How Do You Punish a 16-year-old Spammer?

An anonymous reader writes "A 16 year old 'Boy Spammer', David Lennon, has been told by a judge that as punishment for his crimes he can't leave his bedroom for two months during curfew. CNET thinks this is no punishment at all: "With the streets awash with axe murderers, terrorists and paedophiles, staying in and playing games seems like a reasonable response. Given that our kids are growing up as stay-in gamers, the Boy Spammer's curfew is no more punishment for the blighter than sentencing a boy caught speeding to two months on a race track." Apparently Lennon used a piece of email bombing software called Avalanche to wreak revenge on his ex-employer, Domestic and General Group. His five million emails contained the message "You will die in seven days.""

Community service

[BWJones]

Tell a 16 year old to stay in the bedroom? Well hey, don't throw me in the briar patch!

No, what this kid should be doing is community service. Work in a soup kitchen, pick up garbage by the side of the road, help out his common man by distributing clothes in an inner city, something like that. In addition, I'd like to see him have all private computer access restricted (can only use a computer in the presence of an adult until he demonstrates he can act like an adult) and to undergo some sort of therapy to deal with his anti-social mores as sending out emails saying "you will die in seven days" is pretty sick. This is not punishment per se, however. I see it more as societal rehabilitation.

Maybe this was just me..

[zyl0x]

..but video games were still around when I was a kid. Being grounded to my room included the removal of anything that I could enjoy doing. I don't understand why they don't just take his computer away..

Re:Community service

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

No, what this kid should be doing is community service. Work in a soup kitchen, pick up garbage by the side of the road, help out his common man by distributing clothes in an inner city, something like that.

Indeed, something like that - I'd go for the poetic justice punishment however. Something like cleaning badware off the local library's windows 98 internet PCs. Every day, all day for two months (its the sort of job where when you finish one PC, the last one's allready been reinfected.)

Alternative Punishment:

[Mongoose Disciple]

How about:

He's allowed to have only one e-mail address for the rest of his life, which has no spam filtering. This e-mail address is provided to everyone he spammed, who are encouraged to sign him up for whatever mailing lists they choose.

Not spam

[skraps]

Sending "you will die in seven days" millions of times to your ex-employer does not qualify as spamming in my book. He wasn't sending advertisements. He wasn't collecting personal information to resell. He wasn't doing anything that typically qualifies as spamming.

This is just plain old harassment, and the punishment sounds fine.

Where's the computer?

[mccalli]

he can't leave his bedroom for two months during curfew.

Err...where's his computer located?

Cheers,
Ian

Had he downloaded one song or duplicated one disk

[monopole]

He'd be facing federal charges, and a civil suit that would ruin him financially. But since he's a spammer who does real and quantifible damage to productivity, as well as making e-mail increasingly less viable he gets a slap on the wrist.

Re:Community service

[Billly Gates]

... and limit computer access.

If you did this to me at 16 years old ... or hell even now.. I would be go insane.

How do you know he wont be playing Wow or spamming more people for profit.

Re:Community service

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Therapy to deal with or understand root causes of destructive behavior does not abrogate responsibility for that behavior. "lol".

Re:I remembered:

[RingDev]

And thus the reason as a father now I have a very strict no-PCs, laptops, or TVs in bedrooms rule. That PC is going to continue to sit in the dinning room with the monitor positioned so that it can be seen from the kitchen, dinning room, and living room.

-Rick

Re:Not spam

[jfengel]

And most importantly, he was sending it to just one person. To be spam in my book it's got to be sent to a lot of different people without trying to target your audience.

So I concur with you: he's still an asshole, just not a spamming-asshole. Being sent to his room (without even depriving him of supper) may be a tad weak for an attack which had at least the potential to do economic harm, as well as containing an tone of violent threat, but it doesn't merit the sort if massive ire that true spammers have earned.

Re:Community service

[Bodrius]

Or, he's a minor and society should deal with him with rehabilitation as the primary purpose.

Society tends to consider minors as 'not fully accountable for their actions'. Forcing therapy as part of the deal would at least be consistent with other cases where the defendant is considered only partially responsible for the crime due to mitigating circumstances, like temporary or permanent insanity, addictions, or being a multimillionare celebrity in an intoxicated state.

Re:Heres what I would do....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this being modded as funny? His punishment should be comparable to the irritation that he caused to the rest of the world. Maybe hand-writing each email is a bit much. How about having him click a delete button 5 million times?

Ignorance abounds ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Apparently Lennon used a piece of email bombing software called Avalanche to pummel his ex-employer, [...]"

As usual, the quality of journalism leaves much to be desired. While they correctly identify the actions of the teen in the above quote they quite erroneously refer to his actions as spamming in the title and the first half of the article. He didn't SPAM anyone ... he E-Mail bombed his employer.

What we really need is sanctions against incompetant and irresponsible journalism. The average joe doesn't have a chance of ever getting a clue, since they are constantly being misinformed by the media. This is the number 1 reason why people still use Windows IMNSHO. They don't know any better because they get their understanding of the issues from clueless "journalists".

As far as the "punishment" for this kid, he shouldn't get any. What he needs is reform . So long as the US mob mentality supports a punishment paradigm over a reform one, US society as a whole is doomed. This holds especially true when the offender in question is a teenager. People ... the US incarcerates a ridiculously large portion of its populace. We could learn from others - for example how Amsterdam/the Netherlands handles drug and prostitution issues - but we don't. As a society, the US is a conglomeration of arrogant, ignorant morons, who clearly embrace their ignorance. Even here on Slashdot, where I would expect a large percentage of the people to be more enlightened (for some naive reason), I am blown away by the high percentage of people who have absolutely no grasp of this simple concept. So many people so proud of their ignorance. It is a sad phenomenon indeed. A truly competant journalist would understand this, and would be complaining that the judges in this country are failing US miserably, simply because they fail to grasp the simple concept: reform good; punishment bad. Bad Judges!

I guess only one question remains ... how should we punish these incompetant judges and journalists? 8-}

... and in anticipation of the ignorant moron who will claim I contradicted myself ... ((sanctions == reform) != punishment);

Re:Why spam works

[suso]

Will you decline the Fields Medal if they offer it to you?

Yes, because people who decline the Fields Medal seem to get more publicity than those who accept it.

Perfect punishment

[ShadyG]

It seems to me that this guy is going to receive a punishment much worse than staying in his room for 2 months. His name is on the Internet, attached to the information that he sought revenge against an ex-employer. Wow. Good luck with that whole "rest of your career" thing you thought you had.

if..

[josepha48]

.. a 16 year old can be sentanced to death or life in prison, they I think that a 16 year old can be sentanced to what an adult spammer would be sentanced to... staying in his room with his video games and probably a computer is not really a punishment, considering that's probably where he sent all the spam from in the first place...

Re:Reminds me of the "I love you" virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, human analogy. You get killed by a mail bomb/anthrax sent by some weirdo from another country. Oh, but opening every package you get in the mail is *what you are supposed to do*. Too bad it killed you. Oh wait, you mean to say it might be a good idea to excersize caution when opening myterious packages from strangers. Hmmm, sounds kinda like maybe you should excersize caution then opening attachments from strangers. How do people fail to apply basic logic to computers will never cease to amaze me.

Punishment Should Fit Crime

[queenb**ch]

1. Take away his electronics - computers, cell phones, Gameboy, PS2, etc.
2. Incarcarate him if he's caught using any electronic device.
3. Make him make restitution to both the ISP's and the recipients of his missives. He has to work to pay for the bandwidth that he used up.
4. He has to write, by hand (no electronic devices) apology letters to each recipient of one of his messages. Then he has to look up the address of each person, by hand and address the envelopes. Then he has to pay for the stamps and mail them.

2 cents,

QueenB

Re:Parents are to blame.

[scottv67]

man I hope he comes to bang on the door at 3am tonight ;-)

Instead of being an asshat about the whole situation, why not tell the Sheriff where he can find your ne'er-do-well sons?
It sounds like you know where they live.

Having a LEO for an enemy is not a good idea. They have guns...and lot of friends with guns who are just a radio call away.
Hopefully everything is in order at your residence. Otherwise you may find yourself yelling "But I'm not resisting! I'm not resisting!" while your neighbors watch you being dragged from your house.

Also, thanks for tying-up the Sheriff's time dealing with your nonsense. Instead of protecting the public, he has had to make multiple visits to your house.

What kind of response time do you expect now when you call 911 due to a knife-wielding guy standing in your kitchen?

"Hello? This is 1311 Evergreen Terrace. There is a man with a knife in my kitchen. Send officers right away!"
"Did you say 1311 Evergreen Terrace? We'll have a squad respond as quickly as possible....after we finish watching CSI!"