quote: LEESBURG, Va. -- Three people who allegedly sent America Online customers millions of junk e-mail messages touting penny stocks and other Internet gimmicks went on trial Tuesday in the nation's first such felony case.
The defendants are being tried under a 2003 Virginia anti-spam law that prosecutors say is the harshest of its kind in the nation.
The three face up to 15 years in prison if convicted on all three counts.
Assistant Attorney General Russell McGuire told jurors that on one day alone in July 2003, defendant Jeremy Jaynes sent or attempted to send 7.7 million e-mail messages to AOL customers using false identities or bogus company names. The goal of the messages was to sell software that would allow a person to work from home as a "FedEx refund processor" or that would help them pick the right penny stocks.
He said the suspects used false identities to evade AOL's spam filters.
"When you masquerade your identity, that's when you have a problem," McGuire said.
I can only speak for myself, but spam takes up a whole of about a minute each of my day. I don't think someone should be locked up for 15 years for that minor of an inconvience.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
One minute of the day times 7.7 million of those minutes equals around 5347 days, which is 14.65 years. The sentencing sounds about right to me.
posted
Well, they're serving 5.86 seconds per person they inconvenienced. That sounds about right to me. If I inconvenienced and pissed off nearly 8 million people doing something for which there is a law against, I'd probably expect to spend a few years in prison.
Seriously though, my issues are less with spammers than with spyware and malware developers and corporations. I'd personally like to see the entire Gator Corporation (now Clara or some such) spend a few decades in prison as well. I suppose they'll be next.
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Haha, it's so funny, the spammers getting in trouble. Those guys make me so angry! They deserve to be locked in prison for 15 years! I mean think of all the hassle they've caused me. It's basically like murder.
Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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So? Don't you think it's a bit much for annoying people?
If they were actively hurting people, yes, I could understand it, but they're not, they're annoying people for a minute until the person goes on to their work and forgets about it.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Look, at best Spammers are guilty of false advertising. At worst they're guilty of fraud. Either case (or anything in between), when carried across nearly 8 million people, is a massive issue and an equally massive problem. Computers have simply made it that much simpler to commit such crimes.
WARNING: BAD ANALOGY (because I just have to bring up guns). It doesn't matter if you kill someone with your hands, a knife, or a gun. The crime is the same, there are just variations in simplicity and personal contact. To me, the issues with spammers falls along the same lines.
Though I do agree with the whole 15 years in prison is a bit harsh, and doesn't entirely fit the crime. I'd much rather see them banned from using any computer more complex than a toaster. For life. But I suspect, like so many of my personally preferred punishments, would be cruel and unusual.
posted
To clarify, I'm taking issue with the fifteen year sentence, not with the idea of them being prosecuted. There are rapists who get off with less than a fifteen year sentence. Personally, I find rape, although it only affects one person, many times worse than spam mail, although spam mail affects millions.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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According to it, a person can be charged with a class 6 felony if a person
quote: Uses a computer or computer network with the intent to falsify or forge electronic mail transmission information or other routing information in any manner in connection with the transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic mail through or into the computer network of an electronic mail service provider or its subscribers
This is the same level of felony that Virginia gives to cyber-stalking and and harassment over the internet.
They determine guilt by volume in this law, a person is guilty if
quote: The volume of [Unsolicited Bulk Email] transmitted exceeded 10,000 attempted recipients in any 24-hour period, 100,000 attempted recipients in any 30-day time period, or one million attempted recipients in any one-year time period; or
They sent 7 million emails, some people probably got more than one. It seems to me that this would certainly qualify as harassment. If a person wants to run a legitimate business doing spam, they should take the time to learn the law concerning it. Now, the 15 year sentence is a maximum. It doesn't mention the minimum sentence. I'd imagine it's probably something between 6 months and a year or so for each count.
[ October 26, 2004, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: Boris ]
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Go ahead, fling your legalities at me. But as a person, I find it ABSURD to sentance someone to 15 years of their life for being a mild nuisance. 5 years? Maybe. 15? Cruel!
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
I don't like it. I hate spam as much as the next upstanding citizen, and I'm well aware of reports detailing the exponential increase of Internet spam and the eventual critical point it can reach concerning both mail servers and individual inboxes, but this is a restriction on free speech. Would it be different if "the transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic mail" was of a political nature?
If they're selling the gold of Nigerian princes, okay, get the bastards on fraud. But if it's just ordinary (if obnoxious) buy-this-buy-this-now commercialism?
I can't see letting that be a crime, much less one punishable by a prison sentence.
This may be a restriction on free speech people are willing to accept -- an FCC of the Internet. But restricting free speech, especially on the Internet -- long considered, at least by my understanding, hallowed ground for that right -- rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn't mind watching these bastards have their case dismissed and the law challenged, no matter how little I may like them or how much I hate their product. There must be a better way of stopping them than legislation against their right to free communication. I can see a free-market solution of an independent organization, a Norton of mail servers, developing advanced filters then marketing them to Yahoo and Hotmail and the like.
It's raining hard, and jesus that's a beautiful sound -- I'm going for a walk.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Mild nuisance? I only get a couple of dozen spams a day. That's not much. But some of it has been porn, and I have chosen a lifestyle that does not include porn. They are forcing me to receive images that I consciously chose to not have as a part of my life.
My brother, a computer programmer, receives in excess of 500 spam a day. That was the count he last gave me a year ago. It detracts away from time that he could better use to respond to or read legitimate email, or program, or anything else he wanted to do. And yes, spam filters are great, but they don't catch everything, and they sometimes catch things that ought not to be caught.
Sure, maybe you only receive one spam a week or one spam a day. You're lucky.
How, exactly, is 500 spam a day a mild nuisance?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
quidscribis: there are many email clients out there which will not download images until you specifically tell them to do so for a message, and by far more porn and other spams will be obvious as spam without downloading the images.
posted
And also, its not terribly hard to have a spam filter which filters out 99.9% of spam. At that rate, 500 spams a day is still just a mild nuisance.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
That's why these guys are being tried. The method they use breaks through every possible spam filter by mimicking a legitimate mail route, possibly even mimicking an address that would seem normal to someone. That is fraudulant. Now, I think 15 years is a bit much for this myself, but like the article said, that's a MAXIMUM and it's for a class 6 felony. Another popular class 6 felony is the illegal sale of guns and/or marijuana. Or how about Identity Theft? That's a class 6 felony as well. I seriously doubt these guys would get even a fifth of the maximum sentence. The courts classify felonies to make it easier to determine a justifiable sentence for a criminal. Usually the range of a single class of felony is pretty wide. So anyway, if anyone asks after this post why these guys are getting 15 years for this, read this post again, it spells it out real simple. I don't think there are many judges that would seriously give someone 15 years for sending spam. I'd imagine it will be closer to 3 years, if that. Unless of course the judge has to deal with too much spam as well.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I think your technical understanding may be somewhat limited. Spam is often caught through pattern matching of various kinds (including the very flexible and adept Bayesian filter), as well as community polling (did most recipients so far think it was spam? Then its likely spam) and other methods. I know of no well respected spam filter that relies exclusively or even primarily on sender.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yes, I can prevent images from automatically showing up. I've done that.
And yes, I can - and so can everyone else out there - use spam filters to prevent most spam from coming through.
But . . . I (and everyone else, too) have to go to concerted efforts to install software, set up filters, update software, et cetera ad nauseum to keep on top of spam so I don't get inundated with them. And not all spam is caught, and sometimes, good email goes out with the bathwater.
a. That's time that I (and everyone else, too) could be using doing other things I would rather be doing. It's not just the time spent checking email and throwing out spam. It's also the time doing everything else to prevent spam. Those spammers can't give me my time back. b. I have to make a concerted effort to stop me from receiving things that I don't want, didn't express an interest in, didn't sign up for, and otherwise didn't ask for. It's harassment. c. It's time that I don't get back. See a. d. What about the time/money that's used on all these anti-spam measures? Even if I don't pay for my anti-spam software, someone, somewhere, had to code that program, perhaps for altruistic reasons, and that's time they could have used in other ways.
Spammers generally forge headers, use alternate identities, etc. to hide their identities, their whereabouts, and all that. We can't tell them we don't want spam because that just tells them they have a valid email, and we receive exponentially more spam.
A lot of the spam is fraudulent. Bald faced lies. Coerce money out of people for products/services that won't deliver what's promised.
Multiply this over the millions of people who experience spam every day.
So again, how is this a mild inconvenience?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
That's not how spam is caught, mostly. Spam is often caught through pattern matching of various kinds (including the very flexible and adept Bayesian filter), as well as community polling (did most recipients so far think it was spam? Then its likely spam) and other methods. I know of no well respected spam filter that relies exclusively or even primarily on sender.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Oh, I don't think spamming is okay, I just think that they're not forcing you to view pornographic images, which is also true. Lets base our arguments against spammers on what spam really does rather than trumped up examples.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Before spam filters were created or caught up with spamming trends, they DID in fact force people to view pornographic images. Unless you consider it a reasonable option to just stop receiving all email.
Let us also consider also the many people - the majority of people, I would hazard a guess - who don't know where to get such filters, how to set them up or otherwise use them, and have no idea how to block images. What about them?
posted
? What turns off the images isn't the spam filter, its the client software. While it has only recently become common for client software to be able to selectively turn off spam images, it has been possible for a good number of years to turn off images in all messages unless commanded otherwise in a particular instance in most email clients. Its usually quite clearly marked in the preferences, and many email clients are starting to do it automatically by default.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
And there was an "and" separating the thoughts about spam filters and the thought about turning off images.
And there are still a great many people who have difficulty with software of any kind, no matter how simplistic it may seem to you. These are legitimate considerations, no matter how you may dismiss them.
quote: That's not how spam is caught, mostly. Spam is often caught through pattern matching of various kinds (including the very flexible and adept Bayesian filter), as well as community polling (did most recipients so far think it was spam? Then its likely spam) and other methods. I know of no well respected spam filter that relies exclusively or even primarily on sender.
Spam filters also use the same method to determine something that is NOT spam. An auto-mail from FedEx would be an example. (Note how they used FedEx refund processor as a bogus job to break past the filter). But then, I guess you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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