I read this morning that a Virginia judge sentenced a spammer to nine years in prison for spamming. He was clearing about 750k a month in income from his spam business, using multiple T1’s and many networks of computers (obviously), and apparently sending out tens of millions of e-mails a day. The law he was convicted under is only two weeks old and is under serious question for constitutional implications.
I have no idea, based on the articles I’ve read, what kind of spammer this person was. If he was sending out phishing e-mails, then nine years is a fitting and lenient sentence. However, if he was simply sending typical porn, prescription drug, refinancing (etc) spam, then I think this sentence is heavy-handed and ignorant. His co-defendants both were acquitted of similar charges. Either they rolled over on the guy or, the charges were too weak to stick so, they went after the money.
I hate (no, loathe) spam as much as anyone. I have been fighting it for well over 8 years now as an email administrator and user. I can’t stand what has happened to email as well as the burden it has placed on the the internet in terms of bandwidth. But, nine years of a mans life for exploiting known weaknesses in email standards and filtering technologies? Thats just far too harsh for my taste. If the terms of this law aren’t defined clearly in a technologically responsible manner, then the next time your mom sends you a chain letter, she may become a federal criminal. Typically and historically, this is not the case when politicians try to legistlate technology crimes. We’ve been subjected to judicial branch and law enforcement foolishness so many times, I’d think we’d have established a mechanism to ensure these laws are reasonable and sound. Not that we have a history of doing that either.
I still can’t fathom how unsolicited email can be thought of as different from unsolicited regular mail. Except that a government employee hand delivers it to me. I’m not sure how they differ to this day. Well, don’t get me wrong here. If this person was trying to get people to update their bank accounts, paypal accounts, ebay accounts, retirement accounts, etc… then stealing their money, data, or identities, then I can see such as sentence.