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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."
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