There are some good observations in this story, but one is missing. Over punishing for computer crimes means its not reasonable to enforce computer crime laws when infringement truely is minor. The problem, coupled with the total lack of interstate and international law enforcement for petty crimes, is what creates the SPAM problem, and what will create even greater problems. Steal a dollar from a million different people across state lines and no one can investigate unless they can correlate all the crimes (which they are unlikely to do if they don't investigate them).

The Internet requires radical rethinking about how basic law enforcement works.

Hackers do it with longer sentences!