First US Spammer Jailed

[chilipie]

A man has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Virginia judge for sending millions of junk emails, or "spamming".

Full Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4426949.stm

[JamieR]

dam:eek: > criminal punishment eh:p

[royall]

Its all over the place:
http://img117.exs.cx/img117/7539/screenshot27iz.jpg
http://img135.exs.cx/img135/5611/screenshot34jg.jpg

[cfc]

Nine years seems pretty excessive.

[Crake]

i dident know tht spamming was illegal 9 years! he ent gonna send anuva email after that! :D

[JamieR]

it is.....I think it comes under virus writing in the eyes of the law..however, I heard something about people find spam more annoying than crap like viruses/worms etc...

[jkd]

it is.....I think it comes under virus writing in the eyes of the law..however, I heard something about people find spam more annoying than crap like viruses/worms etc...

I can get a virus off a computer once it is on. I cannot get an email address off a spammer's list, however, once it is on.

[codegoboom]

What was it... four felony counts @ five years each? (Perhaps he got off easy.)
Spam in the Twilight Zone (http://www.disenchanted.com/dis/technology/commodities.html)...

[JamieR]

Yeh true, I heard the result from a poll a while back:p - has anyone tried Norton Antispam? I know I rant about how I don't like NAV, Antispam was a good program to have around as you could train it to catch new spam. However, it caught plenty of legitimate email.

Anyhoo...9 years does seem a little excessive, but I suppose all the people who he targeted will be glad he has been caught.

[whackaxe]

i can just imagine him coming out of prison:


-muahaha, back to buisness! let me find lots of unprotected win XP machines to send my spam from!"

-dude, People gave Microsoft the finger the day they got a clue about computer security. everyone's running telepathic-Linux with KDE-eyeball 5.6 plugging directly into your retina, n00b!"

-ok, ok, but I bet the demand for viagra hasn't gone down!

-pfffft, Sex is so obsolete.


ok, maybe that would be for a 90 year sentence :p




*sorry, saturday night ravings :)

[Graft-Creative]

So when they gonna start sending people to jail for all the sh*t I get through my front door letter box?

How many un-requested postal mails are sent by gas/electric/mortgage/loan companies per month?

Seems very excessive to me - a guy can smash a beer glass in your face and get a nine month suspended sentence - what's going on?

The sentence seems to be based on how much money the guy was making, rather than the damage he was causing.

Gary

[Crake]

but the money he was making was coming from the people he was spamming and that is also classed as theft i gues... :confused: i dunno realy.... :rolleyes:

[JamieR]

true I suppose...whats the percentage of people who actually buy something via a link in a spam email? > I bet it's quite low.

[Crake]

thats gotta be alot of emails sent its not like a hunderd i bet hes done thousends! so lets say one in every 50 people clicked on a link thats gotta be at least 200 people scammed :confused:

[anarchy3200]

From BBC news:

He is believed to have sent some 10m unwanted emails a day.

[JamieR]

lol..and Microsoft and Pfizer have joined together to try to get rid of the online Viagra scams:eek: > I wonder if the 'viagra' you buy from these illegal online shops is really viagra:D