Facing 101 Years, Phisher Gets Sentenced To Six

from the one-drip-in-a-flood dept

Tue, Jun 12th 2007 7:18pm — Carlo Longino

Back in January, we posted about a case in which a scammer got convicted of phishing credit-card and other info from AOL users, and faced up to 101 years in prison. He's now been sentenced, and depending on how you look at it, got let off easy by getting sent to jail for 70 months. While his fate won't elicit much sympathy, it's also hard to see the case serving much wider use to society, despite the prosecution's insistence that it sends a proverbial message to phishers. The guy wasn't convicted of phishing, but rather of a litany of other fraud-related crimes, and it's hard to imagine that too many phishers don't understand they're breaking these, or any number of other, laws. Certainly this guy deserves some punishment for what he did, but to act like this sentence does anything to help stem the tide of phishing attacks hitting internet users each day is disingenuous, as a response-based legal strategy does very little to stop the attacks being carried out right now.

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11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2007 @ 8:17pm

Bush's abysmal approval-rating might increase a point or two if he declared a bounty on every proven Nigerian scammer's head any mercenary could deliver intact, but detached.

Well... I hate the bastid, but I'd vote for him again. Oh -- wait... his time is up. Ummmm... run a campaign on that platform!
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- Koresho, 12 Jun 2007 @ 8:28pm
  
  Re: New Political Platform?
  Hmmm... well, there wouldn't be a need for a political platform if people would just stop being retarded about scams in the first place!
  Use your head, and you will decrease your chance of being scammed immensely. If enough people use their heads, scamming will cease to be profitable and scammers will turn to something more lucritive.
  
  Now, the bastard who stole credit card info and then (presumably) used it, he's just dumb. Deserves to be taken outta the gene pool. Everyone knows stolen credit cards are the fastest way to getto jail.
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  - 4ensic, 12 Jun 2007 @ 8:52pm
    
    70 months sounds more like
    Pounding in the @ss Federal prison rather than ghetto jail. There’s a lot higher quality convict population in the Bureau of Prisons compared with state facilities. Less of the mentally unstable losers and more of the folks who have the ability to actually plan out a crime. It always sounds so much more ominous to have some chucklehead get 25 years in a state D.O.C. and he’s out in three in the states without truth in sentencing laws. Feds generally give lower sentences, but there is no parole and the only “good time” they get is 2 weeks for each 12 months and that can be revoked for behaving badly. And in the federal system, restitution is mandatory upon release. I’ve seen fraudsters end up with payment plans to the clerk of the court for the next thirty years. And if they decide not to pay, there is a Financial Locator Unit in each US Court district that will find assets. They more than pay their way.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2007 @ 9:27pm
      
      Re: 70 months sounds more like
      are you doing to ITT for forensics of CJ?
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- Offended Nigerian, 13 Jun 2007 @ 6:45am
  
  Re:
  As if all scammers were nigerian or if even a high percentage were.
  
  The fact of the matter is that most people who commit fraud or computer related crime come from this country(US).
  
  Check the numbers.
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  - Unknowledgeable Geek, 13 Jun 2007 @ 6:56am
    
    Re: Re:
    Now I am not ignorant enough to say that Nigeria is the leading country in Scamming. But, I have seen numbers and US is not near the top. Sorry.
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donkey skills, 12 Jun 2007 @ 10:01pm

old school aol phishing
back in the mid-90s there were literally thousands of bored kids phishing for acct pws and credit card info on AOL. there were probably 20-30 different VB programs like LuciferX and AOHell written to do it automatically and there was even an e-zine passed around which focused on hacking AOL, phishing, and general hatred of steve case. i was around 15 at the time and phishing always seemed a little too mean so i stuck to using random credit card number generators to make fake aol accounts that lasted 3 days before getting shut down. thank god i never got caught.

anyway, maybe i'm biased but 70 months seems kind of extreme for something that's been done by so many people i've known in the past. most of them are just genuinely stupid and haven't thought about the consequences of their actions before getting caught the first time. this guy may very well be a total douchebag with no redeeming qualities but i've seen how easy it is for people to get caught up in internet-based scams without thinking about the people they're victimizing.
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- Strofcon, 13 Jun 2007 @ 5:55am
  
  Re: old school aol phishing
  That's exactly why they should punished so severely - they don't think about what they are doing. Once you hit a certain age, ignorance is only a half-arse'd excused, and all-out stupidity should be punishable by a pretty serious sentence.
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|333173|3|_||3, 13 Jun 2007 @ 12:09am

AOL phishing scam
Dear Sir,
Please send me $10,000 in used banknotes by Friday and I promise that I will really send you a large cut of the $1,000,000 that we stand to gain out of thhis unspecifed plan which would not even fool you as to its likelyhood of working if it were a real plan.
Thank you
THe family memeber of some fictional dead african king

People who fall for phising scams deserve a kicking for thier stupidity (and I have been caught in a low-level scam to gain accest o my internet account, and have seen plenty of scam emails in my span folder, and know how stupid they are).
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CharlieHorse, 13 Jun 2007 @ 7:19am

WAIT A MINUTE! HOLD EVERYTHING!
you mean, enforcing the current laws ... works ? no need for boondoggle new "internet" laws. fraud is fraud is fraud no matter where/how it happens ... wow. imagine that.
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Kyle, 13 Jun 2007 @ 10:05am

78% of all statistics are made up on the spot. How ironic!
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