California throws the book at spam
By Lisa M. Bowman

Special to CNET News.com
March 16, 2001, 12:45 p.m. PT
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5161480.html?tag=prntfr

Two San Diego men could be the first to face felony criminal charges related
to spam in California after they allegedly crashed
a company's computer system by rerouting tens of thousands of unsolicited
e-mails through its servers.

Michael Persaud and Frank Kriticos, both of the San Diego area, are charged
with three counts of disrupting computer
services, doing so to cause injury and illegally using someone else's domain
name. They could face up to four years and four
months in jail if convicted.

Although many spamming cases are brought into civil courts, Persaud and
Kriticos are believed to be the first to face criminal
penalties in California in connection with sending unsolicited e-mail.

"Since law enforcement hasn't been responding to this type of crime,
spammers have been operating with impunity," said San
Diego County Deputy District Attorney Michael Groch, who's prosecuting the
case, adding that he hasn't come across any
other people facing criminal charges related to spam in the state.

The phenomenon of spam has become one of the Internet's biggest blemishes.
Consumer groups, privacy advocates and
Internet service providers have vocally rallied against spammers, saying the
e-mail pitches overload people's in-boxes and
companies' ISP networks.

Internet companies that offer e-mail have spent considerable resources to
fight the problem. Giants such as AOL Time
Warner's America Online have taken suspected spammers to court on civil
charges, and many states have enacted legislation
to fight the proliferation of spam. But some early legal tests have gone
against those measures.

Courts have so far struck down two attempts by states to rein in spammers,
citing inconsistencies with federal laws regulating
interstate commerce. Judges in California and Washington state have ruled
that some of their respective attempts at anti-spam
legislation were unconstitutional.

Groch said that in this latest case, San Diego's Computer Technology Crime
High-Tech Response Team was able to track the
spammers because they used someone else's computers.

Under the state's anti-spamming law, it is legal to transmit spam in
California if the sender puts "ADV:" in the subject line and
gives the recipient a real option of unsubscribing. Failing to do so
constitutes a misdemeanor. However, for the most part,
those laws have not been enforced.

Persaud and Kriticos are facing felony charges for allegedly using computers
owned by Veritools, a Palo Alto-based company
that creates debugging software, to carry out their task. Law enforcement
was first notified of the spamming incident in
December, when Veritools' system crashed after tens of thousands of e-mails
were rerouted through its servers.

According to prosecutors, the pair was hired by a refinancing company to
find people who would be interested in its services.
The e-mails, which offered refinancing services, appeared to come from a
Veritools affiliate, and return messages from angry
spam recipients also put a strain on the company's computer system,
according to prosecutors.

The San Diego County District Attorney's office learned of the identities of
Persaud and Kriticos after issuing several search
warrants to the San Diego Web hosting company that appeared to be the source
of the spam. The pair was arrested in
February. They appeared in court earlier this week, but asked for a later
date for their arraignment because they needed time
to secure attorneys. The hearing has been continued until April.

Groch said the pair was "willfully ignorant" of the laws, and he hoped that
a prosecution in the case would deter others from
committing similar crimes.

If they are found guilty, it would be at least the second criminal
conviction for a spammer in the United States. In December, an
Orange County, Calif., man pleaded guilty in New York to sending millions of
porn and get-rich-quick spam.

Groch said his task force, one of five in California, would only go after
people who break spamming or computer security laws,
not every sender of junk e-mail. "We're definitely not the spam police, so
we don't want everyone who gets spam to forward it
to us for prosecution," he said.

Meanwhile, several federal lawmakers are pushing new legislation that would
outlaw certain junk e-mail practices. Just this
week, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., introduced the Anti-Spamming Act of 2001,
which would make it illegal to forge items such
as the time stamp or originating e-mail address of a spam message. Rep.
Heather Wilson, R-N.M., introduced a bill containing
similar anti-spam provisions last month. Many spammers try to disguise their
identities so spam recipients cannot complain or
remove themselves from a list.

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