Another Millionaire Spammer Story 979
An anonymous reader writes "Here's another story about a millionaire spammer who thinks he is doing nothing wrong and can't wait to get his hands on the next generation of spamming software." See also the last installment.
All spammers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
They cause people to distrust each other. I am very cautious about giving a web site my email address for fear that it will be abused.
They both make email less pleasant.
Their creators all seem to be unremorseful. If only we could send viruses and trojans to them all.
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All spammers (Score:3, Funny)
How many people wanna kick some ass...
Of course, we'd try for that but end up with "Tellem Steve-Dave!"
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Interesting)
Ohh... I though of something even more evil.
The local news stations here all have "Problem Solver" segments where people call in problems about corrupt builders not finishing jobs, city works slacking off and not doing their jobs, etc.
With spam being as big an issue I would be surprised if one of the 5 stations teams took it on. It would be interesting to get him on the news and have the people bugging him about why he thinks it ok to do what he's doing. They also do lots of calls to the people, and track them down as they run for their vehicles.
Now to only find his address.
Re:MOD PARENT UP, BUT CORRECTLY (Score:4, Funny)
I can bench press 300lb, run marathons and did kickboxing in my school years.
Sign me up, sarge.
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Funny)
Think of all the legit system admins who spend hours cleaning out overloaded systems, and programmers who develop anti-spam solutions for both networks and users, and additonal bandwith that needs to be purchased so that legit traffic can move past all the spam.
The fact is, the more spam annoys people, the more they're willing to pay us to make it go away.
Re:All spammers (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, this is a joke. Surely there isn't a single person who reads Slashdot who has been so annoyed by spam that they would go so far as to kill him and burn down his house. Nope. Nobody like that. Even if that person would almost certainly be able to escape punishment if even a tiny amount of forethought were used in the attempt. After all, Virginia police couldn't even catch a homeless muslim sniper after multiple shootings; what are the odds they'll catch some geek who is actually paying attention to not leave any evidence behind?
Of course, this really is a joke. And everyone reading it should take it as a joke. Except for that one very special person. Yes, you my friend. You know what you must do...
Re:All spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
To me spammers are as disruptive to internet growth and society as virus\trojan etc creators.
Actually, according to the article, I don't see much distinction:
And then later:
So, let me get this straight. This guy sends a trojan to 250 million people per day, is actively working on intruding onto protected computer systems, and he lives in a $750,000 house? People who do those things out of intellectual curiousity get incarcerated, but this guy lives it up!? WTF? Between this guy, MS, Cisco, et. al., I am beginning to wonder if it's even possible to make an honest living in this world anymore!
dammit (Score:3, Funny)
I lose more cool email addresses that way...
It's not the spammers fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way it will stop is when it quits working. The problem with that is people are generally stupid and trust others.
I have no hatred with spammers, I hate the dipshits that buy their sales pitch.
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Spammers NEW address now available (Score:3, Interesting)
Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records.
Would anyone care to visit the Oakland County Land Titles Office?
Re:Spammers NEW address now available (Score:5, Insightful)
i thought that was hilarious too...the author is basically saying that he can't give it out, because Ralsky is afraid of people knowing where he lives...but, hey, if anyone wants to do a little research, here's where to look...classic...
Re:Spammers NEW address now available (Score:5, Informative)
Oakland County Register Of Deeds
1200 N. Telegraph Rd., Dept 480
Pontiac, Michigan 48341-0480
(248) 858-0597
Looks like just a few bucks...
Oakland County Register of Deeds [oakland.mi.us]
Oakland County Register of Deeds (fees) [oakland.mi.us]
Re:Spammers NEWEST address now available (Score:4, Informative)
Buyer: ALAN M RALSKY
Buyer Mailing Address:
6747 MINNOW POND DR, WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI 48322
Seller: BING CONSTRUCTION CO
Property Address: 6747 MINNOW POND DR, WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI 48322
Sale Date: 8/28/2002
Recorded Date: 9/12/2002
Sale Price: $ 740,000 (Full Amount)
By the way, the patrick road address listed in the other sellers post was sold in 2001 first to Irmengard Ralsky and then to Dan Shammami for $265K
Re:Interview Tactics.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ralsky hounds us all via our publicly-available e-mail addresses. Why shouldn't it be known that his personal information is a matter of public record, and enterprising people who want to obtain it and hound him in return can do so?
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Another thing that could be done is to figure out where this guy's 190 email servers are and publish a block list for ISP's to simply refuse any data from the ISP's who are letting this man do what he is doing.
If ISP's start cutting off all data from known spam sources, that will help cut back on the problem greatly.
damn spammers (Score:4, Funny)
an angry mob will teach him to stop spamming us
Re:damn spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:damn spammers (Score:5, Funny)
You can imagine the confusion that caused.
spam shark (Score:5, Funny)
Spammer> "Who is it?"
FTC> "Flowers"
Spammer> "What?"
FTC> "Pizza delivery"
Spammer> "Oh. Ok."
Spammer> "Hey, you're that spam shark, aren't you?
ethical?? (Score:5, Funny)
can't say I've ever heard of an "ethical" spammer.....
sounds like an oxymoron to me...
Re:ethical?? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a crack dealer who won't sell to anyone under the age of 18.
Re:ethical?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also remember Rule No. 2: Spammers are stupid. As such, spammer lies are always stupid.
More of the same... (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently saw the "Bart gets a job as a bartender for the Mob" episode. The episode ended with
Bart: "I realize now that crime doesn't pay"
Fat Tony: "Yeah, I guess you're right"
At which point Fat Tony and his entourage leave in several strech limos.
The only point of posting stories like these seems to be:
1) enraging
2) proving that crime DOES pay.
Why bother?
Re:More of the same... (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth, maybe? I don't like it, but it seems useful to know the old line "Spamming doesn't work" isn't true. It provides motivation to find a true solution to the problem. Spamming *does* pay, but as a phenominal pain in the tail, we should look for ways to make it uneconomical.
Re:More of the same... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, nobody died (Score:3, Insightful)
proving that crime DOES pay.
It isn't a crime in most places. If everyone wants spam to be illegal, sure, I'll vote for it. But I really don't think it is the most serious antisocial behaviour on the Internet at present. I'd put viruses and DoS attacks a lot higher, for example, and I don't think I'm alone in this.
Spam is annoying, but is it actually that serious?
OK, spam is not a good thing, but aren't we getting a little carried away here? Personally, I find website pop-ups much more annoying than spam, especially when they crash Mozilla...
Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I like what I do, even though I have to hide from everyone, use unlisted numbers, and pretend like it's not bothering anyone. It's truly the greatest business in the world. And the dog feces that keep coming in the mail don't bother me that much, either.
Ok, Step # 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Step #2 hire some blackhats to turn the entire center into a bunch of machines with blank disks.
Step #3 Repeat as necessary
I've got $20 in my hand that I'd give to that effort in a second.
Re:Ok, Step # 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ok, Step # 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure I've got a spare $20 around here somewhere.
Though I would also be happy to see someone throw a firebomb in this guy's new house. This idiot is very pleased with himself, and is completely remorseless, maybe its time to show him why you don't piss off a mob.
Sadly, in the end I don't think there is anything we can really do to stop him. Sure, it might be possible to find and wipe his system, but what good would it do? I'm sure this guy backs up his lists constantly, and if he has half a clue, he probably has all of his servers imaged/ghosted. He'd be spamming again within the day.
As for the firebomb idea, while it would give me a warm fuzzy feeling to see this guy made to pay for being a parasite on the internet, please no one do it. All its going to do is hurt his home owner's insurance company, not him. Not to mention that it really is a bad way to deal with the problem.
What we need to do is start pushing laws that will prohibit this sort of BS. Sure it'll be an uphill battle, and there will probably be a large number of laws that get killed by the courts, but all we need is for 1 good federal anti-spam law to stick, and we win. Look at the fight to enforce filtering in libraries, they have lost a dozen times, but they keep passing more laws. Eventually, the courts are going to let one of them stand, its just a matter of time and patience. That is what we really need to do, we need to get us a couple of senetors to start introducing anti-spam legislation, and getting it passed. Eventually something will pass, and the courts will let it stand, then we'll be able to shut this idiot down.
So, instead of spending your $20 getting this idiot's system wiped for less than a day, we should start pooling that money to buy a senetor. It worked for Disney.
It will continue as long as it works... (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as everyone complains about it, there are sufficient people who respond to the advertising and buy the products. As long as that happens, spam will continue.
Re:It will continue as long as it works... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a feeling that if we ever bought a product from a telemarketer, we'd be put on the 'sucker' list and get bombarded with even more telemarketing. Maybe same thing with spam, if they could somehow track my purchase to my email address (harder than with telemarketers).
Of course, as it is now, telemarketers already establish your pattern of when you're in the house by when you answer the phone. Do you semi-regularly get phone calls with no one on the other line? Large chance that is usually a telemarketing autodialer. Maybe with a telemarketer to be eventually connected to you (have you noticed the few second delay before you get them online?), or maybe it's just the autodialer. There was a point last year where I was studying and didn't feel like getting the phone, and the thin literally rang once every 10 minutes, for over an hour and a half! Of course, my girlfriend's caller ID showed the standard 'out of area'.
Well, enough rambling, but I refuse to EVER buy from a spammer or telemarketer, no matter how good the deals seem to be.
Good to know he has money... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good to know he has money... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good to know he has money... (Score:4, Informative)
You can send one with:
echo -n "Hi, I'm an annoying winpopup" | smbclient -M host
IT WORKS! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if tech isn't developed.... (Score:3, Insightful)
why hasn't there been software that would watch incoming messages, and say if > 10,000 messages come thru with the same subject line, flip those over to a "suspect" pile for administrator review, yeah yeah I know admins don't have the time to look thru the msgs, but there will either have to be a regulation on spam so its easily identifiable (header) or software to weed them out adequately, there are some out there.....but how well do they work?
otherwise, guys like this will cash in and live large while, we whine about what a scumbag he/she is.... :)
For crying out loud! (Score:5, Informative)
Course, it's the same dumb schmucks who get all the spam mail, which suits me just fine.
The *real* problem is all these bloody spam stories on Slashdot. You only get spam these days because you want spam or are too dumb to do anything about it...
http://pyzor.sourceforge.net/
http://razor.sou
http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/d
http://www.spamassassin.org/
http://www.zant
etc etc etc etc.
I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Isn't technology great?"
Firstly, can anyone envision what could possibly do this? Does your browser have to be trojoned to accomplish this feat? Could it be an IE-only kind of design bug?
Secondly, if he does manage this, he'd better do a better job of hiding his location, because he's about to piss off a *lot* of people with this stunt!
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:5, Informative)
I can envision what would do this - there's been stories about this already. It's those popup messages that come up from Windows Messenger. Easy enough to turn off and block, but most people don't.
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:3, Informative)
The MS windows messaging service. With knowledge of an IP, you can send a message a computer that's just sitting on the network, with no software aside from the system + middleware running.
You can turn off the service, use any one of a dozen windows software firewalls, or just uninstall the bugger if you don't use it.
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:5, Informative)
Ralsky, meanwhile, is looking at new technology. Recently he's been talking to two computer programmers in Romania who have developed what could be called stealth spam. It is intricate computer software, said Ralsky, that can detect computers that are online and then be programmed to flash them a pop-up ad, much like the kind that display whenever a particular Web site is opened. "This is even better," he said. "You don't have to be on a Web site at all. You can just have your computer on, connected to the Internet, reading e-mail or just idling and, bam, this program detects your presence and up pops the message on your screen, past firewalls, past anti-spam programs, past anything.
I seriously doubt that this guy has some new revolutionary technology that will allow him to force ads to pop up no matter what we are doing. This sounds like the typical spyware that comes with kazaa and other similar programs. There is a great cure for this: Ad-Aware [lavasoftusa.com]. This could also be the IE bug that was mentioned on slashdot yesterday [slashdot.org].
Whatever this guy is talking about, it can be easily defeated by ad-aware, using mozilla, or disabling activex in IE.
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:3, Informative)
You mean except firewalling TCP port 139 and UDP 137?
Re:I'd like to see if this is *really* possible! (Score:4, Insightful)
All you need is a certain popular insecure operating system, which has this "feature" turned on by default, so you can see when your network print job finishes, etc.
This is one of the many wonderful reasons why I run OS X and Linux at home.
Ha! The Falun Gong thing worked! (Score:5, Funny)
Earlier this month, said Ralsky, somebody told the Chinese government that a Web company from which he leases e-mail servers in Beijing was sending messages critical of Chinese policy.
Police promptly raided the business and confiscated Ralsky's servers. Although they were returned a few days later, Ralsky now tries to cover his tracks better, so opponents won't know what companies and servers he's using.
Linford said he heard of the raid. "It wasn't us that caused it," he said. "But there are a lot of anti-spam activists, and apparently some of them on their own started organizing a campaign to get the Chinese government to think that Ralsky was supporting" the Falun Gong, an outlawed spiritual group the Chinese government considers subversive. "We didn't endorse that, but it shows you how deep the anti-Ralsky feelings are."
If that worked, maybe we can find someone with a much *longer* reach to take him down.
We need to start reporting him as a terrorist to the FBI. We know how pushy they can be.
Re:Ha! The Falun Gong thing worked! (Score:5, Funny)
>
>If that worked, maybe we can find someone with a much *longer* reach to take him down.
>
>We need to start reporting him as a terrorist to the FBI. We know how pushy they can be.
Yeah. I'm kinda amazed that it worked, but I suppose with the number of people doing it, someone would get lucky. Alas, unlike American cops, when the Chinese cops raid a place and steal its equipment, they give it back. Who'dathunk that?
Yo, Charlie Chan, that's not how you're supposed to play the game! When you raid a shop for its computers, you're supposed to keep the damn computers! Duh!
(Obviously they haven't been taking their lessons from the FBI seriously, or the Chinese Communist dictatorship, because it has no concept of private property, has yet to invent asset forfeiture laws yet :-)
A Modest Proposal, then:
For every blocked spam delivery attempt, bounce every Ralsky spam with:
"550 - Allahu Akbar! - Islamohash detected - responding with segment #12345 - FJAKC RLXCJ VOHSA COPQM JJWOZ"
Every day, plus or minus a few hours, randomly regenerate the pro-Arab slogan. (The idea is that it's supposed to look like an SMTP server is responding to the hashbusters *in* Ralsky's spam, and responding with a segment of a coded message.)
Then, for every 550 message, increment the message segment number, and randomly generate blocks of random characters.
Sit back and wait. If Fedz show up on your doorstep, supply with donuts (the good kind, damnit!) and show 'em the script that generates 'em randomly. And give 'em a laptop for their troubles.
If Fedz show up on Ralsky's doorstep, write letter to Congressman requesting that the US government authorize the use of any and all means of torture on terror suspects. Laugh maniacally as spam problem goes away. And I mean far away.
As for what to do with Ralsky once he's been disappeared for supporting terrorism, I have another Modest Proposal:
1) Lock Ralsky in cell with a laptop and a 2400-baud modem. ...
2) He can eat his meals and quaff his drinks if and only if he replies with "Yes, I'd like to eat today!" to an email written by someone (a different person each day) working in the prison kitchen.
3) Post his email address to USENET in alt.make.money.fast.
4) If he objects that he can't find the chow-time email with the Subject: line of "Hi!" or "Let's do lunch!" message amidst the spam... well, it's just e-mail, can't he Just Hit Delete?
5) Install a webcam in the cell and sell subscriptions to live streaming webcasts of Ralsky writhing in agony as convulsions from hunger and thirst wrack his body.
6)
(and I hope "..." lasts for weeks, whether there are any subscribers to the webcasts or not)
7) Profit!
And just to show you I'm not a total softie when it comes to dealing with spammers, then go all Vlad-the-Impaler on him in front of Verio headquarters, as an example to the others.
Is he *trying* to get arrested again? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all no, this is not great. Second, as soon as he talks about intentionally bypassing a firewall, I start thinking that that sounds suspiciously like "circumventing an access control" which, I believe, is no longer legal.
Been there, done that (Score:3, Informative)
Here's his email address and more info (Score:5, Informative)
scum bag info [spamhaus.org]
I'm still looking for the physical adress of his *new* home/data center. If anyone finds it as well as his phone number, or his email *he* uses. Post it!
Re:Here's his email address and more info (Score:3, Informative)
You can access it with a credit card.
Re:Here's his email address and more info (Score:5, Informative)
The author of the story tells you exactly how he found the address of his House of Spam. Pretty clever subversion of the spammer's request not to release that information to the public, if you ask me.
It boils down to (Score:5, Insightful)
But this guy is so big an asshole that the goatse.cx guy must be feeling embarASSed.
The poster should be modded -1:troll for posting such goatse-cx like stories to
Stop me if you've heard this one... (Score:5, Funny)
"Hi!" the spammer greeted him. "There must have been some mistake. I wasn't supposed to go here. I was expecting to meet Saint Peter and pass through the pearly gates."
"TREMBLE, MORTAL SINNER, BEFORE THE UNHOLY TERROR THAT IS BEELZEBUB, LORD OF THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF HELL!" the demon replied. "ABANDON ALL HOPE AS YOU BEGIN TO REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWN!"
"Can't I go to heaven?" the spammer asked, quite sure that he had not really done anything worthy of eternal damnation.
"Sure," the demon replied in conversational tones. "But first you have to work off all the spam you sent. Millions and millions of emails, right?"
The spammer nodded, happy that he wasn't going to be confined to darkness and torment for all time. "What do I have to do?"
"These," the demon said, pointing to a endless field of paper stacked yards tall, "are printouts off all the spam you've ever sent. You must dispose of it all before you can leave this place."
"How do I dispose of it?" the spammer asked, somehwhat apprehensive about his task.
"I'll show you," the dmeon replied. "Bend over and pull your pants down..."
Spammer's address (Score:5, Funny)
But, you know, it sure would be a shame if some /.er in the Oakland area were to go get that address. . . and a real shame if s/he decided to post that address here. I mean, what good could that possibly serve?
You get the feeling... (Score:5, Informative)
Today, Ralsky says he is trying to keep a lower profile, operating through cell phones and unlisted numbers. Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records.
Or, in other words, "I promised not to reveal the address, but if you want to look it up, here's how to do so..."
What a crook (Score:5, Interesting)
As for pop-up ads and other crap, you can prevent that by a host file. I currently have images.slashdot.org on my hostfile, along with the locations of other sites that slashdot banners come from. I see no ads on Yahoo, CNET, DOWNLOAD.com, WSJ.com, MSN.com, etc. Other things to do are to disable playing sounds or animations, and to remove Flash from you're computer. As a last resort, you can just disable images altogether.
The technology that this crook described which would flash pop-ups to people connected to the internet is also illegal -- it steals MY resources (my RAM, my CPU time, my GPU power, etc). The way to stop that is to refuse non-requested pop-ups or other such information, to close off ports, and to install a firewall.
How about something easier to outlaw... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk/principl.htm [dataprotection.gov.uk]
Note the
Theft of something as insubstantial as bandwidth and CPU time is difficult to build a case around, but what would happen to spammers if the USA had this sort of law? Never mind the spam, they obviously have a large pile of personally identifiable information - if selling your CDs of e-mail addresses is illegal (because they're being used for purposes other than the one they were collected for), there goes the address sharing for a start.
Great Reporting! (Score:3, Funny)
"Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records."
So he *didn't* publish the address, just told you where to find it. Good stuff! I don't know what this says about the reporter's integrity, but in this case I think we can let that go.
Expensive House != Net Worth (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam is obviously a profitable activity and the writer of the article is trying to emphasize the "millionaire" aspect, but I doubt this guy is a true millionaire.
Re:Expensive House != Net Worth (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Ralsky's been bankrupt and has a terrible credit rating. But he refinanced and got a good deal on a mortgage loan, and now he makes $$$ in a profitable home business.
Directed attacks on spammers idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone ever considered organizing a directed attack on known spammers? It seems to me that if I have to spend time deleting penis enlargement spam emails and forwarding them onto ucef@ftc.gov, I am losing productivity which in turn costs money.
Considering that that govt in the US is condsidering allowing recording companies to infect P2P networks legally, why shouldn't the same rights be given to a coalition of ordinary people to do directed attacks on spammers and their ISPs who little about the problem?
So why isn't this fellow being ostracized? (Score:5, Interesting)
We have laws against the burning of people based on skin colour, why aren't there laws stopping spammers yet? Just because you can do something, even to the point of making money at it, it does not mean that it is ethical or moral to do!
I've decided SPAM isn't that bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
But at least I have to hand it to this person, at least he's got some morals, or so he says. And at least Spam is environmentally friendly -- it doesn't affect the groundwater or the air I breathe.
And that's a big point. It reminds me that yes, it's upsetting, but at least it's not a lingering mess, environmentally. It's not a SuperFund site.
I'm reminded of Air-Mail delivery in this country. Airplanes were paid by the pound for mail, so more often than not, they would stuff the US mail bags with rocks to make more money. That's the essence of the point: we realize that there is money to be made in bulk. Pay by the pound, all-you-can-eat, spam-o-rama, and hope that just one sucker is out there.
The other point this article brings to light for me is the fact that, for the most part, we humans are actually brighter than I thought. The spam rate is horrendous. Something like 2 in a big-freaking-number. So Spam is casting a very wide net to catch a few sardines. I think that is quite a boost to our combined egos. We aren't as dumb as we behave in traffic.
I know many will make the point that it's clogging routers, servers, and generally a waste of time, but it's a grey area whether that's hard or soft dollars. What's the cost of one more email?
But we can change this. Why can't email be like instant messaging where only those on my buddy list can email me. The Spammer would have to guess my email address and some complicated guid to send me email.
So for me, at least until they change the SMTP/POP RFC to allow for end-user authentication, I'm okay with spam
You're a mean one, Mr. Ralsky... (Score:3, Funny)
An ex-con telling us spam is good... no surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how rich he'd be if he had to pay for all the bandwidth he's ripped from ISP mailservers.
Web Bugs and.. Winpopups (Score:4, Interesting)
Web Bugs [216.239.53.100] are the largest reason I dont view html email messages.
>...that can detect computers that are online and then be programmed to flash them a pop-up ad
I remember reading about this on slashdot.org awhile back and thinking "crazy", but would someone really waste the time/effort to port scan millions of computers just to send a winpopup? Then it came one day. "Ding!" and my game starts to flicker back to Windows. "What the?!?.. oh." Messenger service got turned off ten seconds later.
Kenny
Again with the name.... (Score:3, Interesting)
spammers and drug cartels... (Score:5, Insightful)
does this remind anyone else of the columbian drug cartels?...sure drugs are everywhere, but a small number of columbian drug cartels are responsible for a large portion of the world's drug traffic...another similarity, we're fighting losing battles against spammers and drugs...we're not making up any ground...
seriously though, why can't some senator or congressman introduce a tough anti-spam bill...does spammers have a strong political lobby like the NRA or big Tobbacco does?...then again, i guess the result would be the same as in this article, spammers would just move more of their actual operations overseas...oh well...
Privacy. PAH. (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah because, you know, he wouldn't want a bunch of unsolicited visitors annoying him and being a pain in the ass. And more and more would just end up showing up, enough to cause him a big headache, and creating problems in his attempts to get his daily activites done.
Sound familiar, asshole? Fucking lowlife spammers.
Any clues on this "Stealth Spam?" (Score:3, Interesting)
Come to think of it, Messaging really should be disabled by default on XP Home, and possibly XP Pro.
A solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only way to remove the 499 988 innocent victim is for them to stop using e-mail: not a viable solution. Using e-mail filters may temporarily turn the flood into a stream, but mailers will refine their mail to avoid these sooner rather than later.
The persons getting payed are not going to stop. Legislation against spammers would only move the senders to other countries.
The entities paying will continue as long as it is profitable. Again: legislation would not be effective, IMHO.
The only remaining possibility is to remove the 10 morons paying. How to do that? Barring evolution (accelerated by selective violence >:) ), education of the these people seems the only possibility.
Making everyone understand that buying penile enlargement medicaiton online, is not the best of ideas is not as easy as it sounds. There'll always be someone who thinks it's the best invention since sliced bread. Can the percentage be pushed below the treshold of profitability? I don't think so.
You know... (Score:5, Funny)
Instead of Spam Assissin, maybe what we need is Spammer Assissin
Spam is the symptom, fraud is the disease (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't we get law enforcement to start nailing the scam artists responsible for the spam being generated in the first place? I mean, putting guys in *jail*, big civil fines, and so on.
We can bitch all we want about the clowns sending email, but if the fraudsters were starting to get locked up on a frequent, regular basis it would dry up the market for spammers and they'd move on to something else.
AND if we bitch too long about spam, we're liable to end up with some icky government mandated "system" about email -- how would you like to have to get a license from the government to run an email service? It's to prevent spam, you know...
Ralsky's contact info (Score:4, Informative)
spam solution: charge for email? (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason spam is so prolific is because it is CHEAP. It costs next to nothing to send a message out. But it got me thinking: is this the right solution?
What if we were charged for the emails that we sent? I don't know anyone that sends out more than 1,000 emails a month, so what if ISPs charged a LOT for sending out more than 1,000 emails per month? Would this work in eliminating spam? Would it be helpful?
No, no, no..Re:spam solution: charge for email? (Score:3, Insightful)
Charging for email is NOT the solution.
1. Even at a threshold of 1000. So he breaks up his sending into lumps of 999.
2. You then screw all the listservs, hobby groups, non-profits, etc, etc.
3. Junk snailmail costs, and you still get that, right?
4. So it costs. Cut down his profit by 50%, and he STILL makes money. And sends out twice as many.
5. He hijacks some unsuspecting user, and uses THEIR act to send it. THEY get the bill.
No. The answer is...get him on something else. Deceptive marketing, tax evasion, misuse of telephone services.
But charging for email screws US, not him.
See why a federal law might work? (Score:3, Interesting)
2)Go after jerks like this guy.. and that other "spam queen." Seize their assets. This is the second story in as many weeks telling how spammers have these nice 1/2 million dollar homes and stuff. Makes it seem rather glorious, doesn't it? Perhaps a law in place would make them look like what they are - thieving criminals that care about nothing but money.
Here's a picture of Ralsky (Score:5, Informative)
you can get him HERE!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
I've lost it. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is intricate computer software, said Ralsky, that can detect computers that are online and then be programmed to flash them a pop-up ad, much like the kind that display whenever a particular Web site is opened.
"This is even better," he said. "You don't have to be on a Web site at all. You can just have your computer on, connected to the Internet, reading e-mail or just idling and, bam, this program detects your presence and up pops the message on your screen, past firewalls, past anti-spam programs, past anything.
"Isn't technology great?"
Okay. I swear, if I was interviewing this guy when he said that, he would have gotten punched in the face. I am one step away from pulling out my 357 and blowing the computer screen to pieces after reading that. For anyone who thinks that this guy should still be allowed to stay in business for complete invasion of someone elses privacy just so that he can have a $750,000 house and live a life of luxury needs to stop huffin' gasoline and prevent our private lives from being invaded further.
Let me lay down the facts: Spamers steal from other businesses in order to deliver messages cheap. I've said this argument before, and I'll say it again. If you pay the Post Office to deliver a package, between the time it is given to the Post Office and the time it is delivered, it is in the possession of the Post Office 100%. Their handling of it, their processing of it, their delivering of it, is all being paid for by the Post Office. When you pay postage to deliver mail / packages, it is because the Post Office is compensated for all the time it takes to deliver the package.
Spammers do not do this. They do not pay for the bandwidth that they use up. They do not pay for the storage space on servers that their spam waits on. They do not pay for delivery of the messages beyond what leaves their servers. They STEAL. This guy, and every other single person who thinks that they can make a mint off invading the privacy of one's own home should be thrown in jail.
This is an outright exploitation of what the internet was set up to be. Stoic advertisements are one thing, because the webpage that a web surfer views is there for free, so the owner of the website is trying to compensate himself for the services he offers. But Spam, as well as this hell-born Son-of-Satan spinoff that our featured spammer friend concocted, is an outright solicitation. Send it all back from which it came, and jail these people who think that this level of exploitation is legal.
Ralsky on NPR in August (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it me, or does it seem that most spam pieces slant toward the "pro-business" aspects of it, and take everything they say at face value.
If a journalist wants to show spammers for what they are, just ask: "Do you relay your mail off of unauthorized open mail servers?" According to Ralsky's record on Spamhaus [spamhaus.org], he does, or did.
On Aug. 15, Ralsky was interviewed on NPR [npr.org]. It was the typical pary line, about how it's not illegal, and they don't send porn, and they honor removes, etc., all very cheerful. But, once, she asked whether he used "blind relays"....
Quietly, he answered, "I won't make a comment on that." I wish she would have elaborated on it, because most of the listeners wouldn't have understood that this means hijacking open mail servers, which is generally considered theft of service.
Ralsky and Spam... no quick fixes here... (Score:5, Insightful)
In part, spam is a technological arms race: spammers use more sophisticated ways of getting their messages out, and anti-spammers counter by developing more advanced ways of blocking them. Building a better mousetrap will only force the mice to get smarter. Hacking is not part of the solution, either: if we complain about legislation permitting corporate hacking, we should refrain from doing it ourselves (it's a moral high ground thing...)
Part of the spam problem is money: at least a few people have mastered the "1. Send spam 2. ??? 3. Profit!" formula. An article describing "How I got rich in three easy steps" will, unfortunately, inspire at least a few wannabes, which leads to the next part of the problem...
People. The famous quote that "there's a sucker born every minute" is absolutely true. People can be dumb. People can be greedy. People can be unscrupulous. In an age where someone can blanket the planet with a new get-rich-quick scheme, a pill or cream to enhance sexual prowess, a free vacation to wherever, it's almost guaranteed that their message will find someone who doesn't even hesitate to sign themselves up.
The final part of the problem is something I've never seen mentioned anywhere else: ego. From the article, it sounds like Ralsky knows exactly what he's doing, and he's reveling in the fact that he's notorious/infamous for being one of the best at doing it.
So, how to fix the problem? Use not just one, but every tool at our disposal:
1. Continue developing more sophisticated ways of keeping spam from ever reaching user mailboxes and/or desktops, and try to anticipate how spammers will react in response;
2. Use the existing laws every country has to deal with fraud. Urge local and/or national prosecutors to go after the big fish, making them examples for the smaller ones. Develop international working groups to attack the problem when spammers move their operations overseas. (okay, that last one's a little optimistic, but hey, at least it's an idea...) Nail the fraudsters, shut down their operations, penalize their profits away. The less profit there is, and the harder it is to keep it, the less people will be tempted to try it;
3. Educate, educate, educate: spread the word on how to deal with spam (don't click the opt-out link, don't reply to unsubscribe, learn how to keep your e-mail address from being harvested, etc.) On another level, urge the (possibly clueless) people who think it's a good marketing technique that spam just makes them look like every other get-rich-quick artist they hate getting e-mail from.
4. Marginalize the big fish: the more someone like Ralsky reads about himself in the press or on the Web, the more it feeds his ego. The more dog poop he scrapes off his front steps, the more it eggs him on to keep spamming. Shame and guilt can still be two pretty powerful social-engineering methods, but allowing him to portray himself as a 'victim' of those nasty-evil hackers will only serve to help him and his cause.
These numbers can't possibly be true... (Score:5, Insightful)
He's claiming that one out of three spams that are opened in something that renders HTML get a response. I always knew the unwashed web-browser-email masses were dumb, but not that dumb...
We don't need no more stinking laws. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really want to have our Congressmen/woman making laws regarding the Internet? They don't have a very good track record for making laws period, much less laws dealing with technology. Not to mention the fact that US laws usually only apply to the US, usually.
I think that the fight needs to be waged at the ISP level. ISP's need to be booting these lowlifes off of their networks. If these people are constantly forced to move servers and get new connections for their servers, it will become unfeasible. We can start with this guys T1. Who provides that T1? File complaints to that provider? Where are his email servers, someone has to be providing access to the 'net for those server. You will be suprised what a few letters can do?
We don't need to kill anyone or even work that hard to stop these pricks. Just find out where they live and kill them...um... I mean tell their ISPs to either start cutting off connections or else...
Re:what's the exact address? (Score:3, Informative)
Subtle no? ;)
Re:What a moron... (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello, Alan, Have you heard the sad news? Steven King is dead at 54! Apparently he..."
As well as, "First Phone Call!"
And of course, "Hey, I've 1) Called you. 2) Uhhh... 3) PROFIT!!!! BTW, FreeBSD/Linux/etc are dying!"
But not before, "Hey Ralsky ol buddy. I think this call just might be one of several beowulf of phone calls!"
Re:What a moron... (Score:4, Informative)
hypocrisy (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, spammers should burn in hell (or will, surely, if you don't like it imagine how God feels about spam clogging His inbox). But how do they rate in the great pantheon of scum ranging from, say, serial snipers to NYC "squeegee men"? Or, with a tech theme, relative to the officers of Enron or Worldcom who, it appears, lied and manipulated to deprive thousands of millions, or certain malicious hackers/phreaks who mess with the lives of honest folk for kicks?
Don't get me wrong, I want to see spammers brought under control, but I wonder if the highly emotional denunciations here are over the top or reflect an unusual assessment of naughtiness.
So -- on a scale of 1 to 100, spammers rank (?).
Re:file trading okay, spam not okay (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked, nobody just sent me copyrighted software, music or movies without my permission or request. Maybe spammers should start mass-sending copyrighted materials, then at least we might find something useful taking up all our disk space...
Re:file trading okay, spam not okay (Score:5, Insightful)
File-trading isn't intrusive. That's the difference. If P2P applications FORCED you to receive any file that anyone wanted to send you, then yes, people here would then lump it with SPAM.
It's not a question of legality, it's a question of access control to your system.
Re:file trading okay, spam not okay (Score:3, Insightful)
Just FYI, "SPAM" is a meat product sold by Hormel; "spam" is unsolicited junk email. The two terms can't be used interchangeably for trademark reasons.
That said, file trading is also intrusive. It's intrusive on the rights, granted by law, of the copyright holder. The only difference is that spam intrudes on you, personally, while file trading doesn't. But both are intrusive, and in the same way.
This is the irony that tickles my funny bone. The prevailing consensus of opinion on Slashdot is that file trading is okay because it only infringes on the rights of others, while spam is not okay because it infringes on the (notional, and in fact completely fictitious) rights of me.
Spam is annoying. But annoyances, in general, are not against the law. Trading copyrighted materials, on the other hand, is explicitly against the law. Yet one of these is morally okay, and the other is morally intolerable, by Slashdot standards.
Can you seriously tell me that this doesn't absolutely crack you up?
Re:file trading okay, spam not okay (Score:3, Insightful)
Communication between two consenting adults is different than unsolicitated advertisement.
True. Or is it?
Let's say you and I are friends, and I send you an email that says, "Hey, how are you?" Even if you're not expecting the email, that's surely communication between consenting adults, right? I mean, if you and I are friends, it's silly to think that I should be required to ask permission before sending you a social email, right? So that's okay.
Other end of the spectrum. I'm a spammer based in Hong Kong. I get your email address from a web-scraper, or other indiscriminate source. I send you a message, using carefully forged headers, advertising nasty kiddie-animal porn. That's not okay, right, because you never consented, even implicitly, to receive that email. And, given the choice, you never would have consented to receive it. So that's obviously bad and wrong.
Now let's blur the line a bit. Let's say we're friends, and I send you an email-- which you are not expecting-- that says, "Hey, how are you? I'm trying to sell my lawnmower; would you like to buy it?" That's obviously an advertisement, albeit an informal one between friends. You don't know that I'm selling my lawnmower; you've never expressed an interest in buying my lawnmower. My email to you was completely unsolicited. But it's still okay, because we're friends. You wouldn't try to get my ISP to shut off my email account for that-- unless you're just a complete and total asshole, a possibility based on your response that I'm not willing to rule out yet.
Now let's blur things a little more. What if I'm a friend of a friend. I don't know you directly, but I'm asking around about selling my lawnmower and a mutual acquaintance of ours says, "I don't want it, but my friend Henry V
What if our mutual friend had no particular reason to think that you'd be interested in my lawnmower? What if he just said, "Try Henry V
What if I'm simultaneously doing this same sort of thing with everybody I know? Is it spam then?
Some things are obviously spam. And some things are obviously not. But in the middle, you have lots of stuff that's not obviously either. In deciding which is which, you have to make a judgment call. Which, it seems, puts the lie to your statement that "communication between two consenting adults is different than unsolicitated advertisement." In some cases, communication between two consenting adults is, in fact, just barely distinguishable from unsolicited advertisement.
Ever been in Japan? Ever heard the vans with loud-speakers that go around town campaigning for a certain candidate? Notice how a politician in the U.S. would go to jail if he tried it.
Nobody would go to jail. Disturbance of the peace is not an offense that warrants being taken to jail. If you play your stereo too loudly-- either because you like loud music or because you want people to hear it-- you'll get a citation, nothing more.
This example, of course, has nothing at all to do with advertisement or communication. It has to do with the idea of the commons, over which society has jurisdiction. Same principle that makes littering on city property a crime. Because communication has, as you say, "certain safeguards of privacy and freedom," it's pretty tough to argue that the conduit of communication-- in this case, the network that connects computers via email-- can be treated as a commons by the state.
Re:Two words: (Score:5, Insightful)