At 7:30 AM 12/5/95, Bob Bruen, MIT Lab for Nuclear Science wrote:
Dominick had his campus account taken away after other users complained that he had been "advertising business proposals inappropriately on line." The FBI alleges that he then sent 24,000 email messages in one day from a commercial account (unamed) to Monmouth's system.. This denial of service attack was successful for about 5 hours. He is facing six(6) years in prison and a up to $350,000 in fines (1.20 years/hr and and $70,000/hr).
His lawyer (Kenneth Weiner) claims that "even if his client sent the mail bomb" since no damage was done to the system, he could not be convicted under the computer fraud statute. He also claims that prosecutors are trying to make an example of his client. The university is still trying to figure out whether he can be punished under the university code of conduct.
If Monmouth college is like almost every other college I know, they routinely send out "mail bombs" to their alumni. That is, mass mailings sent through the postal service. Given that we've agreed to legitimize this behavior in the paper world, I can't see what's so wrong about doing it in the electronic world. Of course, he could have been spreading false advertising which would really be fraud. -Peter