Every Man a Cyber Crook

Every Man a Cyber Crook
Mark Rasch, 2002-01-07

Federal anti-hacking law permits cybercrime victims to sue their attackers. So why is that software companies, webmasters and computer makers are the ones being hauled into court?

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Calm down... 2002-01-07
Bii Reilly (1 replies)

The use of the CFAA has been very rarely applied. The courts have tossed out many more applications of it in civl actions than have agreed to listen to the arguements. What's wrong with holding software firms accountable for the unauthorized access to their consumer's computers? I predict there are ...

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Calm down... 2002-01-22
Grim Rebuke (1 replies)

This is a very fine line that we are asking the courts to walk for us. We are asking the same courts that think hot coffee is a dangerous substance worthy of millions in litigation to make the same kind of judgements on software. It is easy to say that certain advertising is 'SPAM' and not protect...

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Calm down... 2002-01-23
Anonymous

Here here....

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-07
TheDarkPenguin

Wow, it makes me once again proud to say that I am Canadian. This story will forever make me think twice about going to work in another country with out reading the computer laws with a fine toothed comb....

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-07
and can we sue Microsoft for the instant porn that we get on hotmail? (5 replies)

I wonder if we can stop Pop up ads for the time it takes to read these UNWANTED intrusions that are placed on our computers WITHOUT OUR Permission.

I hope so... AS THEY ARE A WASTE OF EVERYONE's TIME.

If this is what it takes to stop the Spam, and stop the
unwanted ads then I am for it.

C...

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-08
Anonymous (2 replies)

>Can we sue Microsoft for a situation where when signing up
>for a hotmail account, and with an e-mail address that we
>have never once used or told anyone about, that we start
>getting unwanted PORN within a short time later? MS has
>about $36-$40 billion in cash (next closest on list is GE
>w...

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Hmmm, how do porn spam sender get e-mail address in first place? 2002-01-09
Anonymous (2 replies)

If an e-mail address is never used or posted by it's creator... and no one other than it's creator and Microsoft know of it's existance...
(and the creator tells no one of it) then, how do the porn spammers get the address from Microsoft?

Does MS send it to them... or are they working for Micr...

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Hmmm, how do porn spam sender get e-mail address in first place? 2002-01-12
Anonymous

they buy them by the millions by a host of sleasy dick heads out to make a buck.

There are zillions of open gateways (most in China and Korea) which allow spammers free raign to harrass as many people as they can.

They are almost impossible to catch, and ISP's don't want to be involved, and ...

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Hmmm, how do porn spam sender get e-mail address in first place? 2002-01-14
TL (1 replies)

"How do porn spammers get hold of Hotmail addresses?"

By guessing. Lots of spammers specialize in sending to
AOL and Hotmail. They combine names with numbers and
append "@hotmail.com" or "@aol.com" to the end. It's
not uncommon to see a spam with several similar recipient
e-mail addresses tha...

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Hmmm, how do porn spam sender get e-mail address in first place? 2002-01-16
Anonymous (1 replies)

It would be interesting to get a new hotmail account with a complex unguessable account name such as q21_lo1at3xzkl@hotmail.com
and see how long it takes to get spammed even though the account has never been used to sign up anywhere for anything, never used to send or receive email etc - essentiall...

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Hmmm, how do porn spam sender get e-mail address in first place? 2002-01-24
Anonymous

I opened an account at hotmail just to give to porno sites, and it has gotten nothing but porno spams and a very few spams from "Hotmail Member Services" which is internal spam but is probably a required sign-up with the account or something. The email address does not have any numbers or anything ...

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-12
Anonymous

we are woking on ways to eliminate spam....

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-08
SteveB (1 replies)

Can we sue for those pain in the butt TV commercials? They waste ten minutes of every hour's viewing. You can't delete them unless you buy special hardware like TiVo. I paid good money for my television set and cable TV service and commercial advertisers are wasting it!

Don't get me wrong, I th...

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

Can we sue for those pain in the butt TV commercials?

Apples and oranges. TV advertisers (who are not far removed from pond scum either) pay for the creation and propagation of the content. In the case of unsolicited email, the spammers stick you with the cost of propagation - and there is no co...

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-19
Anonymous (1 replies)

I got my usa.net account totally spammed out, and eventually let it go, but a solution I asked for was why can'y you opt to receive email ONLY from people on your address list? There was no option to do that (as far as I know, none of the email providers gives this option), but is there a technical...

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-25
Anonymous

That is exactly what I do with procmail on my unix box. I doubt the freemail providers offer it, but ISP's just might......

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Taking Responsibility 2002-01-11
Anonymous

Maybe it's time that software companies, Microsoft in particular, take some responsibility for buggy, vulnerability-laden code on which they make billions....

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-15
Scott Tarr

Are you certain that you haven't told anyone? I've been using Hotmail for years with multiple accounts and have hardly had any pr0n on my Hotmail list. In fact, I've pared my Hotmail accounts down to two (one for personal and one for business) and about the only unwanted things I get are for Viagra....

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Can we sue for those pain in the butt Pop UP ads? 2002-01-15
Anonymous

I couldn't agree more, Microsofts MSN service is a joke, it takes 40 minutes to log you in and then you have to download 5000 spam porn messages to check your email....

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Every Cyber Pain a Cyber Crook 2002-01-07
Anon (1 replies)

Not a single example of "abuse" of the cyber-crime statutes you offered seems like abuse to me. Your article left me in favor or the cyber-laws though I'm not sure that was your intent....

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Every Cyber Pain a Cyber Crook 2002-01-08
Anonymous

I agree completely. If the article's intent was to generate sympathy for spammers, authors of spyware, and anybody else who would seek to violate our privacy, then it has failed.

Even speech protected by the 1st amendment sent as spam is still spam, and I don't want it. This absurd scenario is ...

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-08
Iets-sue (2 replies)

Everyone, needs to sue everyone. ...

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-08
SteveB (1 replies)

I'd rather everyone sue everyone in civil suits than have the Feds criminalizing these activities and prosecuting everyone. You lock your home's doors at night, you don't leave your car keys in the ignition, you install personal firewalls and spam/spyware filters. Why are the first two "common sen...

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-08
Anonymous (1 replies)

Software Manufacturers and Commercial Websites should be held to the same standards as Hackers. Just because they are commercial ventures rather then private individuals does not entitle them to any special privilages in regards application of the law.

A common tool used by hackers is the Trojan....

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CFAA 2002-01-12
Bill Reilly

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has several subsections that can be applied to "hackers" and/or trojan programs. While there is a $5,000 damage threshhold for 1030(a)(5), the main anti-hacking subsection, 1030(a)(2) prevents the unauthorized access to "information" - which, although mostly a misdem...

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-12
Anonymous

At least thats what attorneys want us to believe... like sharks, it's Attorneys that always come out on top. Always profiting from people's misfortunes....

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It's not about the deep pockets!! 2002-01-09
Anonymous

The article starts out complaining that laws that allow suits against hackers don't result in suits against the hackers, but against those with deep pockets.

However, in all of the examples, THERE IS NO HACKER TO SUE. It isn't a case of choosing to go after the deep pockets instead of the real c...

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-12
Anonymous

They should hold M$ liable for releasing such insecure software. Of course this is never going to happen.

Money talks and bullshit walks.......

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Every Man a Cyber Crook 2002-01-15
Anonymous

I suggest you check out Mark Rasch's bona fides and ensure you properly cite his background....

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Yet another columnist sans clue 2002-01-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

Spam is not free speech. Never has been.

Commercial speech has already been ruled, repeatedly, to not be protected by the first amendment, which is why you have so many laws now on the books governing what advertisers can and cannot do.

With spam, it's "postage due" email, where the recipien...

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Yet another columnist sans clue 2002-01-24
Anonymous

Since when is the complaints of an ex-employee commercial speech?

I would have thought that for instance the e-mailed complaints of an ex tobacco co. employee would be an excellent example of a situation analogous to intel's.

Surely this hypothetical ex-worker who is trying to broadcast his wo...

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Three cheers for this new law! 2002-01-23
Anonymous

Your article made me want to stand up and cheer, as well as contribute funds to support such cases. I did not see a single target of a suit in your article that I would not wish to have restricted and fined. Hackers are far less of a problem than companies which fail to disclose the invasive metho...

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