The men who responded to an Internet sex ad did not quite realize what they were getting into. The lonely woman who posted the ad wasn't a lonely woman at all. It was a graphic designer, who is now posting all the replies he received. The men's e-mail addresses and photos have been put online. Privacy experts say he didn't break any laws, although Craigslist -- an online service for classified ads -- says he did violate their policies.
I imagine Craigslist is referring to 7(h) of its Terms of Use, which prohibits the posting of information that "includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent." But other than getting kicked off Craigslist, I don't see much in the way of legal consequences for this enterprising young designer. While I don't condone his actions, the men who gave him their e-mail addresses and photos were extremely foolish. You don't have those problems if you don't respond to online sex advertisements. Sometimes the Gospel makes things simpler.
This incident is similar to the recent case of a hacker who seeded an online forum dedicated to child pornography with a Trojan horse virus. The program allowed the hacker to access the computers of the users who downloaded the Trojan. The hacker, who purportedly is from Turkey, then e-mailed the Montgomery, Alabama police department saying "I found a child molester on the Net." When the police asked for more details, the hacker gave the police information that lead to the arrest of Bradley Joseph Steiger, who was subsequently convicted for sexual exploitation of children and child pornography charges, and is currently serving a 17-year sentence. A year later the same hacker provided authorities information that led to the arrest of William Adderson Jarrett, a Richmond, Virginia man who plead guilty to similar charges and is currently serving a 19-year sentence.
From a legal standpoint, the Turkish hacker poses a problem: if he were in the U.S., it would be illegal. But U.S. law doesn't apply to him, so he can't be arrested. In fact, an FBI agent told the hacker by email: "[you] will not be arrested--that is a promise. You have helped to save at least two lives in the U.S. and [you] should be proud of that fact." So far, the convictions of the child molesters have held up: the 11th Circuit upheld Jarrett's conviction, and last month a U.S. District court judge refused to throw out Steiger's conviction.
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