csua.org/u/534 -> www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/11/24/spam.rage.reut/index.html
SAN FRANCISCO, California (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 Booher, 44, was arrested on Thursday and released on $75,000 bond for making repeated threats to staff of a Canadian company between May and July. Booher 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; In a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday, Booher 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. He said he did not own any guns or have access to anthrax. Booher said the problem stemmed from a program he mistakenly downloaded from the Internet that brought a continuous stream of advertising to his computer. He seemed really dedicated to this," Mackay said from Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business. 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. House of Representatives was poised to vote for 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Story Tools 41 Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time!
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