‘Last time out I suggested sentencing spammers to some quality time in a maximum security cell with an ex-biker named ‘Tiny.’ But I think that’s too good for these people. They should be strung up by their thumbs and forced to watch ShamWow infomercials and Rick Astley videos until their ears bleed.’ Robert Cringely, InfoWorld 1
I’m not sure why, but Cringely’s article brought to mind a phone call I received, several years ago, from a very worried-sounding client – an ISP owner. He was holding a subpoena and awaiting the imminent arrival of Secret Service agents. Apparently, then-President Bill Clinton had received some threatening emails that had been sent from our client’s mail server, and our client needed help to track down the culprit.
He had his mail server, a RADIUS server, the logs from both, and the time stamps and transmission IP from the message headers. That was all the information Yves (our resident guru) needed: the culprit was pinpointed and confirmed in roughly 20 minutes or less. It all sounds rather quaint now, doesn’t it?
I always wondered what happened to the emailer! he was probably just let go with a warning.
Fast-forward 10 years, and gone are the days of basement-dwelling cranksters and pranksters. Spammers, scammers and cyberthieves have formed sophisticated international gangs who are now about as easy to catch as greased lightning.
If you know a thing or two about spammers, you’ve likely heard of Alan M. Ralsky, the self-proclaimed ‘Godfather of spam.’ He is thought to have begun his mass-mailing career in 1997, but was only prosecuted this past November 2. Despite the fact that he bragged about his exploits; was interviewed, named and quoted in an article in USA Today (in 2003); and had mountains of electronic evidence piled against him and his cohorts, the prosecutors felt they couldn’t rely on the data alone to secure a conviction. The prosecutors’ case finally solidified when some of the culprits agreed to plead guilty and turn on each other.
His punishment: 51 months in prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release and a forfeit of $250,000. 51 months in prison could equal an unfathomable number of ShamWow commercials But, given that one of his partners in crime was named Tribble, I would also have forced him to watch a continuous looping of the Star Trek episodes, ‘The Trouble with Tribbles!’3
References:
1. http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/spam-no-thank-you-mam-105?source=footer
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3kHy4fqtpU&feature=related
In order to keep them busy in prison, maybe the legal system should force the convicted spammers to manually filter spam in an organization, making sure they have to read every single email completely before they can block it or let it through. Fight fire with fire as they say.
I certainly wouldn’t allow him to compete in the Olympics, such as was done with Dale Begg-Smith. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10454774-38.html Why do we permit this idiot to go out in public? He ought to be hunted down, imprisoned and have his stuff shut down. He’s probably in Australia due to that country’s laws regarding SPAMming.