Adware distributor receives hefty sentence - bit-tech.net Forums

Garside · 29th Aug 2006, 15:44

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/08...efty_sentence/

DougEdey · 29th Aug 2006, 15:57

Shoulda made him donate all that money to charity, if he'd spent it then he'd have to earn it back.

perplekks45 · 29th Aug 2006, 16:00

Quote:

...For one, most of the people distributing adware to American computers don’t live in American themselves...

And what the hell?! 37 months for installing adware?!?! C'mon! Then they should have given Sony's chairman like a million years for their root kits!
But US government PCs ain't secure enough to make sure no adware is installed on them? Cool.

Sinner666 · 29th Aug 2006, 16:01

Should have cut off his hands and sent him to jail for 37 YEARS not months.

specofdust · 29th Aug 2006, 16:02

I prefer the russian way to be honest, but it's good to know he got some sort of payback.

Glider · 29th Aug 2006, 16:06

Given the fact that Spam and ad's make up most of the network traffic on the internet, and that everyone hates to be bugged by this sort of rubbish, I think he more then deserved his punishment, regardless of the fact that noone got hurt. It costed time and money for the infected users, and he made some good money out of it.

Nix · 29th Aug 2006, 17:14

$100,000

wow, sod my current job

mclean007 · 29th Aug 2006, 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nix

$100,000

wow, sod my current job

$100k for 3 years of your life isn't exactly a great deal, IMHO. Though it has put me to thinking - how much would you have to make from criminal activities to make it seem a 'good deal' to go to jail? For example, I'd happily take 3 years for $10m.

Bladestorm · 29th Aug 2006, 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666

But US government PCs ain't secure enough to make sure no adware is installed on them? Cool.

School and Hospital PC's would have been used by a wide variety of people with little to no sense about pc security and even the "military" pc's could have just been say a military bases equivalent of a cyber cafe surely ?

Its not like the word "government" automatically means "Top-Secret High-security state-secret-storing computers in any nation

herbs · 29th Aug 2006, 18:10

I seriously hope he gets buggered in jail, the amount of time I've spent removing adware, spyware and virus isn't funny. He knew it was wrong what he was doing, but as he thought it was very unlikely he would be caught he carried on with it.

Sinner666 · 29th Aug 2006, 18:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by mclean007

$100k for 3 years of your life isn't exactly a great deal, IMHO. Though it has put me to thinking - how much would you have to make from criminal activities to make it seem a 'good deal' to go to jail? For example, I'd happily take 3 years for $10m.

Only if you get to KEEP the money. A lot of the times your assets are confiscated by the goverment and they determine if the asset was gotten by illegal means or not, such as the wells fargo robbers a while back. On the other hand someone with some sense would know where to put his/her money so its out of reach of the goverment.

cpemma · 29th Aug 2006, 18:30

Quote:

For one, most of the people distributing adware to American computers don’t live in American themselves;

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBC (April 2006)

The US is close to losing its place as the top spam sending nation on Earth.

According to security firm Sophos, 23.1% of spam comes from computers in the US and 21.9% comes from China. The UK is tenth on the list of spam sources.

Refers to email spam, but maybe you just heard distributing adware was unamerican.

yahooadam · 29th Aug 2006, 19:47

pfft he got off lightly

trying to use a sob story to get away from the fact that he is part of the scum of the Internet

Faulk_Wulf · 29th Aug 2006, 20:23

I think that's pretty harsh. 3 years for putting a bit of software on computers? I've had adware on my computer, but I've removed it with Adaware / SpyBot / A2. It's annoying, and should be punished, but 3 years in jail? Yet a rapist can get off with a year and 2 years probation. (Trust me, it happened in my community. They should just gut their genitals off, but that's besides the point here.) The point is: The punishment should fit the crime. Have all illegal assets ceased and then have him do one hour of community service for each infected PC. That would be fair. Viruses would be a different matter, though. I've had to reformat my hard drive numerous times.

In conclusion:
Viruses should be a jailable offense as they actually cause harm to the users PC.
Adware should not be as it does not harm the user's PC.

Glider · 29th Aug 2006, 20:32

But yet it costs companies that have to pay a technician to remove the adware from a billion workstations... Don't underestimate the cost of such actions...

I think you'd look at it in a different manner if you were the technitian and had to clean up an entire workspace worth of pc's, because 1 funny kid descided it is harmless to install adware on pc's.

perplekks45 · 29th Aug 2006, 21:18

[quote=Faulk_Wulf]...The point is: The punishment should fit the crime. Have all illegal assets ceased and then have him do one hour of community service for each infected PC. That would be fair.../QUOTE]
Considering the fact that he got 2 to 40 Cent each PC and he earned about 100k... Let's do the math:

Code:

2 + 40 = 42
42 / 2 = 21 << average "loan"
100,000 / 0.21 = 476190.476190... << a lot of hours for community services
476190 / 24 = 19841.25 << days
19841.25 / 365 = 54.3595... << years

Hell yea! Let him do THAT!

Confused Fishcake · 29th Aug 2006, 21:37

While what he did was wrong, he did nothing violent or anything, why is anything involving money more important than people lives and quality of living. I mean I know most of you probably get annoyed with removing spyware, but hell, I bet you get paid for some of it. I would say community service, but no prison. Waaaay too harsh in my opinion.

OtakuHawk · 29th Aug 2006, 21:48

He was just fighting the man, man!

/juuuussst kidding.

specofdust · 29th Aug 2006, 21:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Confused Fishcake

While what he did was wrong, he did nothing violent or anything, why is anything involving money more important than people lives and quality of living. I mean I know most of you probably get annoyed with removing spyware, but hell, I bet you get paid for some of it. I would say community service, but no prison. Waaaay too harsh in my opinion.

DO you have any idea how much inconvenience this man has caused millions of people? For some reason some people think that no matter how many petty crimes someone commits, they're still not as bad as a person who commits one crime like murder. I disagree with that strongly. Infecting millions of PC's with ad-ware is imo just as bad as killing a person. The malevolence was just spread very thinly over a large number of people, but the quantity was the same.

Considering what this man did, he got off far too lightly.

herbs · 29th Aug 2006, 22:17

What about the average joe who had to pay for someone to come around to fix their pc after it hi-jacked their browser, do you think its fair for them? I agree with most he got off likely, also in the headline here it states

Quote:

A 21 year old 'boy' has been sentenced to 37 months in jail for spamming the American government with adware.

Well since when has a boy been 21 years old, he is a man and he should take his sentence like a man.

29th Aug 2006, 15:44	#1
Garside Supermodder Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: London Posts: 395	Adware distributor receives hefty sentence http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/08...efty_sentence/

29th Aug 2006, 15:57	#2
DougEdey I pwn all your storage Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Southampton Posts: 13,933	Shoulda made him donate all that money to charity, if he'd spent it then he'd have to earn it back. __________________ Burnout: Paradise Stats!XBL: DougEdey Bindi PSN ID: DougEdey Twitter

29th Aug 2006, 16:02	#5
specofdust Banned Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Aberdeen, UK, EU Posts: 7,609	I prefer the russian way to be honest, but it's good to know he got some sort of payback. __________________ Like marmite, only no-one hates it Mmm bop!

29th Aug 2006, 16:06	#6
Glider /dev/null Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 4,102	Given the fact that Spam and ad's make up most of the network traffic on the internet, and that everyone hates to be bugged by this sort of rubbish, I think he more then deserved his punishment, regardless of the fact that noone got hurt. It costed time and money for the infected users, and he made some good money out of it. __________________ There Are 10 Types Of People, Those Who Know Binary and Those Who Don't

29th Aug 2006, 17:14	#7
Nix Multimodder Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bristol/Portsmouth(Uni) Posts: 197	$100,000 wow, sod my current job __________________ Project: Little Rascal - Mini-ITX Gaming Rig, available @ - Wizd Forums - Bit-Tech - The Mod Nation - SFFTech

29th Aug 2006, 16:01	#4
Sinner666 Multimodder Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 101	Should have cut off his hands and sent him to jail for 37 YEARS not months.

29th Aug 2006, 18:10	#10
herbs Nobody but us chickens Join Date: May 2001 Location: feck knows Posts: 3,835	I seriously hope he gets buggered in jail, the amount of time I've spent removing adware, spyware and virus isn't funny. He knew it was wrong what he was doing, but as he thought it was very unlikely he would be caught he carried on with it. __________________ A police recruit was asked during the exam, "What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?" He said, "Call for backup." "you could have it all, my empire of dirt, I will let you down, I will make you hurt"

29th Aug 2006, 19:47	#13
yahooadam Ultra csavarkulcs Banned Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 1,323	pfft he got off lightly trying to use a sob story to get away from the fact that he is part of the scum of the Internet

29th Aug 2006, 20:23	#14
Faulk_Wulf Internet Addict Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: USA Posts: 280	I think that's pretty harsh. 3 years for putting a bit of software on computers? I've had adware on my computer, but I've removed it with Adaware / SpyBot / A2. It's annoying, and should be punished, but 3 years in jail? Yet a rapist can get off with a year and 2 years probation. (Trust me, it happened in my community. They should just gut their genitals off, but that's besides the point here.) The point is: The punishment should fit the crime. Have all illegal assets ceased and then have him do one hour of community service for each infected PC. That would be fair. Viruses would be a different matter, though. I've had to reformat my hard drive numerous times. In conclusion: Viruses should be a jailable offense as they actually cause harm to the users PC. Adware should not be as it does not harm the user's PC.

29th Aug 2006, 20:32	#15
Glider /dev/null Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 4,102	But yet it costs companies that have to pay a technician to remove the adware from a billion workstations... Don't underestimate the cost of such actions... I think you'd look at it in a different manner if you were the technitian and had to clean up an entire workspace worth of pc's, because 1 funny kid descided it is harmless to install adware on pc's. __________________ There Are 10 Types Of People, Those Who Know Binary and Those Who Don't

29th Aug 2006, 21:18	#16
perplekks45 BSc... finally Join Date: May 2004 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 3,349	[quote=Faulk_Wulf]...The point is: The punishment should fit the crime. Have all illegal assets ceased and then have him do one hour of community service for each infected PC. That would be fair.../QUOTE] Considering the fact that he got 2 to 40 Cent each PC and he earned about 100k... Let's do the math: Code: 2 + 40 = 42 42 / 2 = 21 << average "loan" 100,000 / 0.21 = 476190.476190... << a lot of hours for community services 476190 / 24 = 19841.25 << days 19841.25 / 365 = 54.3595... << years Hell yea! Let him do THAT! __________________ "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." Blame it on Cheaps! [now a social group]

29th Aug 2006, 21:37	#17
Confused Fishcake Hypermodder Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Hertford, UK Posts: 684	While what he did was wrong, he did nothing violent or anything, why is anything involving money more important than people lives and quality of living. I mean I know most of you probably get annoyed with removing spyware, but hell, I bet you get paid for some of it. I would say community service, but no prison. Waaaay too harsh in my opinion. __________________ My Laptop: Inspiron 1501: Turion64 X2 TL-52 @ 1.6GHz, 1GB DDR2, 120GB SATA HD, 256Mb ATI 1150, 15.4" widescreen lcd, 8x DVD+/-RW, running Gentoo amd64. My Server #1: Pentium III @ 500MHz, 192MB DDR, 290GB in total, running headless Gentoo x86. My Server #2: Athlon 4 @ 1.7 GHz, 128MB DDR, 40GB, running headless Gentoo x86.

29th Aug 2006, 21:48	#18
OtakuHawk Hypermodder Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Chicago Posts: 659	He was just fighting the man, man! /juuuussst kidding. __________________ Ultra-Lurker