Facebook awarded $711m in 'Spamford' Wallace case

Facebook has been awarded $711 million in damages against the infamous junk mail merchant, Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, who gained access to numerous accounts on the social website and sent phony messages to their friends. "While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully

Hopefully this is a start to ending the worst spam but there is a long way to go.

[Cliff]

Money to members?

If Facebook has been awarded the cash, will it pass it onto the affected members, or keep it? Thought so.

[Tanuki]

FS: One spammer's Brain. Never used. Reserve $0.01 Buyer collects or pays carriage.

Having battled with Spammy's 'Cyberpromo' outfit back in the mid-1990s - I truly wish someone would manage to get legal rights to his bodily organs in lieu of payment-of-fines.

We could slice him up and auction him off on Ebay or on misc.forsale.bodyparts.transplants

But - let's face it - only the most-desperate would pay to receive an organ from a spammer. Check out the classic movie "The Hands of Orlac" for guidance on what horrors it could lead to.

[Mike Echo]

That's fine and well but...

huge monetary fines mean nothing unless they can actually be collected. Come the revolution, all spammers are the first ones against the wall. I'll volunteer for the chain gun, thanks.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Just hit delete

How about a pair of goggles welded to his head that show pop-up ads and plug his ears at random intervals. He then has to press a 'delete' button to regain sight and hearing. Maybe he has to hit delete 100 times in a row sometimes, just like in the old Cyberpromo days. The goggles can come off when he pays all the spam fines.

[Anonymous Coward]

7 Billion

They actually asked for $7 Billion in damages, sounds a bit frivolous to me.

[Jon Green]

So all that's needed now is...

...for Wallace to be jailed until he pays up the full amount -- and injuncted not to come within 10 metres of any computer or computing equipment.

Yeah, that works. And not before time, too.

[James O'Brien]

"14,214,753 violations "

HOLY SHIT!!! I knew there would be alot but again I reiterate. . .HOLY SHIT!!

Thats alot of spam Batman!!!!

[Disco-Legend-Zeke]

Hope they take his house

If i had all the money i have spent on anti-spam measures over the years, i could pay off my mortgage.

I only wish i could afford the legal fees to sue a few of these low-lifes.

Grenade plus lots of lube, pull the pin and shove it.

[mh.]

Not him again

Can't help thinking that Wallace needs treatment rather than a fine, preferably at a secure facility. There must be something behind his constant spamming other than just wanting to make a quick buck. I quite liked this 10 year old User Friendly cartoon about him:

http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99feb/uf000353.gif

[Giles Jones]

Military hacks

If he did the same to military computers he would be rotting in jail somewhere.

The only way to stop spammers is to treat their activities as hacking. Many of their methods are dubious at best.

[Winkypop]

New business model?

1. Run a leaky social network site

2. Attract all the dim sheeples

3. Get hacked

4. Prosecute and (hopefully) win

5. ????

6. Profit !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why ask for money, it will never be paid....

It think these chaps are nuts asking for money as these criminals will never pay any of it. And if they think it will "serve as a deterrent", why would they think paying $0 would be any more deterrent than being told off by a school teacher?

Request one testicle and their right hand, and make sure this is enforced! Then we have deterrents that *might* get heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is...

... Spamford, if I remember right, was actually a fairly good dance DJ. What a shame he chose a life of spam over a life behind the turntables.

[Crazy Operations Guy]

With that money

Perhaps they could secure their damn servers, or at least through in some filters. But then again, this is a Web 2.0 company so the words security, privacy, reliability and profit are not in their vocabularies...

[Simon B]

A real deterrent?!!!

"we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals".

Yeah a real deterrent getting a fine he can't pay.

[Gav]

This is a user issue not a security issue

All those whining about Facebook security need to actually read what the article says. The spamming was accomplished through obtaining account details and passwords by phishing emails.

Nothing Facebook can do will ever stop this happening, as a certain percentage of their users will always be the clueless who get fooled by phishing scams.

[Vin King]

What

Why do courts award completely made up numbers for trivial cases? Oh noes, Facebook got spammed! THATS A 348213904712348712934712839471243981723941273491273 DOLLAR FINE OMG

[qwertyuiop]

What about *YOUR* vocabulary?

@Crazy Operations Guy

"Perhaps they could secure their damn servers, or at least through in some filters. But then again, this is a Web 2.0 company so the words security, privacy, reliability and profit are not in their vocabularies..."

"...or at least through in some filters" - WTF does that mean?