First Spammer Convicted Under CAN-SPAM Law

eldavojohn writes "Spammer Jeffrey Brett Goodin has been convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, the first person in the U.S. prosecuted successfully under the law. He is facing a sentence of up to 101 years in a federal prison after being found guilty of numerous illegal acts. According to prosecutors, Goodin was convicted on multiple counts in addition to the CAN-SPAM conviction, including wire fraud, unauthorized use of credit cards, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment. From the article: 'The law forbids e-mail marketers from sending false or misleading messages and requires them to provide recipients with a way to opt out of receiving future mailings. During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Goodin used several compromised Internet accounts to send e-mails to America Online users. The e-mails appeared to be from the company's billing department and told customers to update their billing information or lose service.'"

Over the top

If this is relating to computer fraud how the fuck can they justify over 100 years of punishment?
Rapists and murderers get less.

I don't like spam but ffs that is so harsh.

Re:Over the top

If this is relating to computer fraud how the fuck can they justify over 100 years of punishment? Rapists and murderers get less.

Rapists and murderers usually rape and murder less people. This douchebag probably targeted millions of people.

Re:

So if a reasonably well known person, like a media personality annoys enough people, you can use the death penalty on him?

Re:Over the top

So if a reasonably well known person, like a media personality annoys enough people, you can use the death penalty on him?

You are confusing several important things here:

1. This has nothing to do w/the death penalty.

2. He hasn't been sentenced yet. That happens on 6/11. Just because he's been convicted doesn't mean his sentence will be anything close to 101 years.

3. Fraud isn't just "annoying".

Re:

1. It was just a hyperbole

2. My problem was with your reasoning, not the facts of the case.

3. That's true, but it's not murder either. I'd require both huge damages and huge numbers of people defrauded in order to sentence someone comparable to a murde

Re:Over the top

IMO, his crimers are not akin to murder which warrants a life sentence in many states

And when a diabetic dies becuase he wasn't able to get his insulin as a result of this asshole cleaning out his account? Somebody has to walk a rough neighborhood because slappy mc'spammer here had a great idea on how to afford a big screen TV? When someone can't deal with being rejected from another job because his credit report is a mess and decides to end it?

Fraud can have serious real world impact, the fall out from identity theft and stolen money can be devestating to those living on the edge, the majority of Americans. Personally, I have more sympathy for the guy who lost his temper and did something stupid than for the guy who thought destroying people's lives was a great way to make some extra cash.

1 second per spam sent, plus per victim?

Ok, so if it takes you 1 second to delete a spam, should we throw him in the slammer for 1 sec per spam he sent? With some spammers, that's 100 million spams, so ~1100 days or 3 years in jail just for annoying people.

But think about the number of people this spammer succeeded in ripping off - was it 100, or 1000, or 10000? Usually you'd spent less time in jail for stealing $1M from one person than $100 each from 10,000 people, or $1000 each from 1000 people, but at six months in jail per petty theft or 1 year per grand theft, he could easily be doing a lot of time.

Remember that this guy's a phishing thief, not just a pills-or-porn seller. How much time does he deserve for theft? If an average worker makes $50K/year, and the spammer makes $500K ripping off N victims, that's 100 person-years of honest labor he'd need to do just to pay them back for the value of their lost work time, not even counting the lost value by not having their money when they needed it. Should he only have to give back 1x what he stole, or pay more than that as compensation?

Re:

"Whats the value of life?"

42

duh

Re:Over the top

from the summary:

including wire fraud, unauthorized use of credit cards, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment

That's a lot more than just sending annoying emails. Basically, the guy is a crook. Why do you have a problem with him going to jail? People do time for things other than violent crime, you know.

Re:Over the top

When dealing with life sentence/death penalty, the crime has to scale well with murder. Here's why:

If you are in the process of commiting a crime (in this case intrawebs fraud), and know you will face 100 years in prison for getting caught, what's to stop you from killing anyone who gets in your way? Any other sentences would be inconsiquential. Hell, you might as well try and take down the police who attempt to bring you in. If you manage to get a few, it'd sorta be like a bonus.

Re:

Hell, you might as well try and take down the police who attempt to bring you in. If you manage to get a few, it'd sorta be like a bonus.

Well, the only thing that I can think of is that then you'd be in the class of cop-killers, one of the groups along wit

Re:

next guy to do this will not only be shaking in his boots, but will most likely think twice (ie: is it worth it? probably not.)

Deterrance is a myth easily disproved by none other than the department of justice: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/corrt [usdoj.gov]

Re:Over the top

Someone needs to do a bit more tracking on this statistic. Like, how many of those were illegal immigrants? Before you start shaking your head, think about it...

Deterrence is a concept that relies on Party B being afraid of something Party A can do to it, and that whatever Party A can do is worse than the risk of committing the act. If Party B is already subject to Party C however, and the things that Party C can do to Party B are inherently worse than anything Party A can do... and/or if Party B is not fully aware of the consequences of his actions under Party A's rule (see cases of teenagers illegally smuggling drugs into countries with an insta-death penalty)... then deterrence is not nearly a factor.

For deterrence to stop me from doing something, I have to:

A) Be aware of the punishment
B) Be afraid of the punishment more than the status quo
C) Be marginally intelligent enough to understand the consequences and have no mental defects that affect your empathy

Deterrence in and of itself works. Otherwise you would eat poop and poisonous substances, you would go in the cookie jar every day, and you would kill people because they got in your way. Deterrence is a biological phenomenon (eating something that is either inherently noxious or made you sick), a reactionary phenomenon (see Pavlov's Dog experiments / rat experiments designed to teach with negative feedback), an a social phenomenon (if I injure this person, society will extract it's punishment from me).

Deterrence doesn't work in this case because it's better for a 'Mexican national' (lol... PC phrase) to escape the shithole known as Mexico, take his chances here in the US, AND GO TO PRISON than it is to stay in Mexico. Yep, you read it right! Our prisons are more attractive than living in Mexico in certain cases.

How the hell is deterrence going to stop that?!?

Re:

"200,000 to 600,000 -- a 150% increase"

hmmmm

Re:Over the top

"including wire fraud, unauthorized use of credit cards, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment"

He's being charged with improving their reputation and brand name. Bastard.

Re:Over the top

They're looking at "statutory maximums" and adding together terms that more than likely will be served concurrently.

In other words, while he could theoretically get 100 years, in reality he's going to probably get 1-2 years tops.

Re:

Actually the federal prison is the nice one(in most states), in general fedearal penitentiary's(minimum or otherwise) are substantially less unpleasant than their state run equivilants. Part of this has to do with states trying to save cash on prisons, bu

Re:Over the top

I think so, this is probably a "set an example" type of case. Though it depends on how much money he actually stole; if not a huge amount -- serious criminals even if nobody is killed should get serious punishment, and yes I'm thinking corporate crooks here -- then I'd rather see violent criminals in prison instead of him. But that's just off-the-cuff reaction based on skimming the article.

Another off-the-cuff reaction: When the mafia lands in court, the witnesses get whacked. How appropriate is it that a spammer can't accomplish any more than witness harassment? I can only imagine his method: Emails stating "Y t3st1fy? Do and no more v14gr4 for U!"

Re:Over the top

"Y t3st1fy? Do and no more v14gr4 for U!"

Yeah but even for that, 100 years is a pretty stiff sentence

Re:Over the top

100 years is probably excessive -- one night might be sufficient...

Inmate: What'cha in for, buddy?

Spammer: I... uh... sent people spam emails... about... male enhancement...

Inmate: That so?!? Hey fellas! Meet my new b*tch... [grinning]

Spammer: GUARD!!!!!!!!

Re:Over the top

........... And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And
they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench
there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over..........

Re:

Alice's Restaurant will always have a special place in my heart.

Re:

But wait, isn't he the one with the penis mightier pills?

In Soviet Prison, bubba tosses your salad?

Re:

how... can they justify over 100 years of punishment?

That's a theoretical maximum of getting consecutive sentences of for numerous counts... if he attempted to defraud hundreds of people, it is simply possible that he could get hundreds of years. Unfo

Re:

If this is relating to computer fraud how the fuck can they justify over 100 years of punishment?
Rapists and murderers get less.

Maybe the problem isn't that this spammer's sentence is too harsh, maybe the problem is the sentences handed down to rapists and murderers are are too lenient.
I don't have a problem with the Enron fraudsters spending the rest of their days behind bars, an

Read the article

He's facing UP TO 100 years of punishment -these are typically not given the max.

Re:

If this is relating to computer fraud how the fuck can they justify over 100 years of punishment?
Rapists and murderers get less.

Consider the total social cost of this dirtbag's activities...

A billion spam emails * 1000 bytes each * ~15 hops each = ~15 T

Don't believe everything you read...

If this is relating to computer fraud how the fuck can they justify over 100 years of punishment?

See, the key phrase in this article is "up to". The journalist or prosecutor arrived at the figure 101 years simply from multiplying the number of crimes he's

Re:

Rapists and murderers only harm one victim, not millions.

If you break it down to the number of victims, he's probably getting on the order of minutes per victim. A murderer gets years per victim. I think the ratio is fine there.

Re:

Each count brings a possible maximum sentence. Sum them up, and it could be over 100 years. It's called "sensationalism" and is quite prevalent in mainstream news. I'm guessing his sentence will be harsh as an example, but not more than a decade.

For c

Re:

if each email received took say 30 seconds to delete *on*average*, multiply that by the millions he sent out. if human lifespan is 80 years, how many lifetimes did he waste? I suspect many lifetimes worth of time wasted.

Durr

Spamming != Phishing? Why not just hit him for fraud instead, other than to show off their new baby?

Re:

He did spam, but most of the years he got were for phishing, which is just fraud.

It would be like if I were to break into someone's house, shoot them, get arrested and the papers were to read "Lord_Slepnir gets Lethal Injection for violating recently pass

Not really a CAN-SPAM victory

... Unless the prosecution was for spam alone (ie spam advertising a legal product.) This was just out-and-out fraud. Most spamvertised "products" are illegal anyways (prescription drugs sold without a prescription, phishing, online gambling, etc.) so the CAN-SPAM act isn't needed to prosecute.

Re:Not really a CAN-SPAM victory

It's a useful precedent: if the convictions under CAN-SPAM do hold up, then it will be easier to go after those whose crimes are purely spamming.

At least, it used to be the case that there were people whose sole crime was sending out absurd amounts of clearly unwanted email. ("Clearly unwanted" in the sense that they deliberately provided false information in headers and refused to honor opt-out requests. Providing false information in headers was not in and of itself fraudulent.)

These days, given how much spam goes through bot-nets, there may not be any spammers left who are not guilty of crimes other than sending spam. But it may also be the case that it's hard to convict them on, say, hacking charges, but you could get them on the spam charges.

And conversely, if the appeals court throws out the CAN-SPAM convictions, even if it keeps the other convictions, we'll know that we have to either rewrite the law or depend on the existing fraud laws.

Will it Make a Difference?

I hope so but...

Given the creeps anywhere can run these scams outside of N. America, it just means other methods might work better.

We can start by having ISPs who know computers crunching out a 1000 emails at a time in the middle of the night get dumped off the Internet until the user gets a new hard drive or computer.

Re:

We can start by having ISPs who know computers crunching out a 1000 emails at a time in the middle of the night get dumped off the Internet until the user gets a new hard drive or computer.

That would require a method of ISPs somehow verifying things about

no tax evasion?

I'm surprised they didn't get him for tax evasion [msn.com], too. I mean, the IRS even requires that you pay taxes on stolen property.

What about foreign based spammers?

This may be a great deterrent for US based spammers but I don't think the foreign based spammers will blink an eye from it.

I would hope that other governments could make similar examples of spammers based from their countries.

Confused congress

2003? I thought SPAM had been canned for years...

CAN-SPAM

You know, the CAN-SPAM Act is often criticized on Slashdot and elsewhere as being toothless and full of loopholes. People think it's a worthless law, because spammers can easily get around it. I disagree. Let me explain.

First of all, what we really want to avoid is any law that inhibits our right to freedom of speech. It's very easy to write a definition of spam that is overly broad, and applies to legitimate messages as well. Let's assume for the moment that this would be a bad thing. I haven't heard any complaints that CAN-SPAM is flawed in this way.

The complaints are that CAN-SPAM doesn't go far enough. Spammers could simply change their spam to comply with the provisions of the law, and suddenly their unwanted junk is no longer technically "spam" in the eyes of the law. In theory, this may be true, but in practice, it's not happening. The law has been in effect for three years now, and spammers still aren't even bothering to pretend to comply with the law, they're just continuing to blatantly disregard it. This means that just about all the spam I get in my inbox (plus all the spam that I would have gotten in my inbox if I didn't have a whole pile of filters in place to block it) is clearly defined as illegal according to CAN-SPAM.

So why am I still getting all this spam? It's not because CAN-SPAM is a bad law. It's not because the spammers have found a loophole, or have changed their spam so it complies with the law. The problem is enforcement: the FTC and FBI don't have the resources to go after these guys. It's been three years, and they've only gotten one conviction.

Yes, some spammers are based outside the US, and while CAN-SPAM may still apply to them because they're sending spam to Americans, they're outside the jurisdiction of our law enforcement agencies. Several other countries have pledged their support in the International War On Spam(TM), but again, somebody has to actually track down the spammers so they can be arrested, and that's what's not happening.

So what's the solution? It's not to pass more laws making spam more illegal than it already is. The solution is for Congress to earmark funding for spam investigation and prosecution. They won't think of it themselves, so somebody has to tell them to do it. So, write to your Senators and Representatives, and tell them you want to see better enforcement!

Now, who's got that list of checkboxes?

Re:

Training Day pointed this out quite poetically. They run shit here, you just live here.

Re:That is so fair.

This is because our legal system is based on "counts" of the offense. He sent millions of spam emails. Most murderers don't kill millions of people. He wouldn't have gotten 101 years if he had sent one spam email or even 100.

I'm not saying it's fair or anything, just that's the way it is. Perhaps there should be a mandatory maximum sentence--though that raises a whole other set of problems.

Re:That is so fair.

"I have not read the RTFA, of course"

Or figured out what the 'RT' stands for :-p

Re:Thank you

Fix your link! I keep clicking on "CL1cK HERE TO 3NLARGE MALE M3MBER" and nothing happens!!!

Re:

CL1cK HERE TO 3NLARGE MALE M3MBER [sex.com].

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You couldn't possibly be biased, though, Mr. "Isagenix."

Re:

So this guy is up for 101 years for spamming, but some dirt bag that molested his daughter-in-law for 6 years only serves a 4 year sentence.

Yeah, that makes all sorts of sense.

You're comparing the sum of all the maximum sentences for a bunch of offenses, o

Re:Don't Spam, Molest Kids Instead

So this guy is up for 101 years for spamming, but some dirt bag that molested his daughter-in-law for 6 years only serves a 4 year sentence.
 
Yeah, that makes all sorts of sense.
 
 

How do you molest your daughter in law? Since your daughter in law is the woman married to your son, she is an adult, so it would just be what we call "having an affair" (although kind of a creepy one).

Re:

It seems to me that child molesters have it fairly rough. They spend years at the bottom of the social structure in prison, probably getting molested theirselves, then get to try their luck with a felony conviction on their record and mandatory lifetime o