Satan snitches on teen over an email

Teen Held After E-Mailing Satanic Group Threat to Kill Grandparents

A teenager was arrested after a leader of the Church of Satan turned over to the FBI an e-mail the high school student had written to the sect in which he threatened to kill his grandparents, authorities said.

Andrew Culver, 18, told police the e-mail detailing his intention to kill his grandparents and steal their money and car was a joke, said Bazetta Township police Chief Charles Sayers.

According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted to "kill in the name of our unholy lord Satan."

Culver sent the message Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.

"To send an e-mail making specific threats, to sign your name, that to me is not a joke," Sayers said.

Messages seeking comment were left at the home where Culver lives with his grandparents and with the Trumbull County Juvenile Detention Center, where Culver is being held.

Charges will be discussed at a scheduled hearing on Monday, Sayers said.

Gilmore said his church discards most of the hundreds of e-mails it receives daily. But Culver's message stood out, he said.

"I thought it could be a joke, but with recent events in Colorado and Nebraska, I thought it was better to play it safe," he said, referring to mass shootings in an Omaha mall, a missionary school near Denver and a Colorado Springs church that killed a total of 13 people, including the gunmen.

Gilmore said members of his group are atheists who believe Satan is a symbol of freedom, not evil. "To the Satanist, he is his own God," reads a statement on the group's Web site from Gilmore.
Source [FOXNews]

Spam Dominates 95 Percent Of All Email Sent

E-MAIL SPAM CLIMBS TO 95% OF MESSAGES

Just as everyone always suspected, most of their e-mails are nothing but spam.

Junk e-mail from ads for everything from discount pills to penny stocks now account for a whopping 90 to 95 percent of all e-mail sent this year, up from an estimated 5 percent of all messages in 2001, according to a report by e-mail security specialist Barracuda Networks. Last year an estimated 85 to 90 percent was spam.

Barracuda pored over 1 billion e-mail messages in the study.

"Today only one in 20 e-mails hitting a server is a welcome one," said Stephen Pao, a Barracuda exec.

Junk e-mail makers use Web tools designed to aid online consumers to fill up mailboxes with spam - including free Web-based e-mail services, blogs, and cheap Internet domain registration services that allow spammers to set up and shut down Internet sites and e-mail addresses with ease.

But perhaps the biggest driver of the surge is that consumers often unwittingly open spam messages - and then link to other garbage-y sites.

"There is some evidence that spam offers are working so those efforts are multiplying," Pao said.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported earlier this year that a growing number of consumers see spam as an epidemic - with some 55 percent of users now saying they have lost trust in e-mail because of spam.

Source [NYPost]