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Confession For Two: A Spammer Spills it All
defender writes "Rejo Zenger, well known Dutch anti-spam activist, recently had a very frank talk with a (now retired) spammer. He got information as to how and why S. Pammer started, where and why he was kicked out, who helped him get his bulletproof hosting, his open proxy mailings etc. It gives a nice and concise view of what the costs for a smalltime spammer are. About 200 Euros for the hosting and ability to spam at least half a million addresses (in a months time). That's for a turnover of 6 times and a net profit of well over twice those initial spam-related costs. Complete with screenshots, of course."
Actually, 523 euro is more like US$650, so it's even worse. For me, it's approaching "won't get out of bed" levels. Which is handy, seeing as you can spam from anywhere in the house :)
I really can't see why anyone would bother...
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Well let me re-phrase to clarify, thanks for the nit tho
:-p
$8/hr * 40hrs/week * 4weeks/month = $1280. Happy now
...in bed
domain: SEND-SAFE.COMd i.net
d i.net
owner-address: Ibragimov Ruslan
owner-address: 12 Krasnokazarmennaya
owner-address: 111250
owner-address: Moscow
owner-address: Russia
owner-phone: +7.957235641
owner-e-mail: b35ed568876bf16d66d15c298b2159a8-564687@owner.gan
admin-c: IR14-GANDI
tech-c: IR14-GANDI
bill-c: IR14-GANDI
nserver: dns.send-safe.com 217.107.162.252
nserver: dns2.send-safe.com 217.107.162.200
reg_created: 2001-11-14 04:31:54
expires: 2005-11-14 04:31:54
created: 2001-11-14 10:31:55
changed: 2004-04-27 11:56:07
person: Ibragimov Ruslan
nic-hdl: IR14-GANDI
address: 12 Krasnokazarmennaya
address: 111250
address: Moscow
address: Russia
phone: +7.0953632111
e-mail: 184925540b0f833661410d380e699d0c-ir14@contact.gan
lastupdated: 2004-03-16 20:30:07
Did the Honey Pot Hunter link on the screenshot get anyone else's attention?
screenshot
It seems to me that there is some level of sophisitication to these spammer sites. I'm guessing they are really ripping off the poor shmucks who sign up.
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
support@send-safe.com
good@send-safe.com
techsupport@send-safe.com
orders@send-safe.com
For pre-sale only questions please call 813-747-9677.
heh heh heh, not for "pre-sale only" anymore.
The value of a mailing list corresponds to it's accuracy as well as any supplementary information it contains (interests, habits, geography, etc.).
When you say actual reachability is a moot point you're completely wrong. Actual reachability is a very important point.
If a spammer knows that an address is good, that the person on the receiving end reads the messages, and that they're generally interested in the kind of product being pitched, they'll pay a lot more.
If a spammer doesn't know anything about an address, or suspects it's just a generated address, they'll pay a lot less. At least if they're reasonably savvy marketers.
"Due to my promise to S. Pammer that I would not disclose his name in this report, some facts have been anonymised. S. Pammer is of course not his real name, nor does he sell canned meat. Besides, his identity isn't relevant (there are more small spammers who operate in this manner): the real meat is in the numbers and methods involved. And the numbers and methods are truthfully reported."
Do you only read alternate paragraphs as a time saving measure?
sig
It's just a silly way of changing any identifying details... From the 3rd paragraph: "S. Pammer is of course not his real name, nor does he sell canned meat."
I'm sure this comment gets a few good laughs from their users:
"ONE MORE NOTE: In order to be compliant with USA CAN-SPAM ACT OF 2003, you must use your real email addresses as FROM addresses and process remove requests properly."
This right after recommending that users not use their ISP email address, because it would cause them to "loose the anonymity and your account could be terminated by complaints in a very short time", and that users instead use free e-mail accounts from hotmail or others.
For residential users, who do not pay a per-GB bandwidth transfer fee, spam costs nothing more than time just like telemarketers.
Where does that residential user's ISP get the money to buy the hardware and bandwidth to handle all that spam? The 4 out of 5 emails that their customers would do anything to avoid? Someone has to pay for it. Two words: end users. Just because you don't pay per GB for bandwidth doesn't mean you're not paying for it. It all gets worked into the monthly bill.
When he says that the meat comes from the former Soviet Union, the cheapest food I know of [having lived in Lithuania], seems to come from Belarus or Ukraine, especially from the region around Chernobyl.
Now, if you buy (for example) those add-water-and-heat noodles from the Ukraine, you're going to get a good bit of Cesium(Cs-137?) in it, because -- and this is according to Lithuanian natives, who probably got it in their news -- the Ukrainian government has limits on the amount of Cs that can be in it, but accepts companies taking contaminated grain and mixing it down with uncontaminated grain, to meet the required levels.
Point being, I probably wouldn't suggest that this meat is good to eat, any more than I'd eat lamb from the Scottish moors (sorry, same problem: Chernobyl's Cs-137. It seems that the plants have been recycling the Cs back to the top.)
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Okay, who owns send-safe.com?Gah! The Russian Mob! Well, I'm all for killing spammers, but in SOVIET RUSSIA spammer kills YOU!
Okay, who owns that netblock?Canadians! Back-bacon eating, toque-wearing, Stanley-Cup-losing Canadians. I'd rather take on 25,000,000 Canadians any day than mess with the Russkie Mafia.
Now, who hosts www.send-safe.com?Hmmm...I knew UUNET would pop up somewhere. There are a couple of MTI Software results on Google; one sells support and service for OpenVMS systems, the other sells bulk e-mail software. I think it's the latter...Florida. It figures. First in spam, first in hanging chads, first in the hearts of the nation.
So, to sum up, we have an Axis of Evil: Russians, Canadians, and Floridians, all conspiring to deploy Weapons of Mass E-mail Destruction. Gimme a couple of days to throw together a Powerpoint presentation for the UN Security Council and maybe we can get a posse...err, a coalition together.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
First-class mail rates significantly subsidize the cost of bulk mail.
Nope, it's the other way around. Bulk snail costs the postal service very little to process. It's delivered to the sending post office sorted by zip code and pre-coded; basically, all the system has to do is truck it where it's going and put it in the right bag. Your last birthday card, on the other hand, had to be picked up from the snailbox by a carrier, its address deciphered, bar-coded, sorted by destination, etc. For doing all of that, basically everything but the hauling and final delivery, they get a discount of a whopping six cents -- 30.9 cents instead of 37 cents. Bulk mail supports first class, not the other way around.
Oh, but you do. First-class mail rates significantly subsidize the cost of bulk mail. The USPS knows better than to antagonize some of its largest customers. Ditto for the good folk at the RBOCs.
Actually, that is incorrect. First class is low volume and collected in many places. Bulk mailings are high volume and usually collected at either one location or several locations regionally (like national periodicals). Bulk mailings for the USPS must meet strict guidelines. The more guidelines a mailing meets, the cheaper it is per item. With magazines, for example, if the cover is approved by the USPS, it is cheaper than an unapproved periodical cover because it is easier for machines and letter carriers to read the address. Bulk mailings are cheaper because their collection is streamlined, they are sorted for further discounts, and they have lower priority than first class.
You miss-typed one whois address. It's not the Canadians, its the Russians.
For those using bash, that would probably be something like:
while true ; do `wget -k -p -m http://www.send-safe.com/ --delete-after` ; done
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.