Who is the Proper authorities?

[Jason Balicki]

Steve Campbell <> wrote:
> I have a user who has received an email that has so upset her, she
> wants me to forward it to the Proper authorities to have it
> investigated. I am in the US, if that matters.
>
> Can anyone give me some insight as to a good way to handle this?
>
> I have not yet looked at the reason MS did not catch it as I don't
> have the email yet.

I know you don't have the email yet, but in order to help
we need a bit more context.

What is the nature of this email?  Is it threatening?  Simply
pornographic?  Is it untargeted spam, or did some individual
target your user?  Something else entirely?  It's quite
possible that *you* are the proper authority (scary
thought, eh?)

If this is something deserving attention you will most
likely need to file a report with your local police
and they will get the ball rolling.

If this was a personal threat to your user then she
will be better off if she files a police report,
if she didn't forward it to you then you wouldn't
have known about it -- you're not exactly a witness.
Your may wish to offer your server logs (with
a proper warrant or subpoena, of course.)

On rare occasions your local police will be unable (or
unwilling) do to anything about it, and in that case
you should escalate it to the FBI (if you think it
is really something that needs to be addressed.)

If it's just regular-old-spam and your user is
just a ninny -- you probably can't do anything
more than you are now.

That being said, I've had users threaten me with
physical violence because they've received multiple
copies of an email newsletter that they signed up
for.  The moral of the story is that users are
weird and should most likely be locked up, or
at the very least ignored 99% of the time.

HTH,

--J(K)

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