Hacked systems and the law

[L. Adrian Griffis]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Bradley Miller wrote:
> > > Now why is it people are more worked up over spam than "intruders"?
> >
> >Becasue spam causes real losses and damage, and affects all of us every day,
> >while one inadequately secured system getting 'owned' is pretty dull stuff.
> 
> Ok -- so you can quantify the real loss from getting spam?  So your users 
> have to use the delete key?  How can you count spam deleting time as a 
> loss, but the time that it takes to clean up this fiasco on my part isn't a 
> loss?

Spam should be treated like littering.  Certainly for individual
cases, it's not more significant than breaking and entering.
There's should be a $100 fine for each piece of mail, and the
penalty should increase as it becomes evident that the
spammer is trying to hide his identity and/or evade the
consequences of his act.

Adrian