Spammer Hangout's Membership Roster Left Exposed
MikeCapone writes "According to an article at Wired News, spammers feel the need to be part of a community too. The Bulk Club is one such community. A message on the site states that it offers, for a $20 monthly fee, a variety of how-to articles, spamming software, a members' message board area, and 300,000 FRESH e-mails/week. Unsurprisingly, the 'Law & Ethics' section is 'Members Only.' The good part is that, because of a glitch, the membership list of this charming organization was left exposed on the website."
Maybe they'd be interested in some anti-spam software.
Make no mistake, my aim will prove true. I should have this whole "spam" ordeal cleared up by late September.
*as a side note, it wouldn't hurt to sign up and learn how your enemy thinks, and how he employs his tactics. Before you gun him down like a dog in the street, that is.
I'd be interested in seeing the list of bulk friendly isp's :)
What's the difference between these remarkle advertising vehicles? Don't be left without the proper knowledge when sending out your offering to the masses. Along with our other various How Tos, learn the difference before any mailing.
I have never felt so good to be part of the Slashdot effect.
BTW, as pointed to in the article, a list of members was posted to Usenet w/a list of memberships. There was also a link to an archive of the contents of the site; here's a link:
http://jscript.dk/2003/8/thebulkclub.com.zip
and a mirror:
http://saintaardvarkthecarpeted.com/thebulkclub.co m/thebulkclub.com.zip
A list of the files in the archive can be found here:
http://saintaardvarkthecarpeted.com/thebulkclub.co m/contents.txt
Grab a copy and post your own links!
Carousel is a lie!
They're not /.ed yet. You call that clicking?
Agony, pain, burning, acid
Slow death too good for spammer
May spam penis shrink
The shoe is on the other foot, isn't it? That was certainly a fortunate glitch.
I wonder how the spammers feel now that their personal information and identity is being passed around the internet. I wonder if they are receiving "unsolicited" email.
Muhahahah...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
"The good part is that, because of a glitch, the membership list of this charming organization was left exposed on the website."
[The theme to Jaws starts playing]
The hunters now become the hunted :)
/. hehehe
:)
Think about how many different ways this benefits email users around the world... We now have a portal into the world of these deviants (I love that word). Give me one address, just one address... They don't know what SPAM really is yet... Let alone the true meaning of
Seriously, I'm sure that atleast a few million people are going to have less spam tomorrow after this
Thank you Dr. Slashdot!
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
You know, snooping around a spammers site looking for open files is really fighting abuse with abuse and .. *sporf!* I can't keep typing this without busting a gut! Bwahahaha!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
one of those ubiquitous email harvester bots ran into the exposed membership list :)
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
Hey, I love their little notice:
The Bulk Club does not promote any portion of this site via bulk email period. It is against our hosting providers terms of service to do so and we will not tolerate anyone who abuses these rules on our web site.
The club for spammers hates spam???
Rooting for the yankees is like rooting for herpes.
FREE Email Account Companies YES
FREE Autoresponder Companies YES
FREE Online Storage Companies YES
FREE URL Redirection Companies YES
FREE Web Templates YES
Able to withstand slashdotting NO
Video Game cheats, hints a
That popup window says we can join their mailing list for FREE!
*signs up his boss*
From the article:
In an e-mail interview, Auman said that the club was dedicated to promoting "responsible" business practices and that it offers information about misleading tactics used by some spammers simply to show why they are improper.
Now, I hate spam and spammers with a passion, but I must admit that the subject lines and stuff I've been getting recently are a lot more appropriate. At least the spam I get, they aren't trying to hide it anymore with stuff like "Re: Your bank account" or "Re: Tech support" and it's about debt management or a second mortgage or my wang. Too bad that their "responsible business practices" include articles about spoofing (probably about spoofing emails and forging headers) and harvesting emails ("opt-in" my ass).
But anyways... down to the real reason I posted. Did anybody manage to get any info about addresses, telephone numbers, etc? I have a baseball bat and some free time in the mornings before work... and late nights are free too! DId I mention I live in Florida, just like this guy:
Among the Bulk Club's list of 159 "active members" was Damon Decrescenzo, one of the operators of Rockin Time Holdings, a Florida junk e-mailer sued by Microsoft in June and by Amazon this month.
I have responsible business practices too! I am responsible for alot of death and destruction...
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
According to the Bulk Club's member roster, other subscribers include John Milton, an alias used by Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a former neo-Nazi who became a penis-pill spammer.
Funny how the transition from Neo-Nazi to Spammer doesn't seem like much of a jump...
In my feverish anticipation of the hunt, I got my math wrong. You can see how anxious I am to get started on my righteous campaign.
Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting spammers.
Because they subscribe to this site for $20/month.
Again, receiving no commission or kick back for listing them. We are here for you and you only. We are not here to tout a company to receive a kick back. Just giving as accurate information as humanly possible so to help your business make it big.
Wow, I'm glad that they are so fair minded and humanitarian as to only be here for me. In that case, please STOP BEING PART OF THE PROBLEM.
It's only the second day of the month and my spam filter reports I've already received 75 spams wasting half a megabyte of my ISP's bandwidth. For anyone interested, my ISP has a great spam filtering service; I hardly ever actually get any spams falling through to my in box. You can check it out at this URL: https://www.mailarmory.com/
This popup appeared.
"The Bulk Club Mailing List
Join our mailing list for FREE!
Bulk Email Industry News Alerts
Free Tips & Tricks
Updated Bulk Club News
and more..."
Now how stupid do they think we are?
But instead, one of the first comments is a calculation of how much ammo we'll need...
Have a heart, people! Sure, spammers are jerks, we can laugh at them and make fun of them, but don't you have any sense of decency?
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
It's pretty involved, but there was an expose in one of the media outlets a few weeks ago about this very thing. Basically a reputible company outsources its marketing to a firm. That firm is partially comp'd on how much traffic they drive. Now all good companies do due diligence and would never hire some PR firm that spams. So the PR firm outsources to someone else who does the same until the get to one of the big time spammers. With each step down the ladder, the companies get more and more sleazy. The linkage is so diluted at that point, it's hard for anyone to tell who requested the spam's to be sent on the original company's behalf.
A company like Symantec can easily say 'my gosh, I can't believe it. we'll talk to our vendor right away.' vendor says 'we had no idea out sub contractor was a spam supporter - we've terminated our relationship with them' and no one has dirty hands.
One word: Putty.
I already have all of those email addresses - they're right there at the top of my emails......the "from" address right?
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Burning too goo for em, :)
hanging's too good for em,
they should be chopped up into itty bitty peices and burried alive!!
Why don't we just throw "spam" at their houses till the give up? I'm sure the hot florida/california sun will make a great smelling house
K Man
I have a copy of the entire member list if anyone wants it.
Just email me at this address and I'll give yuo the information you want.
When knowledge of guns comes from CounterStrike.
OH MAN! I THINK I'LL USE THE DEAGLE!
While crouching, I'll use a wallhack too, and I think I'll even use a aimbot! Those spammers won't know what hit them.
I bet they can't bunnyhop.
Forget "Don't send" lists.
To enforce industry responsability do a national "must include" list.
Liccens spammers AND every spammer must be on the must include list AND spam to everyone on the must include list.
Here is where the fun begins.
Also on the must include list are spam scounts that track the latest spam to update spam filters.
But it get's better.
Also added to the list is fedral observers who check up to be sure all spam is being sent to the must spam list.
As a member of the must spam list you can opt out IF the spammer honnors the opt out system. Of course opt out to be required.
Fedral agents will randomly test opt outs, randomly test the list.
and the e-mail address given for the "must spam" list must be actively read by the spammer. A fedral agent will occasionally contact the spammer at the address to be sure the spammer is still reading his e-mail if not he must pay a hefty fine and repeated offenses msy cost him his liccesn.
This should inspire spammers to police themselfs quite well and do something about the worst spam tactics.
I don't actually exist.
I'm a little surprised nobody pointed out that their webserver is running on Windows 2000 + IIS 5.
for a $20 monthly fee, a variety of how-to articles, spamming software, a members' message board area, and 300,000 FRESH e-mails/week.
ok, how much $$ to take me off all their lists?
Who is the Bulk Club? I dunno, you tell me whois! By the way, I'd rather not call that phone number, can anyone confirm if it is fake or not? Last time I checked, 666 was not a local prefix.
Organization:
The Bulk Club LLC
The Bulk Club LLC The Bulk Club LLC
3867 W. Market St #272
Akron, OH 44333
US
Phone: 330-666-7625
Email: aumaninc@hotmail.com
Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com
Domain Name: THEBULKCLUB.COM
Created on..............: Thu, Aug 29, 2002
Expires on..............: Sun, Aug 29, 2004
Record last updated on..: Tue, Aug 26, 2003
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
The Bulk Club LLC
The Bulk Club LLC The Bulk Club LLC
3867 W. Market St #272
Akron, OH 44333
US
Phone: 330-666-7625
Email: aumaninc@hotmail.com
Domain servers in listed order:
NS2.ITBRAZIL.COM - 216.162.103.31
NS0000.4AMDNS.COM - 202.54.192.205
NS5.4AMDNS.COM - 203.199.113.19
Spamming is theft, plain and simple.
Make money at home with your computer...sue spammers.
Fight Spammers!
Want to frame some jerk for murder? Run around shooting people with his gun!
From their site.
The Bulk Club does not promote any portion of this site via bulk email period. It is against our hosting providers terms of service to do so and we will not tolerate anyone who abuses these rules on our web site
How Ironic.
A spammer is someone who comes to your house every day and rings the doorbell every 37 seconds. He makes it difficult for you to go outside because when you do, he'll pin advertisements for Viagra and get-rich-quick schemes all over your clothes. After a while, your mail carrier may not even show up at your house, for fear of this miscreant.
Spammers hide behind legalities, but they are profoundly immoral, in the sense that they don't give a damn about what their actions do to the larger community. The irony is that they are busy bringing down the very edifice that allows them to conduct these activities.
Alchoholics are sick people who can be cured.
Political dissidents may have views I disagree with, but they're not forcing me to listen to them.
Spammers are just people who don't give a damn about anyone else, and are willing to make money off of crippling a mechanism that millions of people depend on every day.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How many of the "memebers" are actually anti-spam people sniffing around to see who the spammers are? Then again, most fo the anti-spam community is smart enough to use a throw away e-mail address for this sort of thing.
:
Seriously - to help eliminate the innocent bystander from the spammer who needs to be whacked , start by sending an e-mail.
To: Direct Marketing Vendor
From: Important Sounding Title
cc: legal@fakedomain.com
Dear Sir,
I need you to help me kick off my marketing campaign by sending my message out to 31 million targeted clients. I will pay you 150,000 USD for this service. If you are interested, then please send your company name, a contact name, phone number and address so that I can have a contract drawn up. We will also need to have the name of your bank, and the address of the branch that you use for our contract as well. Please no account numbers, we only need to get the bank name and branch!
Sincerely,
bigcheese@fakedomain.com
Important Sounding Title Goes here
Wait for reply - post reply to slashdot/usenet/etc
include all e-mail headers and or phone
conversations
Constantly remind people that
A. No one will protect your from these spammers
B. No one will help you pay for the damages they cause.
C. No one will give you back the time that SPAM has wasted in your life.
Show up at the eventual fire with a can of gasoline.
Now go off half cocked, see if I care!
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
After all, The First Rule of Bulk Club is, You do not talk about Bulk Club.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
traceroute www.thebulkclub.com ...
traceroute to www.thebulkclub.com (216.162.103.31), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
[snippage]
17 mo1-edge-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.29.158) 62.364 ms 62.466 ms 62.264 ms
18 65.123.132.254 (65.123.132.254) 62.9 ms 62.795 ms 62.734 ms
19 gig000.magic.cybercon.com (216.15.195.37) 159.064 ms 69.802 ms 199.813 ms
20 lindbergh.valuenet.net (64.37.126.10) 64.008 ms 63.91 ms 64.375 ms
21 www.it-india.com (216.162.103.31) 64.948 ms 65.241 ms 64.86 ms
ValueNet... I seem to recall that domain from a few other traces of spammer's web hosts. Hat check, anyone?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
1) start spammer freindly chat room
2) wait for membership to build trust
3) "Accidentally" post membership on slashdot.
4) submit private e-mail addresses to other spammers.
5) repeat. no rest for the wicked.
but seriously, do you think that maybe these spammers are really sort of victims of a multi-level marketing scam themselves. "here for 300$ you can buy this software and a list of names that will get you started in the exciting field of spamming.
PLUS
you will own these lists and software with the rights to resell it to others. You cant lose just like the thousands before you!!".
and on and on it goes each chump-would-be-spam-king desperately recruiting ten more, making a few bucks, and down the pyraimd we go. the ones at the bottom lose but by them we have an avalanche of spam. Every assumes theres money in it since why else would they keep doing it....
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This message was posted by Bruce Amidon, posted on August 24, 2002 at 17:17:34 coming from
Hey, friends, I've found this awesome GET RICH QUICK scheme that actually works and is legal. You might have thought that get rich quick schemes are all fake and in fact most of them are but there are a few that actually work and I'm lucky enough to have found one that has made me lots of money in no time at all. I'm sending this email 2 you as a friend 2 help you out in your financial problems and so more people can get into this great offer.
Few good points:
Can make up to $20,000 to $50,000 in 4 to 6 weeks if done correctly.
It is perfectly LEGAL because everyone that joins comes out on top.
100% guaranteed that you will make more money out of it that you put into it.
Make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.
So EASY to do that a 4 year old child could become rich.
Uses an simple secure internet account called Paypal that takes only seconds to join and seconds to get you started instead of the time and effort it takes to send it by post.
JOIN Paypal at https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registr ation-run
I've actually taken the 10 minutes it requires to join this wacky bunch of optimists and I'm hoping that there are others out there who will spare the change to try this and want to see the same results.
"I found this on a bulletin board and decided to try it. A little while back, I was browsing through news groups and came across an article similar to this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00! So I thought, "Yeah right, this must be a scam", but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 6 email addresses stated in the article. You then place your name and address in the bottom of the list at the #6th position and email it to as many people as possible, advertise this page in as many ways possible, also post this message with your email address in the list and post it in at least 200 newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. So after thinking it over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about trying it. I figured "what have I got to lose except $6.00, right?" Then I invested the measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!... Within a days, I started getting money coming into my Pay Pal account! https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registr ation-run. I was shocked! I figured it would end soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about $25.00 that means 25 people joined the group after they seen my posted messages to them. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $1000.00! In the third week I had over $10,000.00 and it's still growing. This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42,000.00 and it's still coming in rapidly. It's certainly worth $6.00, and the 5 seconds it took to join Paypal https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registr ation-run , I have spent more than that on the lottery!
Let me tell you how this works and most importantly, why it works... Also, make sure you print a copy of this article NOW, so you can get the information off of it, as you need it. I promise you that if you follow the directions exactly, that you will start making more money than you thought possible by doing something so easy!
Suggestion: Read this entire message carefully! (Print it out or download it.) Follow the simple directions and watch the money come in! It's easy. It's legal. And, your investment is only $6.00.
IMPORTANT: This is not a rip-off; it is not indecent; it is not illegal; and it is virtually no risk- it really works! If all of the following instructions are adhered to, you will receive extraordinary dividends.
PLEASE NOTE: Please follows these directions EXACTLY, and $50,000 or more can be yours in 20 to 60 days. This program remains successful because of the honesty and
http://use.perl.org
Well while we're on the subject of revenge served cold... **Oops! SPAM SITES LIST**
Seems I accidentally dropped a link... No what can we do to slashd- I mean 'fix' that?
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
From the "Join the Fun" page:
Please Note: Let us reassure you that none of this information will be shared with anyone outside of our company. Members or No Members, your contact information will remain solely in our hands.
Doesn't say much for conviction of one's trade, does it?
#SickNotWeak
.50 caliber BMG
.50s to a mile. Two guys (one shoots the other one is a spotter) on top of hill, would wreck major havoc. Couldn't even hear the report of the weapon. Used to take take out VC as they were getting their hair cut. I imagine this could be employed for a spammer sitting at their computer... Anyway, can't beat the ballistics on a .50 cal.
In Vietnam, Marines used to zero out their
No.
Please Note The Bulk Club does not promote any portion of this site via bulk email period. It is against our hosting providers terms of service to do so and we will not tolerate anyone who abuses these rules on our web site.
Perhaps someone with some mail-blasting software could send a few million e-mail messages, telling people how great it would be to join this website.
Speaking of spam, yesterday I submitted a story to /. which was published. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to include my email address in the story. Today I had over 100 virus' and spam sent to me, whereas in the last 3 months of using the address, I have had 0 spam. Just a warning to anyone else who wants to submit an article. I also wrote an email to Rob about this asking that a warning be put on the submission page about using email addresses on the site.
Might it not be good to add in a referrer as well (--referrer=) (I'll let people think of good ones.)
Or use the login page (http://www.thebulkclub.com/members/login.asp) with some nice login parameters (I'm not sure what they might be here as I can't quickly see the page source).
I'm devastated. Jimi Hendrix is on the list. First they tell me he's dead, and now they tell me he's a spammer. I guess he went to hell and that's where they taught him how to spam. Tragic.
Oh and I wonder how stealthy "stealth man" is feeling right now. Heh. Hehehe.
today is spelling optional day.
If you want to get rid of the spammers you are going to need to get rid of companies like this
If they can't just point and click there will be a lot less spammers just trying to make a quick buck.
Drew Auman
/. effect can you think of?
113 Hunt Club Dr
Copley, OH 44321-2759
330-666-7625
Just to save you some time.. randomly pick a couple.. it only takes a couple minutes. And what better use of the
catalog request
Speak before you think
Ok, here goes...
I, for one, welcome our new ubergeek scripting overlord!
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
What is interesting is that if this site/membership list had any relation to Islamic terrorist organizations, the argument over whether people were guilty by association wouldn't even come up.
Ironically, I'd argue that more people are terrorized by spam.
In the linked article on the wired site to the ex-neonazi pushing penis pills, it claimed that 6000 people casually gave their credit card details over a non secure link to a site with no contact address or telephone number. Given this level of stupidity, I can actually see the value of spamming.
:O
Off to start my own business: Auto-Wank, the sucker for suckers!
So, what the wise thing to do is to take the best of all of the above:
/dev/null; done
while [ true ]; do wget -r -nd --user-agent=ALLYOURSPAMARESUCKY http://www.thebulkclub.com/benefits.asp >
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
C. No one will give you back the time that SPAM has wasted in your life.
Who will pay me for the time slashdot has wasted in my life?
NO SIG
Don't use the fax number: it's a crime. Telephoning is ok until he tells you not to, and if you hang up early enough......
It's a slow, quiet day - one of those where the afternoon drags on and on and on - so I log into Slashdot.
/.'ers will be indulging in at this very moment.
Bingo! A gaggle of spammers exposed to the public eye! I start scrolling through the discussion, my heart filled with glee at the wizard japes my fellow
Bzzzt! All that's there is several variations on a wget script, pointers to a few last-known home addresses, pointers to lists of users etc. All good, solid work, but nothing that's going to get you bonus marks.
Students, here's your work assignment for the next 30 minutes: I want to see Slashdot subjects like "Their hosting service has now lost power", "Just sent 50 tonnes of dung to this guy's home address", "Just ordered 5000 pizzas sent to this guy's house", "Server is now engulfed in flame - I've seen it!", "This guy's credit history has now been destroyed", "Hosting computer room now under 18 inches of water", and so on.
This assignment will form a SIGNIFICANT component of your end-of-year grade. Any references supplied will be checked; photographic evidence should be supplied where available.
Thanks for your attention, and good luck in your endeavours
I now get why spamming is so profitable - I may try it myself. If you use thier handly-dandy "power of numbers" calculator, you can see that:
If I send a million mails for something that I make a 50 dollar markup on, I'm instantly 250k richer, in thier "worst" scenario!
If I send the mail to a billion people instead, then I just made enough money so my great-great-great-great grandkids can retire.
If I send it to 100 BILLION email addresses, then hey - I'm one of the richest men in the world. In fact, I may just generate a few hundred billion email addresses on this box right here, and send them all a mail.
See you, suckers - I'm off to spam my way to the top!
Have a look at their webpage, and you'll find this section:
"Please Note
The Bulk Club does not promote any portion of this site via bulk email period. It is against our hosting providers terms of service to do so and we will not tolerate anyone who abuses these rules on our web site."
So what we need to do is bulk mail a promotion for their site, that way their hosting providers will throw them.
Only one teeny weeny little problem with this plan, the bulk mail part... I just can't make myself do it, it goes against every moral fibre in my body!
If you like Mailinator, check out a program I recently wrote called Nator - it uses Mailinator as a backend and it can scrape the email on mailinator.com and send it to your home email address. It also does some cool things with random usernames. Details here. It's free, written in Java, and is open source (or will be once we're out of the beta phase) Brian
Are you a Candy Addict?
When I'm truly bored, sometimes I'll whois interesting spam, and quite often the registrar of the domain is in the anti-spam software business.
Charge your customers to irritate other people into being your customers. Great business. You're going to hell.
Actually, he lives in the Hunt Club apartment complex. I know because I used to live there, too. The house with the pool is the clubhouse, not his apartment - although he lives right around the corner from it. I wonder what would happen with repeated calls to the apt complex business office about wild 3:00am parties coming from 113....
Oh, not that I'd ever do such a thing....
I mean, why not take the higher ground and just continue fighting spam? I know it's tempting, but paying back evil for evil is VERY bad karma.
.cn/.ru/.su/.kr, institute Bayesian(sp?) filtering, do challenge/response, sue when you can. These things work - and best of all, you don't have to worry about spammers recieving unwarranted sympathy.
Boycott spam, file abuse reports, blackhole
Just my USD$0.02, of course.
This post made with the Dvorak layout.
"Friends don't let friends use QWERTY"
Am I the only one who's first thought was not "Great, let's blow them off the air!"? My first thought was "Hmmm... I could join the organization and see what tools they use, see where the addresses are coming from, etc., etc. Know thine enemy.
My second thought was "Um, wait, the hordes of rabid slashdotters will be wreaking major havoc on the list o exposed addresses. I don't want my address on that list - my ISP would nuke me in a heartbeat with the major-league smack-down that's coming."
Anybody else here want to be a volunteer from the audience?
--Somebody infect me with a
No they changed the DNS records around 6 hours ago so you have done nothing but bombarded an empty space. Try substituting the IP number..
They are not gone nor is the sight down. If you point to http://64.78.42.11/members/login.asp it is still up and running.
DP
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
Their site seems to be kaput. How said.
Oh well, we all know they'll reconstitute themselves like the amoebas they are.
Let's offer them a new home page for next time around.
They can just feel free to save that as their index.html if they want. :-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL