New Online Code: Don’t Be Annoying

I can understand abuse, harass, threaten, and so forth, but annoy? If it’s really illegal to annoy people on the Internet now, the avalanche of lawsuits is going to be frightening. I can’t wait for the test cases on this one:

A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here’s the relevant language.

“Whoever…utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person…who receives the communications…shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

At least it’s criminal law, not civil. Individuals can’t go around suing everyone who leaves a snarky comment on their weblog, they’ll have to convince a DA to file charges. However, as News.com points out, “trusting prosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring”. Especially these days.

OMFG

Amazing. Anybody, any phone number, any time.

Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls

John of AMERICABlog tests one service out, and finds that their web advertisement is correct:

The company boasts on its own Web site:

Give us the cell phone number and we will send you the calls made from the cell phone number.

So I went to their site, plopped down $110, and within a day I had a list of every single phone number that called my cell, or that I called from my cell, for the month of November. I even had the dates the calls were made, and for a premium I could find out how long the calls were.

I called Cingular and they were shocked by what I told them – yeah right.

No I am not linking to the site in question. I’m not giving them the free publicity. But I’m pissed off. Why this isn’t illegal I don’t know. If it is, someone ought to be going to jail pronto. And if it’s not, it ought to be.

Reason #243,945 Why I Hate Spam

Lately it feels like I’ve been inundated by spam. Every single e-mail account I have has seen an increase in spam, the blog’s been getting an upswing in trackback and comment spam … I can’t seem to get away from it. I don’t know it it’s just a seasonal thing or if the change is permanent. I’m hoping for the former, because if not then I’m going to have to take some steps to get things back to a manageable level again.

One particularly annoying event that happened in the last 48 hours is that some jerk sent me a virus. Although between Thunderbird and Norton, the virus didn’t infect my computer, the act of cleaning the virus out of my in-box blew away all the rest of the e-mail in my in-box, including a number of communications from friends that I needed to reply to.

In short, spammers suck.

Back Home Again In Indiana

Must be something in the water over in Indiana, this is the second time in the last 12 months that some wingnut legislator is trying to roll back the clock 100 years or so.

Abortion would be illegal for most women in Indiana, including victims of rape and incest, under a bill filed this week in the Indiana House.

Indiana’s legislators have chipped away at abortion for decades, imposing waiting periods and other restrictions, but the measure proposed by Rep. Troy A. Woodruff, R-Vincennes, is the first direct attempt in years to outlaw most abortions.

The only exception allowed under House Bill 1096 would be for women whose health or life would be permanently impaired if a pregnancy continued. The bill would define life as beginning at conception and make it a felony to perform all other abortions. Anyone convicted would face up to eight years in prison.