RSSCalif. Man Faces 101 Years for Phishing
By Ed Oswald | Published January 17, 2007, 11:10 AM
A California phisher faces up to 101 years in prison after being convicted in U.S. District Court of tricking AOL members into disclosing their personal information, including credit cards. The information was then used to make purchases, say prosecutors.
Federal authorities arrested Jeffrey Goodin, 45, in January 2006. He had been using hacked EarthLink accounts to send e-mails to AOL members. The messages were fashioned to look as if the user would lose service if they failed to respond.
From there, the victim would be directed to a spoofed AOL billing page where they would enter their personal information. The number of victims was not disclosed.
The conviction is the first by jury under the CAN-SPAM Act, passed in 2003. Sentencing has been scheduled for June 11.
Goodin was also convicted of 10 other counts, including wire fraud, aiding and abetting the unauthorized use of an access device (credit card), possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices, misuse of the AOL trademark, attempted witness harassment and failure to appear in court.
Phishing is quickly becoming one of the Internet's biggest problems. 25,816 unique reports of phishing were received in the month of November alone, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and the problem shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
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|Just cut his throat open.
Financial crime is as bad as killing people.
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|Quote: Black-Wolf; I agree you are basically destorying their life
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|Of course, life without money isn't life at all, is it? :P
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|Stupid Phishers. They can go to hell. I agree Black-Wolf, let him ROT in prison, stupid sob cant work honestly to make money. Loser. >.>
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|He's not gonna be facing 101 years, not even close. I predict he'll be sentenced somewhere in the 10-20 years range maximum.
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|10 years probation MAX.
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|Yeah, it's been said in the previous comments, but I'll say it too. No way should a non-violent crime get the punishment equivalent to or more than a non-violent crime.
That said, economic grief can actually have a large mental impact on a family, and cause quite a lot of troubles. Since this person could have affected quite a lot of people in an adverse way, it's also hard to put a monetary value on how much their lives were changed.
I know I'm kinda arguing with myself here, but I'm just thinking out loud...
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|Good. I guarantee he will regret his actions when he is made someone's beeeeotch! Serves him right.
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|well he did steal alot of personnel information. if it was just 1 or 2 users the sentense would probly be lower but it sound like he was able to dupe alot of people.
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|So, what is the monetary damages caused that warrant a sentence equal to that of a murderer? If you can name it, you just put a monetary value on human life.
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|Human lives are given monetary values everyday: in the money we DON'T spend on the environment, health, education... even simple, more tangible things like road safety.
How much is too much to spend on the homeless? On the mentally or physically disabled? We've all got prices on our lives.
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|A little extreme maybe?? But then again think Guantanamo Bay. Hmmm America, land of the free - except if you bad - then yippee-ki-yay mofo.
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|Which is exactly how it should be. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
Keep in mind, though, he hasn't been sentenced yet - the date for that is June 11. The 101 years is the maximum he faces. I'll bet he ends up getting less than 10 years total, especially if parole is factored in. Much of the sentence is also likely to run concurrently, cutting the time drastically.
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|True, the maximum penalties rarely, if ever relate in the slightest to the actual sentence handed down except in the most extreme cases.
Will be interesting to see though, since this is the first one under CAN-SPAM. You're probably right, but I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to see it over 10 years, even by a decade or two.
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|If he got the 101 years, it really would be quite ridiculous, considering murders are sentenced for fractions of that length of time.
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|well the millennium bomber got like 20 years, and got that appeled, by a judge in san fran. seems like they fear electronic crime more than terroist that would have killed as many people as possable.
check it out
http://www.breitbart.com...na/cp_w011633A.xml.html
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|Friggin San Fran judges. Probably has a soft spot for poor maligned misunderstood terrorists with bad childhoods.
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|That's the US's 9th Circus Court of Appeals for you :|
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|I got one of those Nigerian spams the other day... except he was purporting himself to be a Chinese man. I was amused.
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|"yippee-ki-yay mofo"
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