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Spam King Lives Large off Others' E-Mail Troubles

Posted by Hemos on from the eating-off-of-others dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Those who are fighting spam will tell you that one of the most notorious spammers out there is Alan Ralsky. Well, the Detroit Free Press has a very interesting article on him. This guy is about as unrepentant as they come, and he's saying he wants to branch out into delivering pop-up spam via the Windows Messanging service present on most Windows boxes. If you sysadmins out there have been wavering about whether to block spam-friendly networks, read this article, then go to The Spamhaus Project and SPEWS and start getting IP ranges to block." Update: 11/25 12:35 GMT by H : Yep, it's a dupe. Nope, I haven't had my coffee yet.

13 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe by Koyaanisqatsi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the original version if you want

  2. Alan Ralsky? by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Informative

    This Alan Ralsky?

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/22/1658 25 6&tid=111

    As described here, quite recently?

    http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122 .h tm

    Furrfu... So, what's new? Now we know it's SMB popups for sure, then? What were those two Romanians doing telling him that would get through people's firewalls?

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    1. Re:Alan Ralsky? by reaper20 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Pretty sure this is him.

  3. What's that address again? by imag0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    Hehe. Looks like someone is going to get some hatemail. Nice of Mike Wendland to slip that in there like that.

  4. Slashdotting spamvertized sites may help... by DocSnyder · · Score: 5, Informative
    In Germany we have a BIG problem with porn dialer spam. Most of these spammers use accounts on the Canadian freeweb hoster "netmails.com", who refuses to kick spamvertized sites even on several spam incidents which have been spamvertizing the same accounts for weeks. We suspect "pink contracts" between the spammers and Netmails as well as between Netmails.com and its uplink AT&T Canada to keep these accounts and the spamhaus Netmails.com online.

    Lots of the spam recipients are just fed up, and after each spam run thousands of annoyed people slashdot spamvertized accounts on Netmails.com until it blows the whistle. With the effect that "paying customers" look for a new hoster with better performance and will no longer supply Netmails.com with money. Hosting costs (traffic) on Netmails.com's side are growing, income is shrinking - so finally Netmails.com will have to change their spamfriendly business model or go down.

    If spammers and spamfriendly hosters will make the experience of each spam wave resulting in an enormous amount of network traffic and server load, they will have to think twice whether their infrastructure withstands the next spam run...

  5. Re:Q: Hidden Code in Spam? by terrencefw · · Score: 4, Informative

    Err, what exactly does this mean, can anyone tell me? I really, really doubt that opening a mail in, say, pine will send back any message without action on my part.



    So, is this something which triggers MS Outlook? Or is this just some BS that spammer told the poor journalist?


    It's just an image link in HTML formatted email to trigger an HTTP get request, eg: http://someserver/image.pl?spamee_id=HKJHS89872



    James

    --
    Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
  6. Re:Could someone please confirm... by BJH · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong one. That's his former address, apparently - it currently belongs to someone else.

    The one you're after is:
    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)

    And a picture of the location is available at:

    http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/addressim ag e.aspx?t=1&s=10&lon=-83.4306683068011&lat=42.53497 71549766&alon=-83.43067008&alat=42.53497312&w=1&re f=A%7c6747+Minnow+Pond+Dr%2c+West+Bloomfield%2c+MI +48322

  7. Re:no sex? by Halo1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not only that, it's simply not true. Look at this, more zoo and "incest porn" (whatever that is) from Ralsky than you can shake a stick at.

    --
    Donate free food here
  8. address by sacevoy · · Score: 2, Informative

    found this at http://www.spamblocked.com/

    6747 Minnow Pond Dr, West Bloomfield, MI 48322

    The Mapquest search seems to bear out what Mike Wendland's column
    reported since Minnow Pond Drive is very near to Halsted/Maple.

    http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?mapdata=yNJ u1 Eg45fdtL0I1l7A%252bRXryNLPs0tgSXSzgCSYyXdlhnNA5GuI mU26ugsD9TleE3bAJDCkCeR1KHPRAN3eOguDm6GJlXfBQ%252f %252bytAvtEFOk1KIRMQrYhzhCb2%252fQQoDd%252bv6en1TF YgC5qnNLhyvhLoB5SGUpVu6iKfCDtashTT43qqVZrXSD8%252f RiCttILGiR53V3Ej9PwP%252b2eBXeaOfUXhC%252f2kGv9gBL BEbjZkBT5BZE1jokd0tLX47qLUho9KLPMBh4MrQoqSQSTCxhKt LbVavysiAwiD%252f0%252bB0Fw1YlrXnHnr%252bajvdQO%25 2bMJbh0QsBcTlXRdSAMEAAe4%252fdBTKr6X75XKoOdqokT1th 4hOTrPl0cjmcP4pjqlTs48gqJepStYr6ONr59CQFSw%253d&cl ick=center&mqmap.x=159&mqmap.y=88

  9. Re:nonsense by iangoldby · · Score: 3, Informative

    Better still, put the original mailing unopened back in the post, marked 'Return to sender', to get yourself taken off the mailing list.

    I do this to all mail sent to me that I can identify as junk without opening it, and as a consequence I don't get more than one or two junk mails a week now, down from two or three a day a few years ago.

  10. Re:nonsense by jemoody · · Score: 3, Informative

    Marking it 'return to sender' just gets it thrown in the garbage by the post office. Anything sent third class (bulk) mail doesn't get returned.

  11. Re:This guy looks set to go by Erasmus+Darwin · · Score: 3, Informative
    You're comparing apples and oranges here. In one case, we're talking about pop-up ads tied to (otherwise free) content being provided on the web that the user is actively seeking out. On the other hand, we're talking about a spammer invading your computer, exclusively for the purpose of sending you unwanted ads.

    Furthermore, in the case of "blocking pop-up ads being theft", it was a technological solution rather than a legal one. All it was was website content producers only providing content to users who don't block pop-ups. That're you're trying to draw some connection between the two scenarios is just absurd.

  12. Re:nonsense by iangoldby · · Score: 3, Informative
    Just found this on http://www.recycle.mcmail.com/mail.htm:

    Businesses or individuals determined to receive no more unwanted magazines or literature should write a letter to the sender, in a pre-paid envelope if provided, saying that they do not want more copies, quoting the code number on the mailing address label. Note that items marked 'return to sender' are likely to be diverted to landfill by the Post Office (Consignia).


    I guess that means that sometimes the Royal Mail will return undelivered junk mail. But for a US perspective, see here and here.