Save Toby Really is Illegal Extortion

The owner of the website at savetoby.com is threatening to kill and eat a rabbit unless visitors donate $50,000. Actually since PayPal closed the account used to collect donations, the threat has changed to "buy 100,000 copies of our book".

Most people would assume that this scheme is extortion and it's illegal. The site operators insist it's not illegal and defend the position by offering the following definition of extortion:

Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to his person, reputation, or property.

Note how the definition says, harm to his person, reputation, or property. Since the thug is not threatening anyone's property other than his own, he says he's not breaking any laws. I disagree.

My brief search turned up the following legal definition of extortion:

EXTORTION - The use, or the express or implicit threat of the use, of violence or other criminal means to cause harm to person, reputation, or property as a means to obtain property from someone else with his consent. USC 18

The Hobbs Act defines "extortion" as "the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right." 18 U.S.C. S 1951(b)(2).

I found the definition at http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e073.htm. I'm no lawyer and I'm not going to take the time to verify the definition, but lectlaw.com at least cites a real U.S. code and the Hobbs Act while savetoby.com doesn't cite anything. I'm inclined to believe lectlaw.

That said, it seems obvious to me that the definition applies to savetoby. For one thing, the keyword, his, that Toby's executioner leans on, does not actually appear in the Hobbs Act. Furthermore, the simple use of fear as a tactic for extracting money seems to be enough to qualify as an illegal act.

If visitors are giving money because they are afraid that this maniac will actually kill a rabbit if they don't cough up the dough, well, that's extortion by the definition of the law.

Now lets move on to fraud. Again, the author at savetoby insists that no fraud is being committed. However, I have to question that as well. Let's look at the definition from lectlaw.com:

FRAUD, TO DEFRAUD - The term 'fraud' is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. [Fraud may also include an omission or intentional failure to state material facts, knowledge of which would be necessary to make other statements not misleading.]

Now let's go back to the definition of extortion at savetoby.com. Where did the definition come from? Has the source been intentionally omitted? Where did the word his come from in that definition? Was it added by the author? Is the author aware of any other definition of extortion that does not include his or that casts suspicion on the legality of the scheme?

If the author edited the definition, or carefully chose the definition, or later became aware of a more precise legal definition and failed to disclose it because doing so would have discouraged visitors from sending money, well, that's fraud. Afterall, the author must know that nobody would contribute to an illegal act of extortion and the author has attempted to convince the audience that the scheme is not extortion. If the author doesn't actually believe it isn't extortion then he has committed fraud to extract money from visitors.

I believe that the owners of savetoby.com are committing illegal extortion by the definition of the term in the Hobbs Act. Even if I'm wrong on that count, I believe the owners committed fraud by intentionally publishing an inaccurate definition for extortion to mislead their audience into cooperation.

Update: I added this comment to Bob Parson's (GoDaddy) weblog:

Isn't savetoby.com illegal extortion based on this definition from the Hobbs Act, section 1951, "the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear..."?

The code also says, "Whoever ... threatens physical violence to ANY person or property ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

Notice that this is not the same definition given at savetoby.com which is not a legal definition at all and does not cite a source. The author's key
phrase "harm to HIS person" does not appear in the legal definition. Simply inducing "fear" is enough to qualify as extortion and no threat is allowed
against ANY person or property. This is why I believe savetoby may indeed qualify as extortion.

I say "may" because I don't really know, but this is not the way the information is presented at savetoby. The author puts forth a definition in the "legal" section of the website which we now all know is NOT a legal definition. The author then stands on this definition as cut-and-dry proof that the scheme violates no law. Furthermore, he establishes all this to convince visitors that sending money is the only recourse for saving Toby and to dissuade the public from attempting criminal prosecution.

Either the savetoby owner invented his own definition or he intentionally chose a definition that casts his scheme in a favorable light. Now look up "fraud." One cannot misrepresent or omit facts in a blatant attempt to extract money from the public. The author clearly selected a common definition and presented it as "the law", citing no sources, to dupe visitors into sending money.

One possible safety for the owner (and for Bob) is to claim that they honestly believed they were accurately representing extortion law when they (loudly) persuaded the public that the savetoby scheme was unequivocally legal. Now that the actual legal definition has been brought to their attention (Bob's at least), that safety is gone. We can continue to argue whether savetoby qualifies as extortion but one thing is unavoidable, the website owner MUST change his misleading definition or he is UNDENIABLY committing FRAUD. I would assume, that Bob would not be party to such fraud which does indeed violate the godaddy terms of service.

Bob, I like your service and your radio show. I respect your opinion and your integrity. I believe this is an honest mistake and I think you will correct it. Savetoby may or may not be extortion, but the website is unquestionably fraudulent.

Apprentice Season 4

After watching the train wreck served up on The Apprentice tonight, I have to ask if any of these contestants watched any of the previous shows. Let's start with the obvious, you never want to be the first project manager. Statistically your odds aren't very good. The first people fired are almost always the PMs.

I think Markus realized this but, holy cow, what a dweeb. I hate to pick on the guy, I mean, he put himself out there. It's not like I entered the contest. Seriously though, the fellow needs to learn how to shut-up. Even though he managed to pull out a win, the name of the early game is fly under the radar.

Kristi, oblivious to the statistics, plunged right into the PM role. She nearly earned a cab ride home for it too. Luckily, Melissa was even more annoying than Kristi was stupid. Not only does she miss the fly low trick but she missed the second most obvious lesson from the first three seasons, bring as many people into the board room as you can! Bringing back just Melissa was not a bright strategy.

Maybe my two pearls of wisdom aren't as firm as I thought. Neither PM got fired and Kristi pulled out of a head to head match up in the board room. Still, I stand by my advice. Like I said this show was a train wreck from the word go. Seriously Donald, a foot race? Chopper hide and seek? What were you thinking? Talk about putting the ladies at a serious disadvantage! Not only do they have to out run the men, they have to do it in heals and dresses. I can't believe it was even close. If the guys had lost that they'd never live it down. Was that Kristi sprinting for the helicopter? Holy smokes, she almost made it! Guys, pull it together.

Oh, the task, that leads me to my next piece of sage advice. Handing out flyers on the sidewalk in New York City is about the most ineffective marketing campaign anybody can think of. We've seen this tried over and over again. It never pans out well. Pass out flyers to the people in the gym. Pass out flyers to people in other gyms! Send a mass e-mail out to the gym members. Strike a discount deal with the local Jenny Craig center. Bring a friend and save %20. Get an office to bring their entire staff as a team building exercise.

Let's talk about the course content for a minute. This is New York, how about self defense classes? A 60 minute lesson that could save your life. Use your aerobic training to your advantage. Free pepper spray to each student.

So much for the legitimate tactics, now lets move to the shady devices. Just pay people to be there! They only raised $500. There are 9 people on the team. Everybody chip in $60 bucks and you're done. Too overt? Offer a free massage to the first 36 who sign up. Everybody on the team gives four 15 minute rub-downs. It only takes an extra hour and it's an easy sell at $20. That would have been $720, right there. Pitch in hats, T-shirts, gym bags, anything.

Dice Tries to be "Techy"

Here is an ad that Dice published recently:


if (myJob == boring) {
     // Go to Dice for great Java jobs
     sendRedirect("http://www.dice.com");
} else {
     suck_it_up();
}


I thought this ad was cute when I first saw it. However, the second time it popped up on my web browser I realized something wasn't quite right.

Dice is a website for job postings. They ran this ad on SourceForge looking for Java programmers who are on the market. The thing is, if you actually read the code, the else clause doesn't make sense. OK sure, if myjob is boring then go look for a new job, but the else clause says suck it up. That effectively states, if your job is not boring then suck it up, which seems odd.

The proper code might be something like this:


if (myJob == boring) {
     // Go to Dice for great Java jobs
     sendRedirect("http://www.dice.com");
} else {
     // You job isn't boring
     celebrate();
}


Alternatively, I'd accept this:


if (myJob == boring && CanQuit) {
     // Go to Dice for great Java jobs
     sendRedirect("http://www.dice.com");
} else {
     // Can't quit or job not boring
     suck_it_up();
}


It still don't make much sense for the job is not boring case but it's better.

Cygwin Tips

I added some tips for using Cygwin to the Cygwin entry at Wikibooks. I'm going to repeat them here for my own reference and the benefit of other Cygwin users.

• Install Cygwin to the default directory, C:\cygwin for consistency.
• When installing, check cygrunsrv to allow for running sshd as a Windows service
• To use rxvt as the preferred console:
  
  • Create a Windows shortcut with the Target set to C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe --loginShell -sr and Start in set to C:\cygwin\bin.
  • To enlarge the console window and add a title, add -geometry "80x50" to the Target.
  • To add a title, add -title Cygwin to the Target.
  • To adjust the colors, try -bg black -fg white
  • To start an SSH session, add -e ssh user@machine.name.com to the Target.
• To change the default home directory to My Documents:
  
  • Create an environment variable called HOME with value of C:\DOCUME~1\USERNAME\MYDOCU~1 (where USERNAME is your Windows login username).
  • Edit /etc/passwd and change /home/username to /c/DOCUME~1/USERNAME/MYDOCU~1 (like the HOME variable)
• Create an environment variable called SHELL with value of /bin/bash.
• Create an environment variable called CYGWIN with value of binmode ntsec tty.
• Make sure c:\cygwin\bin; is added to the Path environment variable.
• To change the mount prefix from /cygdrive to / type this command once, mount -s --change-cygdrive-prefix /
Or keep cygdrive as is and create symbolic links (e.g. ln -s C: /C) for every drive.
• Emacs and vi are the most popular editors but Nano is the easiest to use.
• Create a file called .bash_profile in the HOME directory containing the following lines:
  
  • alias dir='ls -lav --color=auto'
  • EDITOR=nano; export EDITOR
  • VISUAL=nano; export VISUAL
  
  

"Requirements Specification" is an Oxymoron

I've never liked the term Requirements Specification or Software Requirements Specification even though these are widely used in the industry. There are requirements and there are specifications. The two are always different in my mind. Indeed, Webster's defines them differently.

re-quire-ment: something wanted or needed; something
essential to the existence or occurrence of something
else.

spec-i-fi-ca-tion: detailed precise presentation of
something or of a plan or proposal for something; a
written description of an invention for which a patent
is sought

You can specify designs. You can specify architectures. Blueprints are specifications. Source code is a specification. Pseudo-code, state diagrams, and message sequence charts are specifications.

A statement of need is never precise or detailed. It should be clear, unique, feasible, and testable, but it cannot be precise or detailed.

The user interface shall be responsive, is a requirement. It's a poor requirement, but it's still a statement of need.

Lamp X shall illuminate 100 ms after button Y is pressed, is a specification. It defines a precise description of events. It's not a requirement. No information regarding the stakeholder's need has been conveyed.

I can usually spot a specification when I see one. A good requirement is difficult to identify and even harder to write. Authors naturally tend to slip into writing specifications because they don't know how to express their needs. Requirements are also subjective. Some people might view the statement, the UI shall be responsive as failing to convey need. One can always ask, why must the UI be responsive?

I admit I'm on a holy crusade to eradicate the term Requirements Specification. Let's call it a Requirements Document or a Requirements Database. Let's save the term specification for the Software Specification that will follow the Requirements Document. Typically this is a High Level Design and Low Level Design. Those documents are worthy of the title Specification.

Yahoo Music Service

I signed up for Yahoo's Music Unlimited service last week. I've found it to be quite nice. I don't often go looking for the deep tracks, so Yahoo's catalog seems pretty big to me. You can't beat the price. $60 for a year of Yahoo is cheaper than 5 CDs! Looking at my collection of 300 disks, I could have bought 60 years of Yahoo music for less!

I don't have an iPod, but I do have an iPAQ with a 1 Gig flash card. I also have an old portable CD player and a CD deck in my car. None of this stuff works with Yahoo's service which relies on the recently created Windows DRM 10 (aka Janus) to protect its music. I don't want to shell out $250 for a new portable music player and I don't want to pay an extra $0.79/song for a burnable copy, so I set off to find a cheaper solution.

Chevrolet is Phishing?

Today I received e-mail from Chevrolet that began like this:

Recently some of our unsubscribe data
was deleted. Please help us update our
records to ensure that we have captured
your preferences correctly.

If you have previously unsubscribed from
Chevy email communications, please
unsubscribe again
http://www.imail.imrsvcs.com/UM/U.asp?...

I would never respond to such a message because it looks like phishing. There's no valid return address. The website they ask you to respond to is the mysterious imrsvcs.com rather than chevrolet.com. The entire premise of the message seems dubious and there's no way to verify the story.

It looks a spammer trying to verify my e-mail address so they can send me more junk mail. I wouldn't click the link and I'd make the same suggestion to everyone else. I've seen lots of e-mail from people claiming to be eBay asking me to log in to some non-ebay website before they cancel my account. Don't fall for it!

To Chevrolet and any other business that needs to send a message like this, I suggest you always direct recipients to a page at your main website and then redirect them if necessary. There's no other way to verify the authenticity of your e-mails. You should also get an e-mail signing certificate from a recognized authority (like Thawte) and digitally sign your message. I sign (almost) all of my e-mail. Why can't a company like General Motors do the same?

Out of curiosity, I went to whois.net and checked the ownership of imrsvcs.com. It turns out that it belongs to Electronic Data Systems Corporation who I happen to know is a major supplier of data services to GM, so this message is probably legitimate. Ironically, the whois record will take you to markmonitor.com that advertises EDS's Phishing Fraud Protection service of all things! That's pretty sad.