Guest Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=407442§ion=news Man gets "spam rage" over penis ad Fri 21 November, 2003 21:39 By Adam Tanner SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Call it spam rage -- a Silicon Valley computer programmer has been arrested for threatening to torture and kill employees of the company he blames for bombarding his computer with Web ads promising to enlarge his penis. In one of the first prosecutions of its kind in the state that made "road rage" famous, Charles Booker, 44, was arrested on Thursday and released on $75,000 (45,000 pounds) bond for making repeated threats to staff of an unnamed Canadian company between May and July, the U.S. Attorney's office for Northern California said on Friday. Booker threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Booker acknowledged that he had behaved badly but said his computer had been rendered almost unusable for about two months by a barrage of pop-up advertising and e-mail. "Here's what happened: I go to their Web site and start complaining to them, would you please, please, please stop bothering me," he said. "It just sort of escalated ... and I sort of lost my cool at that point." Booker, of Sunnyvale, California, now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for next month. He said he did not own any guns or have access to anthrax. Booker said the problem stemmed from a program he mistakenly downloaded from the Internet that brought a continuous stream of advertising to his computer. Booker identified the object of his rage as Albion Medical, which claims to produce the "Only Reliable, Medically Approved Penis Enhancement." The company's Web site does not provide any telephone numbers for contact. In other cases, Internet vigilantes have bombarded spammers with both unsolicited e-mail and regular mail and phone calls, launched attacks on spammers' computers and posted spammers' personal information on the Internet, according to reports. Separately, lawmakers in Washington said the U.S. House of Representatives could vote as early as Friday on a measure to outlaw most Internet spam. Lawmakers hope to pass a national anti-spam bill before a much tougher California state law goes into effect on January 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straycat Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 He should bloody well get awarded and they should put away that Penis Enlargement creeps for a long, long time. :onfire: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 Hi, Hear, hear Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sayjann Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 i know where the guy is coming from. the latest crap i am getting is about a video of Paris Hilton? starring in her home movie and that is now available to view for x amount of $. i got home from work today and had 72 e-mails offering me the chance to watch the video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torrenova Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 My firewall registered numerous crap relating to that video as well. Also looks like my long time roaming hotmail account will have to be junked and a new one set up. just too much shit coming through these days and Microsoft don't seem to have any answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbaron Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 Microsoft don't seem to have any answers. you're not wrong there... I just got an email containing a virus... apparently from myself! My REAL NAME was there in the bit where it says who it's from, and it's my (almost) real email address too. Except the hotmai bit is replaced by "email", but this doesn't show up until you open the mail. Talking to 1 or 2 of my contacts via MSN messenger confirms they got it oo. Luckily the virus shows up in a scan. This has never happened with yahoo.. maybe I'll just use that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.