Anti-Spam Lawyer Loses Appeal, and His Possessions 237
Techdirt is reporting that one particularly rabid anti-spam fighter has not only lost his case, but most of his worldly possessions as well. James Gordon tried to set himself up as an ISP to get around the conventions of the CAN SPAM act in order to set up a litigation house designed to sue companies that spam. Unfortunately a judge did not take kindly to this trick and ordered him to pay $110,000 to the firm he was suing, a decision that was not only upheld on appeal but accompanied by some very unkind words trying to shut down litigation mills like his. "But, perhaps even more fascinating is that the guy, James Gordon, didn't just lose the lawsuit, it appears he lost most of his possessions as well. Remember that ruling telling him to pay the $110k to Virtumundo? He refused. The company sent the debt to a collections agency, but told Gordon they'd call off the collections agency if he dropped the appeal. Gordon didn't."
Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure who to be cheering for on this one: the barrator or the spammer. Who should we revile more? Dante reserved the fifth pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell for barrators, but he says nothing at all about spammers.
Because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
the appeals court came down even harder on the guy for clearly abusing the law, pointing out that he was clearly a professional litigant, and not someone running a real ISP
The spammers are violating the law by spamming. Is protecting your right to not receive spam abusing the law? Is there something illegal about being a professional litigant? I thought we called them lawyers.
Re:Because you don't like it doesn't make it illeg (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam isn't a technical problem, it's a social problem. EVERY communication channel that gets created, gets abused by people like this until the law comes down on them to stop it. Whether it's email spam or loudspeaker trucks, it's the same problem.
Re:Because you don't like it doesn't make it illeg (Score:4, Insightful)
It can be. Going against people with no regard for the law doesn't give you permission to ignore or misuse the law yourself.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:4, Insightful)
Revile the legislators who caved to the direct marketing lobby and took away your right to sue those leeches.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
I can answer the question on whom we should revile more: the politicians who passed anti-spam laws that effectively protect the spammers.
Re:Wait, why 'haha'? (Score:2, Insightful)
this is the same reason goosestepping is bad. when it comes right down to it slashdot, for as much as people like to say and think otherwise, has the same demographics as the rest of the world. idiots, assholes and morons abound. there's a very small sliver worth listening to but too many people with too many mod makes people who should be ignored look like wise men.
Why not the same for the MAFIAA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, indeed. However, you've got to pay for fuel, drivers, trucks, + taxes for all of them, operating the loudspeaker trucks. The spam zombies on the other hand are free as in beer, and the IRS doesn't get its lion's share either.
Re:Wait, why 'haha'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, like a patent troll, Gordon wasn't trying to eliminate spam, he was trying to profit off laws against spam that might allow him to sue--a professional litigant. There's two ./ hot buttons here: spam and abusing the courts. It's a tale of a bunch of shitty people being shitty each other, and we're the one's footing the bill for the judge who has to oversee it all, and the courtroom and clerks they're using.
Not many ./ers are capable of understanding that sometimes bad people (Gordon) do good things (fight spam) for the wrong reasons (personal profit) at a cost to us all (tying up the court system). It's 'haha' because someone who thought he was gaming the system got busted.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam isn't a technical problem, it's a social problem. EVERY communication channel that gets created, gets abused by people like this until the law comes down on them to stop it. Whether it's email spam or loudspeaker trucks, it's the same problem.
The technical part of the problem is that there's no way to enforce a legal solution.
Re:Because you don't like it doesn't make it illeg (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there's the question of the spirit of the law. If you really believe that this guy was setting up the "booby trap" ISP in order to help end the scourge of spam, then the outcome seems harsh. However, if you deem--as the judge apparently did--that he's just in it to make profit and that the people that he entrapped were being sucked into arbitrary litigation, then the outcome will seem quite appropriate.
I'm sorry, but it's exactly the same. If a lawyer can figure out how to use the courts to end the scourge of spam, and profits greatly in the process (by taking the money of the spammers), then I'm all for it.
This would be like a lawyer somehow figuring out how to nab child molesters, and in the process take possession of all their assets and bank accounts. The lawyer might have money as his motive, but if he's getting child molesters off the streets in the process, then that's OK. As long as he doesn't wrongly finger someone who's not really a molester, I don't see the problem.
Lawyers have bills to pay too, and to expect them to do useful work for free, and only get paid when doing scummy work which hurts society overall is ridiculous. I think this particular lawyer had the right idea: use the law to do something good for society (shut down spammers) and profit in the process.
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually worked with lawyers a couple jobs ago, and found them to be very likable people in general. They're very pragmatic, they tend to have thick skins, and have a very healthy scepticism about everything. And for the vast majority of them, it's simply a job that interests them, not a vocation that consumes them. They're usually the ultimate realists, and don't kid themselves about what they're doing.
So I'd reverse your ratio there, and say 2% of the lawyers make the other 98% look bad. You just don't hear about the ones putting in regular hours, collecting their paychecks, and going home every night.
Re:Because you don't like it doesn't make it illeg (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite the name, entrapment doesn't have to do with being tricked, it has to do with being forced to do something you wouldn't otherwise have done. It's not "I wouldn't have done it if I'd known it was a trap" but "I wouldn't have done it if they didn't have a gun to my head".
One difference that I could see with a cop catching a spammer this way is that the money, if any, wouldn't be going into somebody's pocket.
But let's be honest for a second...policeman routinely act as if they are above the law. People are arrested around the country every day for asking for a badge number or going down to the station and asking for a complaint form. Don't believe me? Think your town is different? Go try it and see.
Sure, you'll get your day in court, but only when a prosecutor's been lined up and a bunch of one-size-fits-all charges have been filed against them. Resisting, interfering, failure to identify, etc.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
I completely disagree. The entire adversarial legal system rewards people who have no ethics, and it's a field where sociopaths can excel, so the smart ones are drawn to it. I'm sure, once they figure out how to do a brain scan that conclusively proves someone is a sociopath, they could grab 1000 lawyers, and 1000 regular citizens, and find a far higher number of lawyers that are sociopaths. I don't know about 98%, but I'm sure the number of evil lawyers is much higher than your 2%.
We don't even hear about all the evil lawyers, only the very worst ones. We never hear about all the ambulance-chasers that get clients to sue because, for example, their client was too stupid to stop for a train and thought it'd be a good idea to drive around the crossing guards. A large number of lawyers are people like this, and they don't even get to court; they just have to scare big companies into settling, and this just drives up the cost of everything for everyone else. Or what about all the slimy criminal defense lawyers that twist things around so they can get their clients off? I can understand defending someone you genuinely think didn't do it, but when you know your client's guilty (and you have to in order to argue your case), the only ethical thing you can possibly do is to help him get the most appropriate sentence instead of getting stuck with a draconian one.
Don't forget all the district attorneys who measure their success in how many cases they can successfully prosecute, so they can claim they're "tough on crime" in the next election. So, they end up prosecuting everyone that can, for anything they can possibly stick them with, including people who lawfully defend themselves against violent criminals.
If they do the right thing who cares why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, like a patent troll, Gordon wasn't trying to eliminate spam, he was trying to profit off laws against spam that might allow him to sue--a professional litigant.
"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing at a profit."
Why shouldn't somebody doing a public service get rewarded for it? ... we're the one's footing the bill for the judge who has to oversee it all, and the courtroom and clerks they're using.
Actually, the payer of the "court costs" is footing the bill. That's what court costs are about.
Not many ./ers are capable of understanding that sometimes bad people (Gordon) do good things (fight spam) for the wrong reasons (personal profit) at a cost to us all (tying up the court system).
That's what the court system is FOR: Penalizing the miscreants for their misbehavior in order to deter it and making them pay for their violations of law and/or harm to others. If it's not doing that why bother to have it?
"Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" is a bogus concept.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:2, Insightful)
You give implied consent for me to sleep in your house by using only a bit of plywood and some drywall to keep me outside.
And that unfenced lawn at your house? Implied consent. Enjoy the turd I left you.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't hear about good lawyers ever. Instead, we have to put up with bullshit posts like yours that don't even make sense. You say that district attorneys are evil. You also said that criminal defense lawyers are slimy. I guess you think the only decent people in the criminal justice system are the criminals. I know your retort already: the system punishes people for minor crimes like marijuana possession. Well, you're also siding with the child molesters and rapists. SOMEONE has to put them away, and SOMEONE has to defend those innocently accused of the crime. That's a lawyer. Or we could do without lawyers and stone people on the accusation of three others. Your choice.
Re:Wait, why 'haha'? (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know what Gordon's motives were? I bet he wants more than anything to eliminate spam. You label him a professional litigant, but he's got some serious integrity for a shitty person. I can't believe that standing up against the courts was a calculated decision to maximize personal profit. How does he profit from not settling with an evil party? It's civil disobedience. When the laws are broken, good people will break the laws.
Re:You can lead a horse to water... (Score:4, Insightful)
The jackass had numerous chances to settle and he just wouldn't do it.
Maybe he has something called PRINCIPLES.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
How many lawyers do you personally know? I'm curious. I am currently working as a summer student at a law firm, and before that I worked as a clerk at an Insurance Defence firm, and when I go to school in the fall, all my teachers will be lawyers. So I'd say, guessing roughly, that I've met and talked to maybe 30-50 real, live, practicing or teaching lawyers (some practice as well as teach), and I have to tell you, out of all of them, there's only one that I suspect is possibly a sociopath. The rest are hard-working, honest people with varying degrees of ethical awareness, mostly fairly developed senses of ethical awareness. They take legal aid cases because their clients can't afford representation, or they mount Charter challenges to challenge overzealous cops or bad laws, they draw up wills, guide clients through divorces, and do the paperwork for your house sale. They teach business law, commercial law, and yes, ethics. Only a small portion do what you think of as "unethical" lawyering, and most of those know that there is ethical value in the work they do, and they care about that value, a great deal.
I think you don't understand the ethics of lawyering very well. The lawyers who chase ambulances are also the lawyers who keep corporations from completely neglecting quality control, and who keep insurance companies paying out settlements. Also, you mentioned criminal lawyers who defend clients that they know are guilty. You look at this and you see a lawyer who's protecting a criminal from being punished, and you think the lawyer is a slimeball. But that lawyer understands that when you have an adversarial system, every single person accused of a crime deserves a vigorous defence. Good criminal lawyers keep prosecutors honest, and they protect people from the much greater power of the state. If someone is guilty of a crime, but they get off because the prosecutor didn't build a good case, or because the cops roughed the guy up too much down at the station, then next time, the cops will know not to beat the shit out of prisoners, and prosecutors will know to do a good job instead of a sloppy mess of a prosecution.
As for the DA who prosecutes showy cases to help him at election time: well I'm a Canadian and I can't get over that you people in the US elect your prosecutors (and judges, for that matter). That seems wrong to me. You elect your government officials, as you should, a democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms; but there's room in the system for unelected professionals whose job is to protect people from the tyrrany of the majority, and lawyers, prosecutors and judges can fill that role well. But whatever, that's the system you have chosen for yourselves, and it works best when "slimeball" criminal attorneys can go all-out for their clients. It doesn't look pretty, but for the most part it works, and the people who make up the system know that what looks unethical to most people may be necessary to preserve the best parts of the system.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:4, Insightful)
We could have a legal system not so mired in procedure that it makes it next to impossible for the layman to defend himself, and this system has been perpetually perverted by those blurring the line between zealous adversarial representation and inhuman chicanery.
At this point, yes, we need lawyers, but, in my experience, I haven't found 90% of lawyers to be either good or evil. Maybe 10% are strongly either way. The rest are just like us, lazy, tired, mildly manipulative, and so busy doing the job that they've lost sight of any greater meaning of the work. The next time your doctor gives you Flonase instead of a chest x-ray because they'd rather turf you than fight with your HMO? Yeah.. same thing.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
The technical part of the problem is that there's no way to enforce a legal solution.
Follow the lead of the TCPA and allow EVERYONE to take spammers to court, instead of this corrupt law that only permits ISPs to do so, and spam would stop in short order.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
And when all of the botnet operators are in Eastern Europe and China, then what? The problem here is that the law has national boundaries but the Internet does not. International law is more of a concept than a reality.
Even within your own borders, it can be difficult to find botnet operators.
Re:Wait, why 'haha'? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny for those of us who've never seen it before...
For everyone else, it's just spam.
Re:abuse of the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Imposing a cost on sending of email is not going to work.
You forget that many times spammers are criminals using botnets composed of hijacked machines, whose innocent owners would wind up paying the price while the spammer cheerfully pays his chump change to the botnet operator.
My favorite solution consists of the following:
1. Widespread adoption of SPF/DomainKeys to
2. Allow anyone to sue a spammer and not just an ISP
3. Make it illegal for credit card companies to process payments for spammed products.
On the whole, politics will probably make 3 the steepest uphill battle. I'm sure the credit card companies are well represented at DC.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
If that person is someone you don't want to talk to, then you should be able to unregister that user to send you messages.
We already have this capability, it's called blacklisting, it doesn't work.
Say spammers create a server and start spamming people under different accounts. That server can easily be blacklisted.
We already do this, spammers create new servers faster than we can blacklist them. SO we blacklist whole countries.
allow users to create a web of trust between who they contact on a day to day basis and allow/deny messages from first time contacts
This is also already possible, and funny thing, people aren't willing to jump through hoops to talk to other people. These kinds of "you just sent me email, please visit this website before contacting me" schemes break when you need to get mail from an automated system (mailing list, bank, ...) using an email address you can't predict. Even the lightweight password I set up for my wife (just include this word in the subject of the first few lines of the first message you send me) turned outto occasionally cause problems.
All these things are part of the problem.
Re:Morton's Fork (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Spam doesn't use a lot of resources (Score:3, Insightful)
most of which is the web
Last statistics I saw showed that peer-to-peer file distribution services used over 50% of the Internet bandwidth. That doesn't tell the whole story, however. Something like a bittorrent client or a web server or client uses a tiny amount of CPU power per byte of data transferred compared to a spam filter. One of the big advantages of OpenBSD's spamd is that it's got a very lower overhead per message, so it makes a good first line of defence. Even then, moderately large sites need a powerful machine or two running 24/7 filtering spam. This is where the power usage comes from, not pushing the bits over the network.