first amendment, i'm not even american and i know enough about it.
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds dangerously close to charging for the priviledge to speak. Should only the landed gentry get a seat in Congress?
So, how do y
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
Thing is, while paper spam is a minor annoyance, digital spam threatens to make email completely useless for communication. You may get 2-3 commercial mailings a day, which you can track to a given address, and "return to sender" if you so desire, but try running an on-line mailbox which receives 200+ spams a day without a (potentially false-positive) spam filter.
Basica
Re:good move (Score:5, Insightful)
A better analogy would be if Wal-Mart sent hundreds of thousands of those ads out and sent them C.O.D.That would be a felonious act, as sending something C.O.D. without the permission of the recipient is considered mail fraud. This is no different except that it is being done electronically, and at a vastly larger scale than would be practical via postal mail, hence doing vastly more damage.
But the actions of spammers are worse than that. To be comparable, as people start asking the post office to refuse delivery of C.O.D. junk mail, Wal-Mart would have to start taking steps to conceal the nature of the C.O.D. mail to get it through anyway. That would make it mail fraud -and- harassment. Not to mention that it would also be mail fraud if those penis enlargement things don't really work, but that's a separate issue.
If you ask me, nine years is getting off really easy. This guy -had- to know that what he was doing was morally and ethically wrong and caused direct financial harm to hundreds of thousands of people. He did so with malice aforethought. He was barely getting by upon strict interpretation of the letter of laws whose intent was clearly to make such activity illegal. The laws changed so that the letter of the law matched the intent. He ignored them and got nailed.
I say make an example of him. Let him spend a few years behind bars thinking about what he has done, and make his release conditional upon him spending several additional years gathering evidence against other spammers to help haul them into jail as well. It's time to take back the people's internet from those who would destroy it in the name of advertising. I know that getting ad messages shoved in my face isn't the reason -I- pay an ISP for internet service, and I'd wager the same goes for everybody this guy spammed.
Re:good move (Score:2)
Re:good move (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good move (Score:3, Funny)
Re:good move (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of those WalMart flyers advertise fraudulent products?
Re:good move (Score:3, Funny)
Talk about an effective way to teach people to differentiate the two...
Heh heh... (Score:5, Funny)
A better punishment (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A better punishment (Score:2)
Re:A better punishment (Score:3, Funny)
I volunteer to get stoned.
Any takers for crucifixion?
What makes this guy different? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed.
Um, I know we hate spammers, but isn't that how the system is supposed to work so that people have every chance possible to prove their innocence?
Still, the temptation to make a ironic Viagra spam joke here is pretty strong.
Re:What makes this guy different? (Score:3, Informative)
what do you call this sentence? (Score:3, Funny)
Spammer Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spammer Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail (Score:2)
I'm sure manslaughter convictions have been much, much, less severe on
Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not.
Re:Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:2)
<grrr>
Re:Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:2)
Re:Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:2)
Heck there is no law AGAINST sending unsolicited email, but sending without following the regulations is against the law.
Re:Now, spamming is a Bad Thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
9 years? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is VERY annoying though, and he did irritate millions.
Wow, 9y is a long time, (Score:4, Funny)
Thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is NOT going to be a popular opinion here on slashdot... but...
9 years! That's an awful long time if you think about it. Especially for doing something that's pretty much being a mass annoyance.
I can understand going to jail for doing something fraudulent. Maybe that was the case with this fellow, even though no mention of fraud was mentioned in the article, and seemingly he wasn't charged with that either.
Some aspects of emailing deserve jailtime. Sending phony ads to phish people, yes. Using exploited computers to send spam, definately. But aren't there crimes for those already?
Also, consider the fact that it will cost roughly $50,000 / year to keep this guy in jail. That amounts to 450,000 dollars just to keep this guy from spamming us.
Taxpayers of Virginia, is keeping this guy off the street really worth that much to you? Taxpayers of any other state, would you really want to adopt laws like this?
One more thing about criminalizing spam that makes me uncomfortable is the whole free speech thing. Sure, it's speech that most of the time we don't want to hear, but if I send mass emails from my own machines without breaking into anything and without defrauding anyone, should I go to jail for this? After all, it seems nowadays that it's in style to characterize any speech that doesn't agree with American policy as terrorist-sympathizing. Does spam count as free speech too?
By all means, slashdotters let me know any rational arguments you can think of for criminalizing spam that doesn't include other forms of crime already.
He's the poster boy (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not, though, because to a lot of spammers, anything you didn't opt out of meant that you opted in. Bastards.
Re:Thoughts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds a lot more reasonable. Almost no one has gotten in trouble for sending spam before, and then all the sudden this guy gets hit with by an out of state law and gets sentenced to 9 years. Too many people have this notion that once someone is found guilty of a c
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Insightful)
The punishment has to start somewhere. As stated in many other situations, ignorance of the law is no excuse. He was responsible for knowing the laws and how they pertained to his actions. The Can Spam act went into effect in 2003, had he met its regulations he would have not been found guilty under this Virginia law. He had 2 years to clean up his act, and did not.
I'm sorry but I just don't buy the whole "But it onl
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Murder is clearly immoral. Spam, although incredibly annoying, has some arguements (which I don't agree with for it). Either way, I think making spam illegal in many cases is approriate.
The punishment has to start somewhere. As stated in many other situations, ignorance of the law is no excuse. He was responsible for knowing the laws and how they pertained to his actions. The Can Spam act went into effect in 2003,
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, if you defraud or outright steal (think: hijacked zombie computers), sure, that should be criminal. If you merely annoy from the comfort of your home, using your hardware, that should be purely a civil matter for which you should suffer perhaps severe penalties, but not incarceration.
Re:Thoughts... (Score:2)
2) The violation here was forging headers, not for spamming per se. Whatever you think of that law, it hardly supports your drama about being jailed for disagreeing with US policy.
Deterrence (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect that the real reason for the stiff sentence in this case is deterrence. He's being punished not just for his sins, but for the sins of everybody else who spams, to let them know that the law is real and that there will be serious punishment for getting caught.
Everybody who continued to spam after the law was put in effect wasn't merely being annoying: he was deliberately and consciously doing something illegal. Whether it should be illegal or not, he was flouting a law designed to reduce vast quantities of annoyance, as well as forcing people to spend large amounts of money and time fighting that annoyance.
So I agree that the punishment doesn't fit the crime (and you're hardly the only one to say that here on Slashdot.) Nor am I a huge fan of "making an example" of somebody; it seems a violation of the eighth amendment forbidding "cruel and unusual punishment".
With a bit of luck this is the harshest sentence ever to be handed down. That "luck" would be a bunch of spammers say, "Whoa, we've got to get out of this business". It won't be enough, but if it results in half as much spam I'll be half as annoyed, and I won't be crying any particular tears for this guy while it happens.
Or they may just move offshore, or use zombies, or hide better, etc. Hell, to avoid this law you need only move out of Virginia. But I suspect that at least a few spammers will decide that it's not profitable enough to risk jail now that jail is a very real possibility, and that's a few billion fewer spams we'll receive.
Re:Deterrence (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you bother to RTFA? Spamking, there, is a resident of North Carolina. The statute says if the traffic passes through Virginia, the law applies. Some insane percentage (70%?) of internet traffic flows through northern Virginia (UUNet, Sprint, etc have backbones there), and the world's largest ISP is headquartered in Virginia.
Re:Thoughts... (Score:2)
And how much was he costing us? My small college just had to shell out for a spam blocking server because the load from the 60-70% of our email that was spam was killing our mail server. Then we had to have our network tech spend time installing it, configuring it and of course making sure it doesn't kill stuff like the dozens of mailing lists most faculty are on. And I'm not even counting the time people on campus have wasted deali
Re:Thoughts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Try doing this... go to a school, stand out front, and start reading some xxx stories
Re:Thoughts... (Score:2)
Yes. I'm a resident of VA, and I would gladly pay for this. The real reason being that this sets a precedent.
Re:Thoughts... (Score:2)
Sure, spam, like most forms of theft, is really just annoying. Someone steals your car? Well, there is a whole bunch of paper work to go through, but eventually you will get a new car from your insurance company. Sure, a huge amount of money has to be poured into the system in order to make the car theft just an annoyance, but it isn't like anyone was really hurt.
The same
Re:Thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy made $750K per month [spamfo.co.uk] defrauding people with his sham product, so before you say "wow! 9 for just spamming, realize that spoofing email headers was just his mechanism for delivering his con game to millions of people per day in order to take advantage of that "sucker born every minute" that falls for get rich quick schemes that require them to send $30 to "find out how they can get rich quick with FedEx refunds".
I don't feel sorry for this criminal. Considering the guy will be out in 3 years with good behavior, I think the punishment is a fine fit for the crimes this man commited.
Then again, my
Re:Thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)
But then, why not charge him with fraud? After all, that's crime already exists.
Why charge him on spam alone? It's kind of like breaking a window to get into a house, robbing the people inside, and gunning them down, only to get charged with destruction of property.
If he is a fraudster, then he is a fraudster. Get him on that count, right?
Makes me wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
Convict: What are you in for?
Jeremy Jaynes: um... spam.
He's somebody's bitch for sure...
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm. I don't agree with that. Being put in prison should be punishment enough, without the HIV risk.
Still, it's interesting and amusing to wonder whether they'll have to keep him in solitary to keep him away from the nonces on account of the violence they'd do to him... :-)
aside from the Viagra+don't drop the soap jokes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:aside from the Viagra+don't drop the soap jokes (Score:2)
Probably none what-so-ever. He's not reviled like child molestors. He's got no street-cred like bikers and gangsters or any of the 'real' criminals.
Just another low-interest, white-collar guy who would have to fend for himself.
Though, from my minimal understanding, that doesn't exactly put him in a good position either.
Re:aside from the Viagra+don't drop the soap jokes (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, the myth of the rough justice karmic system in jail is highly disturbing: This seeming belief that federal prisoners are all bad people, but not bad bad, and they mete out justice to the truly bad people.
Child diddlers get killed in prison when it gets someone some fame, and maybe they dream that it'll get them some retribution in the good book. Howev
Re:aside from the Viagra+don't drop the soap jokes (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone in the Dept. of Corrections knows about the constant rape and torture of inmates, by inmates, and yet have done little to fix the problem in a century.
Sentencing someone to rape is cruel and unusual by any stretch of the term.
At any rate, prison makes bad people worse. There are dangers to society that need to be locked away, but the attitude of "throw everyone in for everything" is really warped. In my state, it's a manditory 10 years for being busted for anything drug related within 5 miles of a school. Get out a map of your city or town - unless you're way out on the farm, EVERYONE lives within 5 miles of a school. Erego, every college kid busted with a half a doobie gets his life ruined.
And then theres the practice of civil forfeiture, a great way to get around the constitutional protection to be able to refuse to testify against your spouse. "Mrs Malda, either you testify that Rob was selling crack to 6 year olds, or we take your home, car, all your money, and then put your kids into protective custody so you'll never see them again"
Cheer all you want about this, slashbots, this just sets a precedent for when you're in front of a Judge for downloading those Metallica mp3s. After all, a computer crime is computer crime to a clueless jury. Hell, the DMCA calls for even stiffer penalties than this, should you dare modify that PS2 to play copied titles.
Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? (Score:2, Redundant)
I think he should be sentenced to 9 years of phone tech support at minimum wage with no raises and no opportunity for advancement.
OR
He should be forced to be a human spam filter at AOL for 9 years at minimum wage with no raises and no opportunity for advancement.
I'd rather go to jail than face that cruel and unusual punishment.
Re:Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy did not send a couple emails. He sent 10,000,000 emails a DAY. Do you know how much that can cost companies? It translates into real money lost. Try talking to any sysadmin that's had to deal with this.
Re:Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? (Score:2)
You forgot to add "in Bangalore".
Not "Unfortunately " (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "Unfortunately" - the right to appeal is a Good Thing (TM).
The right not to be punished while the case is under appeal is also a Good Thing (TM)
Is this reasonable? (Score:2, Redundant)
Hooray! (Score:2)
Althought past studies have proven that most of the worlds spam comes from the good ol' US of A, I have to wonder if punishments such as this will actually slow down the flow of spam, or if it'll push the criminals out of the country, and increase the amount from foreign countries. As much as I hate it, there's still a lot of money in Spam it appears, and I'm sure that there's quite a f
Ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But 9 years in prison for it? You could easily spend less time than that for a violent felony.
And if, as might be the case, the sentence was due not to sending mail, but due to using open relays / forging headers... We already have laws against fraud and the like.
I despise spammers, but this guy's going to spend 3,287 days behind bars. For annoying people.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Informative)
Think about this from the perspective of corporate companies. Everyday real money (significant amounts) are being spent to combat spam. Real resources must be hired, time is spent and hardware is acquired in order to accomodate spam. This translates into a real expenditure for enterprise-leve companies.
I'm not saying it's completely justified but I don't think you have the full picture.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
EXACTLY. People typically serve less time than this for murder.
What does this mean?
It means you are better off if you kill the witnesses.
Now let's get the STreet Spam crowd (Score:2)
9 years anyone?
AIK
Jail (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Woohoo! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, this guy will probably be out in 2 years, maybe 3. I think a more applicable punishment is removing these people from using electronic means. Like what the FBI and Secret Service used to do the "hacker" community. Take away their right to use a computer. Jail time or no, thats what is really going to stop these people from sending out spam.
Just my 2 cents.
Time for a deterrent (Score:3, Insightful)
A Fair Sentence-- (Score:3, Interesting)
Let them think on that for a while.... Heh.
(For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that would be approximately 11.5 days per 1 million email spam messages).
9 years is a little much... (Score:2)
People bought his products (Score:3, Interesting)
You can see why getting into this business is so tempting... Nearly four hundred thousand dollars in one month. As long as people keep buying, spammers will keep spamming...
Isn't This Too Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, really... nine years?
Isn't that a bit much? He won't be serving all that time, of course, but it's a lot of time for spamming.
Wouldn't a better punishment be somethign vaguely like what they did to Mitnick? Forbid the guy from holding any sort of computer-related occupation for ten years. No computer for more than recreational purposes -- oh, heck, he doesn't need to play HL2, no computer at all. No opportunity to spam, and he'll have to make it or break it in a real job (for values of 'real job' which do not include 'IT jobs.') If he's smart, he can do office clerk work, maybe work his way up to office manager (he just can't work anywhere where the office manager also has to manage the computer system.) If he can't hack that, he goes into fastfood or retail. And if he absolutely can't make a living doing something other than spamming... ladies and gentlemen, we have here a dysfunctional human being.
Compared to Mitnick, he'll still be getting off easy. But it makes a lot more sense than nine years in jail. And the taxpayers aren't paying for his stay in the slam.
And if you want to get really creative, have him subscribed to every junk mail list in existence... with no opt-out.
I don't know, it just seems like nine years is ridiculous when we don't even put away physically violent felons for that long.
How many emails made it to actual eyeballs? (Score:3, Interesting)
10M spams sent != 10M people annoyed. I'd be curious to know how many messages were...
actually sent to valid addresses to begin with?
dumped by relay-based filters (ORDB, etc)?
screened by off-the-shelf anti-spam/virus s/w?
screened by custom filters?
deleted without opening?
Sure, maybe 10M were sent, but I suspect a VERY small percentage actually made it to eyeballs. And of further interest: for the ones that actually did make it to eyeballs, what percentage of those viewers actually responded to the offer? Obviously, someone is out there responding to this crap if they keep sending it.
Criminals are not usually charged with crimes based on the number of bullets they fired at a victim; rather, they are charged with the results of the bullet[s] striking the victim. New crimes may include; attempted spam, involuntary spam-slaughter, accidental spam, self-defense through use of deadly spam, statatory spam.
Hmmm... statatory spam? Now that's interesting. What if your ad for pr0n makes it to a kid's in-box?
White collar vs Blue Collar crime... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a lot of people decrying the 9-year length of sentence as excessive. I'd like to promote the idea that its actually lenient, given the harm to society.
First, for those who haven't RTFA, this guy's crime wasn't just "spamming", it was the electronic equivalent of mail fraud. Take a look here [crimes-of-persuasion.com] for mail fraud penalties. Yup - that's right. Up to 5 YEARS per occurance. Not per person actually defrauded, but per mail sent.
Furthermore, we seem to want to punish "blue collar" crime (physical violence and theft) as somehow more heinous than "white collar" crime (usually fraud and theft of money or intangible property). As a poster above noted, blue collar crime tends to have a severe impact on a very limited number of people, though in the aggregate it also attacks a locality's social fabric (consider the number of violent crimes in someplace like South Central LA and the correlation to property values there). White collar crime, however, tends to impact a large number of people to a lesser extent, but also directly attacks the fundamental underpinnings of the society: in particular, the fundamental trust in fairness and shared responsibility that is essential for modern societies to function.
Fraud in particular is a particularly heinous crime from a societal standpoint, as it attacks the basic trust we put in financial transactions. A CEO giggering quarterly numbers is doing more than just cheating some stockholders out of a few cents in stock price - he's attacking the whole investing system which depends on truth in information dissemination. For if investors can't trust that a company's 10k annual report has real numbers, how can they invest?
White collar crime needs to be far more heavily punished than it currently is. And, it is much more deterred by increased prosecution and higher penalties than blue collar crime. Blue collar crime is generally only deterred by increased police presence (i.e. preventative measures) and not by increased penalties. White collar crime, on the other hand, generally shows a strong correlation to the likelihood of prosecution and severity of penalty. This is due to the fact that most white collar crime is committed by the more wealthy segment of the population, who generally do a risk analysis before committing the crime (i.e. "I'll steal $100,000 from the company, if I'm only 10% likely to get caught and only face 3 months in jail, but won't steal if I've a 50% chance of getting caught or if the sentence will be 5 years").
Also, remember that as "non-violent" criminals, white collar criminals tend to get put in low-security prisons, which cost much less to maintain than those in for violent crimes.
Overall, I'd like to see us start to put the emphasis on white collar crime instead of blue collar crime. In the big picture, I think it's far more damaging to society, and is far more frequent than people think.
There are some issues with this case (more specificly, the technicalities of the anti-spam law), but in the big picture, I think the sentence is exceedingly fair.
-Erik
Male Rape (Score:3, Informative)
The penalty must be harsh... (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize that prison may not be much of a deterrent of crime of any kind, but I'd wager that if you just fined spammers or gave them a few years that there'd be absolutely no decline in the number of spammers flooding our e-mail with crap.
It [the spam problem] continues because it is so easy and cheap to get away with -- and till now, there's no punishment.
Add publicly announced huge fines and long jail terms to the mix and at maybe a few would-be spammers would at least think twice before taking part.
Re:You got a real purty mouth... (Score:3, Insightful)
What - do you think Kevin Mitnick started a gang while he was in there?
No offense to residents of our correctional institutions, but I doubt most of them are in there because they went postal on their mailserver.
Re:Does more harm than good. (Score:2)
And what, the software vendors have been holding it back much the way conspiracy theorists like to say oil companies do with the formula that converts water to gasoline?
There are easy technical solutions. Personally, I simply bounce all HTML email to the sender and ask them to re-send as text, and my account that used to have hundreds of spam
Re:Does more harm than good. (Score:3)
Re:Does more harm than good. (Score:2)
If it wasn't for your creative spelling I would have probably called you a spam apologist (or even a spammer) after reading your first line.
There are easy technical solutions.
Either you're ignorant or you really ARE a spam apologist. Do you really think internet bandwidth is free? Who do you think pays for it? A number of years back I recall a statement from AOL that indicated something like 25% of the cost of their subscriptions was
Re:Does more harm than good. (Score:2)
The only real solution is to creat some kind of centralized registry for mailservers. To run a mailserver, you'd have to prove you weren't a spammer, prove your server is configured correctly, etc.
Then, every mail could be checked against the "registry". Basically, a universal "whitelist" system. Obviously, you'd have to have some kind of key-based encryption scheme in there to verify which servers are actually whitelisted.
Of course, doing this would require worldwi