
'Revenge porn’ site runner gets 18 years in prison - prostoalex
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Revenge-porn-site-runner-gets-18-years-in-6178500.php
======
codezero
I'll break the mold in this thread by saying this outcome is ideal. At the
core, this was a new kind of case. This sets a precedent for people who may
try to replicate his business model, and it makes it seem less desirable.
Sure, people could just do it internationally, etc, but this is a good outcome
for a tenacious and abusive criminal.

edit: it is an injustice that people are jailed for minor crimes, it seems
wild that this is longer than some murderers receive, but recognize that what
effectively happened here's was the monetization of widespread psychological
and social abuse. 18 years is likely less than the sum time his victims have
spent trying to deal with the abuse he inflicted, willingly and for profit.

edit 2: removed downvote gripe, in response to feedback, previously the first
paragraph ended with "Let the downvotes flow."

~~~
raldi
Damn it, I was all set to upvote you, and then you had to go attempt the
reverse-psychology "I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this" ploy.

Sorry, but that's an automatic "stop reading and downvote" in my book.

~~~
codezero
Given the tone of the thread when I posted this, it felt necessary. Reactions
on HN are truly stochastic and if what I said before the defensive comment
wasn't meaningful enough for you to upvote then I'm glad you downvoted it, it
only reinforces how reactionary people can be.

~~~
vacri
Complaining about or goading downvotes turns a comment into a soapboxing
whine. It's a juvenile debating tactic where if the author gets modded up they
claim victory because of assent, and if the author gets modded down, they also
claim victory because "I called it, you all suck!".

> _it only reinforces how reactionary people can be_

You're calling raldi reactionary even though the downvote was not for your
'meaningful comment', but because you _literally asked to be downvoted_?

~~~
codezero
I didn't ask to be downvoted I expressed my expectations. I didn't force
anyone. Also, I've since made an edit.

Edit: on inspection of your profile you seem intimately aware of the
gratuitous downvotes on HN. Why is pointing it out considered a faux pas? Why
should we be goaded into not bringing it up?

~~~
DanBC
The guidelines ask you to not do it.

People commenting are asking you to not do it.

Saying thigs like "I expect I'll get downvoted for this" _guarantees_
downvotes - but those votes are for that part of the comment and not for the
rest of the comment.

I've seen people say "I expect I'll get downvoted for this" but then say
something bland and uncontroversial.

~~~
codezero
They say resist it, which is materially different from saying not to do it.
Goading is another story entirely.

I will add that in practice, adding this defensive layer has had the opposite
effect, it has resulted in more compassionate voting, rather than more
downvotes, on my comments, which reinforces why I did it here and have done it
in the past, so I question why it's such a big deal, to me, the big deal is
the fact that there is an expectation of surprise downvotes, that you can't
expect a discussion without driveby negative feedback is a sign of a very
toxic community.

Since this is a point of contention, though, I'll try to resist in the future,
but I still call out to anyone to ask of the community – why do you downvote
so readily, rather than upvoting equally as readily? Check out the Wikipedia
article for critical positivity:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio)
– there's no reason we can't make HN a positive environment.

~~~
vacri
_why do you downvote so readily, rather than upvoting equally as readily?_

They don't. The vast majority of users have positive karma scores, including
yourself. You just can't see positive votes for other users, as they're
invisible. You're arguing from selection bias here. If you are interested in a
higher quality conversation, then try out those guidelines.

You may also want to find better links when you want to support your argument
- that wiki page starts out _" The critical positivity ratio ... is a largely
discredited concept"_, and most of the article is spent arguing against it.

~~~
codezero
Yep, the mathematics behind it are discredited, I hadn't seen this
development, thanks!

------
littletimmy
The US is a weirdly moralistic society. It is almost as if Americans pride
themselves on punishing people as severely and brutally as possible. Perhaps
in order to reinforce in our own minds how righteous a group of people we are.

18 years is absolutely insane. Utterly, terrifyingly insane. That's more than
murder gets in many countries. That's more than rape gets. That's more than
terrorism gets.

How long before someone just automates building these sort of websites on a
prepared template. Who'll be punished then?

~~~
nomass
> 18 years is absolutely insane. Utterly, terrifyingly insane.

Why exactly are you terrified?

> That's more than murder gets in many countries. That's more than rape gets.
> That's more than terrorism gets.

Orange and Apples.

In my understanding Kevin Christopher Bollaert developed a business case where
he invited people on a global scale to harm other people. Then in a second
step he took advantage of the miserable situation of those victims.

Why do you and other people in this thread fail to see the highly destructive
element of this crime? The problem is not just the quality of the crime, where
victims experience severe violations of their privacy, it's also the potential
quantitity because this business model is only successfull if a lot of people
participate.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Not them but...

> Why exactly are you terrified?

Because disproportionate punishment on one crime could result in
disproportionate punishment on another. In particular with how the US has been
fearmongering "cybercrime" recently, before we know it someone gets a 10+ year
sentence for an SQL injection.

> That's more than murder gets in many countries.

>> Orange and Apples.

Indeed it is. So why is apples getting a similar punishment to orange? That's
the problem, that they are orange and apples, but yet get punished the same.
Where is the logic in that?

> Why do you and other people in this thread fail to see the highly
> destructive element of this crime?

That's a strawman. Nobody is arguing that he shouldn't have been jailed,
nobody. Therefore there is no way you can claim that people think what he did
isn't "highly destructive." They just don't think it is on the same "level" as
murder, multiple rapes, or beating two people to within an inch of their
lives.

You know what else was highly destructive? Wallstreet fraud. How many people
lost their jobs? Lost their homes? Literally committed suicide? And how many
of them went to jail for a single year let alone eighteen? None.

The legal system is corrupt and inconsistent. That's a genuine problem and one
people are right to complain about.

~~~
Crito
> one crime

Since there were thousands of separate victims, I think that thinking of it as
_" one crime"_ doesn't really do it justice.

------
vvpan
Ok, bad guy, but that sentence is insane. 18 years!?

~~~
butwhy
I feel like some information is being left or.

What was the nature of the counts for identity fraud?

~~~
michaelchisari
I think the extortion part is probably a bigger factor in sentencing than
identity fraud.

Soliciting compromising photos, and then extorting people to have them
removed. He effectively started a criminal organization. A stupid, poorly
hidden white collar criminal enterprise, but one nonetheless. Not much
different from sending muscle to collect protection money.

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flexie
18 years! The guy surely deserves some correction but 18 years? That's more
than most murderers get where I'm from.

~~~
kenjackson
Don't you think that murderers getting less than 18 years is the real problem?

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malandrew
I can kind of understand the extortion charges, but from what evidence did the
charges of identity theft stem? Seems like an unusual charge unless he was
involved in doing more than just hosting revenge porn.

~~~
Dylan16807
Looking at older articles I find:

 _authorities say he ran afoul of state laws against identity theft, which
prevent even simple personal information like names and addresses from being
used "for any unlawful purpose, including with the intent to annoy or
harass."_

Sounds like the legislature mixed in some privacy crimes and gave them a
misleading name.

------
venomsnake
File this under "On personal level I like the outcome, but I am troubled
enough by the way we got there and the wider implications". 18 years is just
absurdly high.

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sytelus
Shouldn't the people who _posted_ the photos be really paying the price? My
guess is that the guy's lawyers might have invoked the strong defense that
they were just the hosting company, they didn't created or owned the material
and that they just wanted to allow their users to express with freedom. I
guess the core mistake he made was not allowing "Flag this" button on his
website because obviously he wanted to monetize this and that would have made
his defense very weak because it simply means he was running a public
exhortation service company.

When you do think about legally risky startup ideas, one way to figure out the
"badness" is to use the old world analogy: Let's say you ran a company in 1960
that accepts nude photos of your ex by postal mail and makes call to your ex
that if they don't pay $300 then the photos would be in newspaper. Would you
be punished for running such company? Of course, you will. However 18 yrs is
insane. Looking at his income of $30,000 looks like he probably managed to get
money from 100 victims. Considering 1 week of pain to get it removed, this
still would come out to ~2 years in prison. To compare, people doing Enron
billion dollar frauds got less than that.

~~~
dietrichepp
> Considering 1 week of pain to get it removed

I think you haven't really been following these cases. To his victims, it was
far from "1 week of pain"... his actions cost people their jobs and damaged
their relationships. 100 victims only counts the ones who paid, I suspect many
wouldn't. You can argue that the posters should pay the price, and they
should, but Bollaert is also culpable. Just like I would be culpable if I
offered a "bank robbery getaway driver" service.

And let's be honest here, the masterminds behind Enron didn't get the
punishment they were due. But they were rich and well-connected. Miscarriage
of justice, sure, but a bad comparison.

It's 18 years because US prosecutors want to set an example for a new category
of cases, and this guy is neither rich nor well-connected.

------
muglug
I wonder what sort of sentence he might have had if he'd plead guilty:
[http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-revenge-porn-
ver...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-revenge-porn-
verdict-20150202-story.html)

------
locusm
Does the U.S have victims of crime compensation now that there has been a
conviction?

~~~
dragonwriter
California has crime victim compensation, but only for certain violent crimes;
neither extortion nor identity theft qualify.
[http://vcgcb.ca.gov/victims/](http://vcgcb.ca.gov/victims/)

------
s3nnyy
I wonder how much it was taken into account that a significant "part of the
damange" was done by people posting the photos.

His platform was merely an enabler and the nude photos could have been also
posted elsewhere.

------
dennisgorelik
The article did not show the defense argument.

------
mynameishere
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/03/kevin-bollaert-
reve...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/03/kevin-bollaert-revenge-porn-
sentenced_n_7002364.html)

 _Bollaert earned about $900 a month in website ad revenue and collected about
$30,000 from victims._

Ha ha ha. Yelp and the Better Business Bureau laugh at him. This guy was an
amateur in the extortion business, that's for sure. And he's paying for it
with 18 years! Can you believe it? 18 years! He should have raped a nun while
he was at it and got 19 years instead.

