Spammer Demands And Receives Access To Accuser's Hard Drive

from the bad-news dept

Wed, Nov 8th 2006 3:48pm — Mike Masnick

There's a fascinating, if somewhat confusingly titled, post on Slashdot discussing a lawsuit in Washington state against a spammer. Washington State, of course, put in place one of the earliest anti-spammer laws, allowing individuals to sue spammers for $500/spam if they can track down the spammer. A few people have done nicely forcing local spammers to pay up. In one such case, however, the spammer countered by getting a computer "expert" to demand from the judge that the spammer get an image copy of the accuser's hard drive to look at the "evidence." Even under normal conditions this would be ridiculous -- but it was even more ridiculous here because the spam messages in question were sent to webmail accounts at Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, meaning that they never directly touched the recipient's hard drive. It was clearly a tactic designed to frustrate the guy suing the spammer -- and, unfortunately, it worked. The judge agreed with the "expert" that the hard drive image should be turned over to the spammer. The Slashdot article is confusing, because that's the story it gives, but the title says that the person doesn't have to hand over the hard drive. The explanation appears to be that the guy in question has "settled" the case with the spammer before he needed to hand over his hard drive, though terms of the deal aren't clear at all. Either way, this is a bad decision and will encourage other similar tactics when spammers are brought to court in the future. Hopefully, other judges will recognize that this serves no good purpose other than intimidation and won't allow it.

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14 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 5:37pm

Will this apply fairly to everyone?
So the next time some corporate entity (e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, etc.) accuses some spammer, will said spammer be able to demand access to all of the accusers hard drives?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 5:42pm

Tech advisors for judges
This is why judges need technology advisors that actually know what they are talking about for internet, ecommerce, and general computer and electronics cases. I don't mean some old guy that used Word Perfect or Lotus back in the 80's - more like professors that teach networking, an A+ cert guy, etc who know how things work TODAY and can actually explain it to somebody inside 20 minutes to an hour...
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Phlatus the Elder, 8 Nov 2006 @ 7:00pm

He who is his own lawyer...
...has a fool for a client. And it doesn't look like the spam victim had an attorney. (If he did, he needs to fire it and get a new one.)

Pretty typical, and predictable, defense lawyer move.
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anna, 8 Nov 2006 @ 7:01pm

"This is why judges need technology advisors that actually know what they are talking about for internet, ecommerce, and general computer and electronics cases. I don't mean some old guy that used Word Perfect or Lotus back in the 80's - more like professors that teach networking, an A+ cert guy, etc who know how things work TODAY"
Yeah I'm an old geezer at 36, you wet behind the ears little pipsqueak, and I used WP and Lotus back in the 1980's!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 8:57pm

agree
i agree very much so, when someone says you did something and then demands money from you in court all "evidence" should be seen by everyone.

What happens when you can sue anyone just because you say they spammed you. LOL No evidence required, just the fact you said they did it.

Fact is if you use email for anything other than a ha ha from time to time your stupid. To easy for anything to happen with email. It's dated. Thing of the past. Email is for people who think of it as something new still. Say someone who used WP and Lotus back in the 80s!

who still uses email anyway?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 8:58pm

agree too
lol i agree. It's like banner ads. WHO CLICKS BANNER ADS FOR REAL... Come on guys. We see the ad, we pass the ad.
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Sanguine Dream, 8 Nov 2006 @ 9:18pm

???
i just want to know what genius decided that getting an image of the hard drive would to anyone any good. Sounds like a scare tactic to me...
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Stuart, 8 Nov 2006 @ 9:57pm

Hahaha
That's funny, now the spammer has access to all his personal information & banking details :P

Stuart
http://www.earnersblog.com
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 10:52pm

Re: agree
flamer.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2006 @ 10:53pm

Re: Hahaha
ha ha. smart guy. RTFA. The dude settled before handing it over. dolt.
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James, 9 Nov 2006 @ 8:22am

violence
As much as I abhore violence, I sometimes wish the anti-abortion nut-cases among us would focus their "efforts" on spammers instead. They both deserve each other.
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Nully, 9 Nov 2006 @ 10:51am

Simple Solution
Simple, just give them a USB pen drive with Firefox on it. ;P
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John, 9 Nov 2006 @ 5:06pm

People in Charge just don't understand
Judges, Legislators, Lawyers, etc. -- The people making the decisions are the people least equipped to do so.

I think History is not going to look back kindly on the 'turn of the century' - when it comes to socio-eonomic and technological issues are concerned.

I'll probably be apologizing to my children for all a long time for all the stuff my generation screwed up.
"The technology was soo new, we just didn't understand what we were doing."
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misanthropic humanist, 9 Nov 2006 @ 5:50pm

Fear and intimidation IS the law
"Hopefully, other judges will recognize that this serves no good purpose other than intimidation and won't allow it."

How can you assert this with a straight face?
The entire American system of law is based on one concept, intimidation.

Anyway, lawyers and politicians should keep their noses out of technology which is beyond their minds.
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