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Following the Spam Trail

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC's Bob Sullivan doggedly follows a spam trail from Alabama to Argentina to find out who actually benefits from spam. The beneficiaries aren't necessarily the pasty faced, high school drop out industrial spammers we have gotten to know, but well known companies."

6 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Who benefits from SPAM? by didjit · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I benefit from SPAM!

  2. Spammer by seeksoft · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    When I was kicked out of high school my mom gave me one choice, goto an alternative center or get a job. I chose to get a job but I didnt want to really work. So I got into the spam game. I had an old copy of visual basic and I learned how to program. Making 1000$ a month at 1st, then 3000$ a week, then 80 thousand a year. I have stoped spamming in the past 6 months because well its too hard and legal issues are a tougher thing to face. I do know some kids who make around 5 thousand dollars a day spamming and have never really worked a day in thier life. However the way they spam is highly illegal and its a matter of time before they get caught. As far as products, we used to advertise anything and everything from credit cards to penis pills. I know you ask yourself who actually buys this stuff? Well we would get a sale every 1-5 minutes, spamming about 5 million people a day. As products got older the pornography came back into play. As we call them "dialers". You download an ative-x plugin and it dials a 1-900 number over sea's. I could never picture myself into buying anything I ever advertised, or anything I ever got inside my mailbox (except unlimited long distance back in the late 90's) However, that little dialer program pulled in about 1-3 dollars a minute. I'd get over a thousand minutes a day. I had paypal payments sent to me every night at midnight. If you need proof I have scanned some of my old checks. Fed-x would be at my door monday, wednesday and friday with checks from people all over the world. I've now moved into the ebay market selling electronics I get from over sea's (if you have ever been to japan you can get stuff nearly 80% cheaper then in the states) I buy in bulk, hundreds of units have it delivered and I sell it on ebay. I make over 60% profit and thats pulling in about 250-400$ a day. Easy work considering I wake up at noon, play video games, prepare my fed-x pick-up and play some more xbox. Oh yeah, then sleep.

  3. BMC Software lays off 25% of US employees 900 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Just wanted to point out that BMC Software completed laying off 25% of the USA workforce or about 900 people.

    http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/200 3/ 08/04/daily51.html

  4. Re:Statement of the obvious by Shmew · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Fight SCO!!

    State the case with an anti-SCO tux t-shirt!
    http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd

    SCO's NOT LINUX!!!!!!!
    http://www.cafeshops.com/politinerd

  5. Get Your NERD POLITICS On! by Shmew · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's time to speak out! The political views of NERDS are usually very liberated. Start wearing your views! Speak Out!!!

    Nerd Gear:
    POLITINERD

  6. SPEWS and SomethingAwful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    In case you haven't already heard, you may be interested to hear the story about SPEWS needlessly blacklisting out SomethingAwful's IP space due to a spammer on the same ISP.

    Rather than reiterate what they said, go to http://www.somethingawful.com/ and read up.