This sounds too weird to be true:
Federal officers arrested a disgruntled Philadelphia Phillies baseball fan in California on charges of hacking into computers and sending thousands of spam e-mails to sports writers at two Philadelphia newspapers, officials said on Wednesday.
Okay so far . . . .
Allan Eric Carlson, 39, was arrested on Tuesday at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale and charged with hacking, spoofing return addresses, launching spam attacks, and identity theft for using fake e-mail addresses, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
He was released on $25,000 bail and ordered not to use the Internet, Michael Levy, assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and chief of the computer crimes unit, said on Wednesday.
That bail figure seems a bit steep, but okay . . . .
Carlson faces 471 years in prison and $117.25 million in fines, officials said.
Wha . . . . . ????? In the immortal words of P.J. O'Rourke, "What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck???"
He was arrested by the agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Despite a competitive season, the Phillies failed to win a spot in Major League Baseball's championship playoffs.
The spam messages were critical of Phillies management and the media, including one e-mail that had a subject line reading, "Corrupt Philly Media Keeps Phils in Cellar," according to the indictment.
Carlson used fake return addresses, belonging to sports reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, the indictment said.
Because many of the e-mail addresses the spam was sent to were bad, they bounced back to the reporters' e-mail accounts, crippling the servers where they were stored, according to the indictment.
471 years and $117 million in fines for being an overzealous (and stupid) sports fan??? One could probably rape and burn multiple babies and still not draw a sentence as severe as that.
All I can do is chant Koyaanisqatsi over and over. Details here.