How to punish a boy spammer
Bombarding your ex-employer with five million spam emails sounds like a criminal offence worthy of harsh punishment -- the electric chair perhaps? But yesterday the 'Boy Spammer' David Lennon, who was 16 when he electronically snubbed his former bosses, has been told by a judge that as punishment for his crimes he can't leave his house between the hours of 12.30am and 7am on weekdays, and between 12.30am and 10am on weekends, for two months.
Call us communists, but isn't little Lennon most likely keeping these hours anyway, honing his reflexes in Doom 3, or, Zeus forbid, Grand Theft Auto?
Lennon's punishment sounds more like a re-enforcement of the existing social habits of the geek-gamer demographic than a curtailing of his freedoms. How many kids would actually find this curfew changed their daily behaviour?