Alan Ralsky Gripes About Can Spam Act

fdiskne1 writes "The New York Times has an interview with Alan Ralsky, commonly known as the world's worst spammer. CNet News.com is running the same interview. Ralsky admits using open relays and virus-infected PCs and not honoring unsubscribe lists. He complains about having to comply with the new CAN-SPAM law will cost him an additional $3000 in costs to set up a genuine opt-out list. Anyone here feel sorry for him? Okay, I'm biased, but I can't wait until we see him in prison."

Comments

Well duh..

[grub]

"The law was not written for a commercial e-mailer," he said. "I don't think what they are doing is fair."

I think that's the point, Mr. Ralsky..

All I can say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!

Well, ok maybe he doesn't deserve death. But he definitely deserves a very hefty fine and prison cell with Bubba.

What an ass

[meta-monkey]

Wow.

"I personally hate mailing with proxies," he said. "It's rough. But you do what you got to do."

and

"I have changed the way we mail totally," he said. The spam fighters, he added, "have no idea what I'm mailing. They could never pinpoint it and say this is from Al Ralsky."

Ralsky said that he was uncomfortable about this deception, but that he had no choice. "Is putting bogus information in your registrations the right way to do business?" he asked. "No. But the Internet world has forced me to do that."

He doesn't seem to realize or care that what he's doing is wrong. It's like a mugger complaining, "Is putting on a ski mask the right way for me to make a living? No, but the world of people who don't wish to be robbed at gunpoint in a dark alley has forced me to do this."

Or,

"I personally hate clubbing old ladies over the head so I can snatch their purses. It's rough. But you do what you got to do."

I hope somebody clubs Al Ralsky over the head in a dark alley... Jerk.

In Prison?

[ackthpt]

I can't wait to see him wresting bread crusts from sea gulls in a K Mart parking lot. He's an excellent example of a selfish individual and capitalism at its worst.

Logically.....

[DynaSoar]

Spammers are stupid
+
Ralsky is a pammer
=
Ralsky is stupid

Ralsky is stupid
+
Ralsky says "it would be stupid to violate" [the law]
=
Ralsky will violate the law

But I'll bet you'd figured that out anyway.

Laws can't fix something this broken.

[LostCluster]

Security by law sits right next to security by obscurity on the list of things that help a bit, but by no means make a complete solution. Making spamming illegal isn't going to stop spammers, because sending spam by a virus-infected computer is already illegal since virus writing is illegal too... those laws haven't allowed us to stop running anti-virus programs, have they?

The bottom line is that SMTP has got to go. We need to get wide adoption of an e-mail protocol with authentication that the "from" address being claimed belongs to the sender of the message. That's the only way to make sure that spammers lose their ability to send e-mail without reprocussions. The face-value "from" address has to be much more relaiable than the current system lets it be.

Worst spammer?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

The New York Times has an interview with Alan Ralsky, commonly known as the world's worst spammer...Ralsky admits using open relays and virus-infected PCs and not honoring unsubscribe lists.

From that description it sounds like he's a pretty damn good spammer. The world's worst spammer is probably some guy trying to send spam through his AOL account.

1. New e-mail
2. Paste address
3. Paste body
4. Send e-mail
5. Dismiss popup ad
6. New e-mail
7. etc etc
8. Profit!

No, I think ol' Alan is good at what he does. Of course that's like arguing who was the best serial killer...

He's playing the media and lawmakers like a fiddle

[claar]

What else would Ralsky say about this new "tough" spam law? Did anyone else ever tell their parents after a spanking, "Didn't hurt, didn't hurt!"? What was the result? After getting a harder spanking that did indeed hurt, children quickly learn to pretend to feel pain to avoid a worse punishment.

I think Ralsky is openly complaining about the slight inconveniences this law has caused in order to affirm this law as effective, hoping to avoid tougher legislation that would actually hinder his "business" practices.

Re:Anyone have his pic, and an address?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name: Alan Murray Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr,
West Bloomfield, MI 48322

AKA: Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd. West Bloomfield, MI 48322
248-661-3355

photograph

more

Address and Phone Info!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an accurate address. After several phone calls to some friends at some utilities/services/creditors, I have confirmed it. :P When your a debt collector, you make enough contacts with other companies that all it takes is a few calls/e-mails and you can own someone. I have enough information on this upstanding citizen to BE him (don't ask for it, i'm not that stupid..i'm already walking a fine line). lol. I'm so paranoid about putting this on here, I used a friends ID to go into his credit card account where I work. But perhaps tomorrow I'll call Verizon and cancel his internet account...awww! :]

Looks like meat's back on them menu boys!!! (that is for the /.'er who referenced eating his flesh)

6747 Minnow Pond Rd
West Bloomfield, MI
48322

His home phone# is 248-926-0057
His work phone# is 248-926-0668

He also has two celluar phones which I traced back as AT&T Wireless numbers. Not sure if both still in service - give a call, don't forget to block your numbers!!!
248-766-5996
and
248-766-6362

Send SMS Here

I suggest we all gather our junk mail/coupons/fliers and start mailing it to his house, and all start making collect calls to his house/work and cell's. We pay for OUR internet access - and he uses our time/money/bandwidth without consent, its only fair that we return the favor.

If anyone has any viagra (I'm sure someone does) - pleaes mail him some - with a lovely note attached on how to enlarge his penis. Maybe his boyfriend will thank you...

Cheers,
Anon

Re:Take the Spam Lists with You

[Batou]

I run a large corporate mail system - about 25000 user accounts.

I can NOT operate a mail server in this day and age without the use of these blocklists. We use a highly elaborate system rbls - spamhaus, njabl, ordb, along with others and some of my own design - as well as spamassassin and virus filters. Of the > 1000000 emails we process dailt, better than 85% is spam by every metric you choose to go by. I still get tons of it in my mailbox since the 'postmaster' and other administrative addresses are posted in spider-friendly plain text on our websites (I've complained to no avail).Think about that - I get 1 milllion emails a day running through my mail server, 850000 of which are spam.

A few weeks ago, easynet.nl's rbls were taken down, whom I was using as my only means of blocking mails from dynamic ranges, as well as one of my open proxy lists. The load on our mail server went through the roof as we were flooded with hundreds of thousands of junk mails poring in from dynamically assigned ip ranges and hijacked proxies, all of which have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER sending my users their garbage.

You have to understand that Ralsky and his criminal contemporaries are costing businesses like mine billions of dollars. Billions with a "B". The authorities have so far proven incapable of dealing with this problem, and this new law won't change a fucking thing. While blocklists are hardly perfect, it's one of the most effective tools I have at my disposal to limit the ammount of money Ralsky and his kind can steal from me and my employers on any given day.

I don't give a rat's ass if you and your "online business" can't adequately manage a confirmed opt-in mailing list. Either hire someone to do it, or get off the 'net until you can.

Re:easy now killer

[Frobnicator]

Unsolicited commercial messages are streamed at you constantly, billboards, tv, radio etc etc. ...To warrant JAIL TIME? Really now, I think this crowd needs a little perspective.

No, YOU need a little perspective.

Personally, I get nearly 200 spam messages daily. I know people who get spam into the thousands. He is costing me, and my associates, a *LOT* of resources.

• Bandwidth -- That junk mail, more specifically all the images in the email, take bandwidth. About 20K per message. Multiply by trillions (quadrillions?) of spam each year. Multiply by the number of hops that messages must go through, from my ISP, through my shared T1 where I pay per megabyte. Hint -- It's a lot of wasted bandwidth.
• Direct Time & money -- Thanks to my business, I can't run a spam filter, for fear of it catching stupid people's email. I've tried it, but I just can't configure SA such that it blocks the spam and doesn't block the idiots who have open relay ports, speak in ALL CAPS, and include a few URLs in their messages. I spend probably a few hours each week on spam, which costs my company a lot of money. Repeat for millions of internet users. I've heard the cost here in the 13 or 14-figure dollars per year.
• Indirect money -- I think just about everybody has deleted a legitamate message when culling out the spam. How many important messages have been accidentally deleted? How much money has this cost? Nobody knows.

I have no problem with the ads you mentioned (billboards, TV, radio, junk mail, etc.) Why not? Because the person who sends it pays all the cost. The net cost of sending a trillion spam is nothing; it costs more to collect and maintain the list of names. The cost of putting up a billboard is several thousand bucks. The cost of a radio ad (locally, in a fairly popular show) was $15,000 for a series of 15-second spots, to run for two months. The cost of a TV ad is similarly priced, I'm sure. My company has sent out mass mailings to its customers, and and that also costs us thousands of dollars. I've seen checks cut to the post office for thousands of dollars in postage.

The difference is clear. Traditional ads cost the advertiser. The spammers cost society more money than the US national debt -- every year.

These people are essentially embezzeling money from every corporation and individual who has email. You don't think that deserves jail time?