... has always come over as being a bit of a tit.

Shoot enough people and you're bound to get the one that needed shooting, no thought for the consequences for those that didn't need what he was pushing.

Perhaps this will spur legislators to curb spamming; after all, look what it leads to.

The guy may have been scum but its bad taste to celebrate something like this.

Just another reason why I read the reg and not the inq.

Lester, thanks for reminding me why I don't bother reading the Inquirer (among other reasons).

There is a difference between 'edgy' or controversial editorial and this kind of juvinile nonsense. It's the sort of thing I'd expect to see written by a 14-year old on Slashdot who thinks the idea of prison rape is funny, and somehow thinks that sending spam e-mails is morally equivalent to mass murder.

There is a time and a place for schadenfreude, and this wasn't it, no matter how much of an ass the man may have been.

So hats of the Vulture central for showing some maturity and not sinking to such easy lows.

Paul

(Flames, because that's where the Inquirer' should be)

The Inquirer certainly doesn't show us a news article in a future format but rather one in the tones of ancient Rome. Bread for the masses, anyone?

The spammer or the Inquirer.

If it had just been his own suicide you could almost see where they were coming from and it would almost have been okay to make comments like this- moreso if he didn't have a family.

But the guy shot his family- to kill them- as well as killing himself. That's not a laughing matter, spammer or not.

The Inquirer article is half-serious, half-humorous. Perhaps it is entirely black, deadpan humor. But a murder-suicide that left three people dead is not the best choice for a joke, is it?

Poor judgment on the Inquirer's part.

Moan as we do about the Reg's slant on a lot of articles, I'm rather glad the Inquirer lot picked up their ball and decided not to play all those years ago. Death is never to be celebrated, never mind who the deceased was.

Isn't that just a copy of The Register? Or owned by previous owners of The Register? Or something like that. Whatever.

where some El Reg readers go when they're not here. Some of the comments from the other article were truly depressing.

how many people (ok idiots) lost their life savings to the 'nuisance bloke' spam scams and ruined their lives ... maybe even to the extent of taking their own lives.

The fact that he decided to take 2 innocent people with him shows the character of the man, not a human I will miss I have to say but the inq piece is pretty poor taste.

Call me cynical but 'news' sites/hacks sniping at each other about standards is the pot calling the kettle black. I've seen plenty of articles on this site over the years in appalling taste that someone somewhere will find abhorrent. The saddest part of this story is the baby that was in the back seat. What a welcome into a shitty world.

Paris, because she can't read spam so she eats it instead.

whatever moron in the inquirer wrote that story should be sacked. how could anyone rejoice over something like this!! he shot a baby and his wife! its slightly out of proportion to expect the death penalty for spam!! although the inquirer article does make a reference to a little blue pill ( by which i assume they mean viagra)

e only made millions from spam because people are trusting idiots and greedy and ingredibly gullable. to eb honest anyone who falls for the " im a multil millionare and need to smuggle money out of <insert african country here> " scam deserves to loose their money

I know that El Reg has never (ever) done anything to stir up controversy, but the Inquirer has really crossed the line here. It's the sort of maniacal mouth dribblings I would expect out Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, but not out of a tech rag, no matter what their editorial policy is.

I guess THG regains the fourth tab. And that hasn't been worth reading since the 1GHz P!!! incident.

:wq

Meh. I don't really like this kind of clean hands journalism. It's the kind of tabloid stuff that gives us "Jordan calls Posh scrawny cow" (psuedo quotes). Brilliant! Y'see the printing media didn't say it, Jordan did! But we get to print all the juicy details. Whoopeedoo! And you can be disgusted at the same time! Yey!

Same thing here.

If you've got some spat with some other rag, keep it to yourself eh?

That's out of order.

The guy was obviously scum, but to celebrate the event when he killed his wife and one child and clearly tried to kill another - that's a bit sick.

The whole thing does reflect on what we've thought about spammers before, that there's more than a hint of the sociopath about them, but it's an out'n'out tradgedy.

Always thought the Inq were a tabloid to the Reg's broadsheet.

As with your own earlier coverage (which I almost commented on, but decided to not to as I've been doing rather more comments than work recently!), I don't see the link between being a scumbag spammer, and being happy in any way about this tragedy.

The guy may have had a nasty line of work, but to be pleased his dead just crosses a line of bad taste. And to add into that what he did to his own family, well it seems pretty obvious he wasn't well mentally, and should be mourned rather than gloated over.

Skull and crossbones, 'cos it was the nearest to an RIP I could think of.

I know I posted a comment highlighting the poor taste and insensitivity of the article, and that it did the Inquirer no favours. I guess it sums them up when they write an article like that, and then silence any form of subsequent criticism. T0ssers.

(The article is still available on the Inquirer, but it's disappeared from their front page, so I maybe someone there has an ounce of common sense, but still not enough).

Even if it were Bill Gates, rather than Eddie Davidson, such an article wouldn't have been justified.

I believe I have read at least one article where Charlie admitted to have been drinking while writing.

Unfortunately, like spam, a sensationalist can come off as a total dick even though it is merely his job to come off that way for increased revenue.

I blame the system more than I blame the people. But, yeah, he ought to rethink some things.

As noted by a few above, regardless of the 'artistic slant' that Charlie Demerjian and the editorial team at The Inquirer might claim have, the mental image of a three year old being shot isn't something I could put 'Yay' next to really.

That article is pretty fucking brutal, even by my admittedly shady standards of humour.

Ah well, sums up what I have always thought of Inq - the electronic equivelant of The Sun/Daily Star - not even suitable for use as toilet paper, because it's already full of steaming shite.

Steven R

To revel in and praise the taking of human life is simply disgusting. How would the inquirer report on one of their employees shooting and killing the other employee who took lunches from the fridge every day and his tease of a secretary? Would they see positive light in that?

For shame.

If he didn't have a gun, he wouldn't have killed him then? Your post reaks of ignorance.

"Easy access to deadly weapons makes these stories commonplace"

So let's ban vehicles, natural gas, knives, ropes, and on and on. Wait, do you work for congress?

spammers - I think I've pointed out before now in jest that if you remove their hands, they can't use a keyboard, with obvious limitations on the alacrity that they can then steal bandwidth.

Edward "Eddie" Davidson - I wouldn't comment beyond speculating on whatever disorder was affecting the state of his mind and whether an improvement in the conditions in the federal pen might have prevented this scenario. I have my doubts when it comes to the latter point. Read back over some of the run up to arrest - he didn't present as being posession of the full deck.

Guns - Here in the UK we have now banned them, but gun crime is at no lower a level now than it was prior to Dunblane I would suggest. Hell we have our own brand of perps these days packing UZi's and Ingrams according to the police and the press. (Slightly off topic - What was wrong with the idea of allowing private ownership of firearms only by licensed members of approved clubs, with all ammunition, firearms themselves and reloading of expended brass kept on club premises ? I can only assume that much like the controversies on Devil Dogs, delinquent kiddies, wasters with disability, evil immigrants/asylum seekers, and every other scare story perpetrated by our wonderful press and beloved politicans that an assumption was made that something had to be seen to be done. I used to shoot at clubs in the UK (can't do so now) but would never have bothered with ownership, simply sign for a club weapon, enjoy my paper perforating, then sign it back in with the unexpended ammunition.)

The big difference between here and the US doesn't seem to be the will to use fireams amongst our various miscreants, simply the relative numbers of perps and guns in circulation.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/25/suicide-spammer-story

Pathetic.

In a sober editorial entitled "That suicide spammer story", INQUIRER editor Paul Hales analyses and apologies for his decision to publish the article.

In my view, there's nothing good about spam, nothing good about murder and nothing good about most suicides, including this one. None of the several tragedies involved here lessens any of the others.

As Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi put it: An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

...and have acted accordingly.

@ http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/25/suicide-spammer-story

"That suicide spammer story, Editorial, By Paul Hales: Friday, 25 July 2008, 5:45 PM

IT'S NOT OFTEN that I have to leave my ivory tower and dive into the maelstrom and explain myself.

Charlie's personal take on the apparent suicide of escaped spammer Edward Davidson presents one such occasion, so here we go.

[...retraction...]

But in this case, our presentation of an argument may have crossed from bad taste to offensive. I apologise for that. µ"

Can we go back to playing nicely now?