Russia's Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered

Karellen !-P writes "Vardan Kushnir, a notorious russian spammer who headed the English learning centers, the Center for American English, the New York English Centre and the Centre for Spoken English, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head."

Comments

That shouldn't happen.

[FFFish]

It's terrible that something like that would happen. It isn't legal and it isn't moral.

On the other hand, this message is about all the empathy and concern I can work myself up to. Good riddance to bad trash.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[AnObfuscator]

It's terrible that something like that would happen. It isn't legal

It should be!

Sic semper spammeris!

^_^

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[AKAImBatman]

I have a feeling that this has less to do with his spamming efforts and more to do with the mafia. From what I understand, a lot of spammers, script kiddies, and crackers in Russia have connections to the mob. The reason for this is that the mafia tends to use cyber-warfare (such as DDOSes) for blackmail, and spam for revenue generation. Apparently the spam networks are quite sophisticated, with one person finding and validating addresses then selling them to the highest bidder.

In other words, things may be more complex then they seem...

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry...it's all my fault. I sneaked in and stenciled "Click here to unsubscribe" on his forehead.

I guess people just did as instructed...albeit with a 30lb 'mouse' ;-)

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Frumious Wombat]

Another day on the froniers of capitalism.

About 10 years ago (and if it's a lot better there now, sorry for outdated information), the NY Times had two articles summing up the new Russia.

One was on business practices, with the comment, "to enforce a contract, you often have to take out a contract".

The other was on a clinic doing heroin detox. The basic system was thugs would patrol the streets, find people doing heroin, club them into submission, drag them to the clinic and chain them to a bed, and then let them dry out cold turkey. The Doctor in charge said, "of course this is not the optimal treatment, but here ... ".

Looks like our spammer's fate falls under one of those two categories of "solutions". As others have said, it probably wasn't the spam, it was, "just business".

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Bloke down the pub]

I was thinking mafia too, but more along the lines that some godfather who was having problems with his winkie recieved a viagra ad...

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[ucahg]

Are you joking?

Has human life lost all sanctity, that you think it is justifiable to end a man's life because he sends you unwanted email?

Is spam that much of an annoyance to you that you are filled with satisfaction when a man is bludgeoned to death, only because that man was a spammer?

I'm at a loss for words, and I'm ashamed of the morality of the age I live in. You make me sick.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Golias]

Russia is currently one of the most "bent" countries in the world. Pretty much nobody does business there of any sort, let alone shady stuff like hacking and spamming, without having connections to the mob.

Keep that in mind next time somebody tells you what a great deal allofmp3.com is. The cost is actually a few pennies a song plus some poor sap's kneecaps somewhere.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[AKAImBatman]

Pretty much nobody does business there of any sort, let alone shady stuff like hacking and spamming, without having connections to the mob.

That's not quite true. The Russian culture is certainly full of corruption given that the KGB effectively became the Mafia, but Moscow has become a booming city ripe with economic opportunity. New freeways, inexpensive cars, waterparks, big businesses (Sun's Russian HQ is right across the street from my father-in-law!), and Aerospace technologies are just a few areas where Moscow has been booming. Another big area is restaurant chains. There are now more international food chains in Russia than ever before!

Russia is something of a third world country that's pulling itself back up into an economic power. Along the way there will be TONS of greed and corruption, but don't confuse that with the honest growth that is occurring. :-)

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Is spam that much of an annoyance to you that you are filled with satisfaction when a man is bludgeoned to death, only because that man was a spammer?

This person has made a living by harming other people. He has done so for a long time. He would have been delighted to continue harming people for the rest of his life. Murder is clearly a disproportional response but you shouldn't be surprised when people are happy to see a sociopath take it worse than he was giving out.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[mranchovy]

On the one hand, this kind of thing shouldn't happen in a civilized society.

On the other hand, I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to make a crack about how the repeated blows to the head came from an enlarged penis.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[gothfox]

Please, don't spoil everything. As a fellow russian, I find this +5 informative posts about white bear mobs walking around here drinking vodka, making botnets from Comcast customers and firing AKA-47's at one another highly amusing.

Anyway, how about making Jul 25 an international anti-spam day? It just writes itself in the calendar, really it does...

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[AJWM]

Last (okay, only) time I was in the Soviet Union (not long before the end), there was at least McDonalds, Baskin-Robbins, and Pizza Gut (there's no letter 'H' in Cyrillic).

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Daniel_Staal]

Um, Russia should be the *definition* of a second world country... First world was (roughly) the NATO group, Second world was (roughly) Warsaw Pact, Third world was everybody else.

Just being unbearably pendantic.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Kadin2048]

No, this is Slashdot, where chances are the people who actually have to write and fine-tune and otherwise spend their day dealing with those filters hang out.

Sure, the majority of people here probably could just turn their filters on, but don't act like the technology to block annoying behavior like the spammers' just falls from the sky. Someone has to make it, and that's their time that the spammer is taking up.

There are a lot of people with legitimate grievances about unwanted bulk email, some greater than others. But when you get a lot of people together who each have a small grievance...it's probably not enough to cause any of them to actually go out and kill the person responsible, but don't expect them to act all sad about it when somebody else (assumedly for their own, probably nefarious reasons) does.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[ilyaaohell]

Wrong. The cyrillic letter for 'H' is 'X'. In any case, how is this a measure of wealth for a country to have foreign chain stores? I LIVED in the Soviet Union. I remember when the first McDonald's was built. A hamburger cost a month's salary, and the only reason there was a long line several hundred people in length is because the Russian people were so supressed that they desperately earned to try something they only read about or seen on TV. Coincidentally, I bet you'd find it "progress" if I told you that the cost of the hamburger since then has gone down from a month's sallary to a week's sallary. Sure, there are a handful of millionaires here and there, the vast majority of whom earned their wealth by "stealing" the property and industries that the government abandoned after instituting a more free market. But for the VAST majority of Russians, which I'm assuming is something like 98% of the population, none of these "cheap" chain stores are any more affordable to them than a night at the Opera is to you.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[bhtooefr]

Just for those of you who are seriously considering this, read this from that page:

The Specious Report ~

Spreading Rumors, Half-Truths & Misinformation Since 1789

Don't take it seriously. It's quite funny, but it's not our fault if you kill a spammer and get convicted of murder.

(Not that it shouldn't be done, of course ;-))

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[AKAImBatman]

The cyrillic letter for 'H' is 'X'.

That's actually a "Khah" sound (e.g. loch ness), not a hard 'H' sound.

A hamburger cost a month's salary, and the only reason there was a long line several hundred people in length is because the Russian people were so supressed that they desperately [y]earned to try something they only read about or seen on TV.

Ehh... that's somewhat true. McDonalds was simply something new and cool at the time. A bit like when the Apple Store opened here in Chicago. Were people lined up at the Apple Store because they were oppressed? Me thinks it had more to do with the Apple Store being new and cool.

It was the same thing with McDonalds. After it existed for a while, it became a much more normal part of Russian life.

I bet you'd find it "progress" if I told you that the cost of the hamburger since then has gone down from a month's sallary to a week's sallary.

I think you're a little behind on the times. Several years ago, the Russian government reissued new currency that has a much better parity when compared to the Dollar. Eating at McDonalds isn't cheap, but it doesn't cost a weeks salary, either.

Sure, there are a handful of millionaires here and there, the vast majority of whom earned their wealth by "stealing" the property and industries that the government abandoned after instituting a more free market.

1. These are generally called "New Russians".

2. Many New Russians obtained their wealth through perfectly honest means. For example, a friend of my wife's family made a killing by starting a door repair/replacement business. Not something you'd think would be a big money-maker, but apparently he became quite weathly from it. Which just goes to show how important property is to Russians now that it's private instead of public.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[xmorg]

There is no more helpless a fealing than an email user who cant reply to an automated spam message, to tell the sender to get a life, or stop sending the message.

How many times have I wanted to find the guy who does this, and (At the very least) flood his inbox(s) with all the mail he has ever sent me. Killing is wrong yes, but you can't expect to tick off millions of people all over the world, and not suffer some retibution if discovered ... in short spamming could be hazerdous to your health!

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[srmalloy]

Does it really matter what the restaurant is? All the signs look like 'KAOPECTATE', anyway...

(Seriously, though, for many years restaurants weren't allowed to put up anything other than 'PECTOPAH' for signage.)

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Cromac]

Killing is wrong yes, but you can't expect to tick off millions of people all over the world, and not suffer some retibution if discovered

If only the spammers would read that and realize the truth of it. I'm sure many of them think what they're doing is harmless and no one could possibly be bothered by it, but as you pointed out when you irritate millions of people chances are at least a few of them we be complete raving psychos.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[gothfox]

1. I'm not Russian. My wife is. :-)

Well, it's the same in my book, so I more or less guessed right. ;-)

2. That's a bit more extreme than I was trying to communicate.

I know. I commented on grandparent poster's take on my country's internal affairs which usually gets modded up to eleven by same thinking moderators. I read a lot of this post-apocalyptic nonsence here, basically in every thread about Russia, cracks me up every time.

Besides, what other country allows its Presidential candidates to be kidnapped? (Or perhaps allows it's candidates to spin believable stories about kidnapping. You decide.) ;-)

Heh. And what country allows its military-industrial complex to buy out the president elections and generally pwn the public as it pleases?

I think, it's the same shit everywhere, only the level of general, um, civility differs. We lag for about fifty-sixty years, so our bandits are more rough. Bandits of "first world" countries are more civilized, but the principle stays the same.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Glonoinha]

And what country allows its military-industrial complex to buy out the president elections and generally pwn the public as it pleases?

I'll take 'What is The United States?' for $400, Alex.

Re:That shouldn't happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

My typcial response to a telemarket call...

Remember your mother telling you that you need to pay attention in school or you wouldn't amount to anything? Do you believe her now? Click...

In modern Russia...

[KDR_11k]

Vladimir Putin unsubscribes the way we all want to.

Re:In modern Russia...

[Linus Torvaalds]

He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Sounds like he finally got the bounces that were coming to him.

You know what they say...

[Linus Torvaalds]

Karma's a bitch.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people thinking that somebody got a little too pissed off with spam, but try and remember that these types of spammers associate with organised crime (e.g. by hiring virus writers to get them bot nets).

Re:You know what they say...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Knowing Russia and Russians, and I do, he probably got his head bashed in after a drunken argument over someones wife, all generally misinterpreted, with the "injured party" sneaking back afterwards with his friends to do the deed. Russia is a squalid, rotten, barbarous country, where extraordinary levels of physical violence are the accepted norm, and you had better know Russian if you go there, tavaresh, because random passers by will beat you if you don't.

The spamming was probably just incidental.

Re:You know what they say...

[Linus Torvaalds]

This is retribution and murder

Retribution? Do you know something that the authorities don't?

has fuck all to do with Karma

Karma: According to the Vedas, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil.

If you add up all the hours people spend deleting spam, filtering spam, missing important emails because of spam filters etc, then that's a hell of a lot of time this spammer has taken away from people. You take away somebody's time, you are taking away part of their life. I'd say that's sowing evil, wouldn't you?

This is one less person that can have his day in court

Spamming is legal in Russia.

Re:You know what they say...

[NotoriousQ]

I also know Russians...and I agree with a lot of your comment except this

you had better know Russian if you go there, tavaresh, because random passers by will beat you if you don't

No they will not (at least in Moscow). If you do not speak Russian, most people will think you are either a rich tourist or someone in politics. In either case you may be too important to get into a fight with. However, they will steal your wallet.

Re:You know what they say...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Much as I hate to feed trolls, I just can't resist...

Yeah, those damn Irish potato eating drunkards!

Ireland's economy since the forced eviction of the british has been growing at a phenomenal rate, and is now seen as the light of Europe. Google for "celtic tiger". Amazing how a brutal, rapacious occupying force can drive you to drink, eh?

They don't call it a paddy wagon for nothin!

They called it a paddy wagon because it was mostly Irish that were the police.

I doubt its as corrupt, violent, and ceaselessly oppressive as you sugest

Oh, its not wall to wall beady eyes and white knuckles, you can in fact walk down the street, as long as you are white.

I doubt its as corrupt, violent, and ceaselessly oppressive as you sugest

I "sugest" you try living there, learning the language, and meeting the people, living as a Russian, and if you make it back to the civilised world more or less in one piece, then we can talk. And for the record, no Russian has ever raised his hand against me, although I would be lying to say that I was never threatened. I honestly like Russians, and the feeling so far has been mutual.

just like we don't know Russia, but you do

Autsausi menya, phonetically. Never said I could write it well ;-) For a translation, say it to a Russian. I suggest a large, burly one, they do tend to be the best translators...

Because of spamming?

[Tal Cohen]

The post (and the first few replies) seem to assume that he was murdered since he was a spammer. Somehow, I doubt that.

Re:Because of spamming?

[Martin Blank]

My first thought was that he might have been killed because he was a spammer not sharing his profits with the right people. The various Russian mobs are very powerful, very greedy, and very territorial.

Makes you wonder

[ShatteredDream]

Now that his head has been bashed into 50% its original size, do those penis enlargments work on the "big head?"

Why must we be animals?

[mind21_98]

Violence against anyone is wrong, unless it's in self-defense. I don't think he was killed because he was a spammer--he was probably killed in a robbery or confrontation over some other reason. We'll have to wait until the police find out more about what happened.

Re:Why must we be animals?

[rbarreira]

Why must we be animals?

Ummm... because we are?

Re:Why must we be animals?

[sowellfan]

I'm all for stopping the people that send spam, and spread spyware, trojans, viruses, etc., through legal means.

Unfortunately, legal means aren't doing much to solve the problem that we're facing (increasing identify theft, credit card fraud, computers that have to be re-imaged to start working again, etc.). In fact, even while more and more people work on security issues from the defense side, the epidemic spread of malicious programs continues. When the people that do this stuff operate in the U.S., they're hard to catch, and hard to prosecute. When they're operating in places like Russia, where the law is not in our favor, they are nearly impossible to prosecute effectively through legal means.

If legal means are completely ineffective at creating a deterrent, as they seem to be, then vigilante action becomes a more viable option, IMHO. Granted, the corpse in this story appears to have been a spammer, not an organized-crime trojan writer. As such, I think murder was not warranted. But for the people who *are* writing and spreading trojans, defrauding people, etc., I think that the only true deterrent would be the murder of a significant number of them (enough to get their attention and make them re-think their career choice).

If you think I'm going far here, just think about this: How many man-hours are spent here in the U.S. each year dealing with security issues caused by scum like this? Millions, I'm sure. Each hour spent dealing with these problems is an hour that is effectively stolen from the person who has to deal with that problem - if the problem didn't exist, then they could be doing something of their own choice. So the people that perpetrate this stuff rob us of millions of hours of our lives, while they enjoy all of the hours of their lives. In the big balance sheet of life, we come out ahead if the perps are deceased.

Re:Why must we be animals?

[Peyna]

Why must we be animals?

I offer the following alternatives, please choose any category you feel fits better:

- Plant
- Fungi
- Protist
- Bacteria
- Archaea

Wouldn't it be funny..

[kdark1701]

if he was beaten with a can of spam?

1st 3 comments

[lilmouse]

The first three comments:

1. Shouldn't kill even spammers.
2. This happened b/c he was spamming.
3. Yeah! Kill the bastards!

That about sums up the comments...

FWIW, he was probably offed by a business partner who wanted a bigger cut of the profits, or by the mob, because he wasn't paying them off. This is Russia we're talking about here.

--LWM

Re:1st 3 comments

[Nimey]

You forgot:

4. Summarizing the usual comments, in the futile hope of making the conversation more intelligent.

Should have opted out.

[Tackhead]

> He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

From a hidden microphone at the scene of the murder:

"You are receiving *WHAM* this blow to the head *WHAM* because you are part of a *WHAM* specially-selected list of *WHAM* people who agreed to receive *WHAM* blows to the head *WHAM*.

To stop *WHAM* receiving these *WHAM* blows to the head, please *WHAM* email us at no-more-please@optout.blowtothehead. com and *WHAM* we will remove you from our list of *WHAM* blow-to-the-head-club members *WHAM* (heh, we said "club"!) *WHAM* within 24 to 48 hours."

well...

[atheist666]

best... spam-blocker... EVER!

The jokes write themselves

[jgaynor]

-He's using that big open relay in the sky now . . .

-In New Jersey, killing a spamlord is only a class B misedemeanor . . .

-Whatta you call a spammer with a crushed skull lying in a pool of his own blood?

A good start!

Seriously though that's pretty f*cked up. Spammer or not, no one deserves that.

blunt object

[UESMark]

The fact that the murder weapon appear to have been a copy of O'Reilly's "Postfix: The Definitive Guide" is condidered a relevant clue at this point.

incredible

[JVert]

He died after suffering repeated blows to the head

Whoever did it must have some strong lungs.

Such a tragic waste...

[Junior J. Junior III]

That SpamAssassin really takes its job seriously, yo.

Dying in tiny slices

[TapestryDude]

I remember reading about how Steve Jobs motivated the original Mac team to speed up the boot. "Millions of people will boot their Macs every day; if you can shave 30 seconds off that boot time, it's the equivalent of three human lives every day". If that concept is true (debatable, but stick with me) then spammers, in the aggregate, are killing dozens or even hundreds of people a day ... a few seconds here and a few seconds there. So, in this respect, what goes around comes around.

The important thing is ...

[khasim]

... that we're all available to support each other's alibis.

Re:Three Cheers!

[goldspider]

If I find your post sufficiently objectionable, should I be permitted to kill you too?

Seriously, I expected to see a bit more tempered response from a reasonably sensible user community.

On topic Soviet Russia joke?

[Alcimedes]

In Soviet Russia, SPAM unsubscribes YOU!

Opt-out

[wowbagger]

It sounds to me like he simply failed to opt-out of the "Beat your head in" club.

They must have purchased a list with his name on it, and he failed to opt-out, so they had every right to offer their product to him.

After all, we wouldn't want to deny those people who WANT to have their heads beaten in the opportunity, just because some whiny anti-battery types want such lists to be double opt in.

He should have taken more care with his head - kept it in a metal helmet, only showing it to his friends, changing it periodically. Instead, he had his head out in the open where anybody who wanted to could beat it in.

It's all his fault, and the DMA (Dastardly Murder Association) bears no responsibility for this incident.

Re:Spam mob?

[ScentCone]

Any chance there's some sort of Russian Spam mob going on?

There's zero chance that there's not a relationship between Russian-based spam and their thriving organized crime culture. Those guys are completely in bed with each other, which also means that when you make a mis-step, you get your skull beaten with whatever is the Russian equivalent of a baseball bat. Do they play cricket, there, or what? Probably a hockey stick.

Spam

[william_w_bush]

how... sad...ish

my take on this is that we shouldn't blame spammers for spam, we should blame the MOTHER-FUCKING BRAIN-DEAD IDIOTS who actually BUY from them, giving them an economic incentive to fuck the rest of us over.

Honestly, if you know anyone who buys that shit, please kick his ass for us, they support spammers, and are more to blame than 100 whatever-this-guys-name-was.

Re:Spam

[Tim C]

how... sad...ish

The unnecessary death of a human being? Yeah, I'd say it's sad.

Re:Spam

[the pickle]

Unnecessary?

You presume his life was necessary in the first place. I'm gonna go with no. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people are utterly, indescribably insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

This guy was no different.

As another poster so adroitly pointed out, there are something like a quarter of a million people who die every single day in this world. Put in a time-averaged perspective, that's about three people every single second of the day. In the time it takes me to compose a sentence in this post, 30 or 40 people have died.

And you're going to try to say you feel sadness for each and every one of these people?

Bullshit.

I feel sadness for innocent people who die in terrorist attacks. I feel sadness for people who die after long bouts with cancer whilst their loved ones watch them waste away. I feel sorry for people who are murdered because they wore the wrong colour shirt in the wrong part of town.

I sure as shit do not feel one whit of sympathy or sadness for some professional asshat whose goal in life was to annoy the holy hell out of everyone on the Internet. Do you know how much Russian-language spam I've gotten this year? I don't speak or read a word of Russian, but I have to deal with this guy's drivel every goddamn day, and you want me to feel fucking sad because someone beat his worthless ass to death in his apartment?

How about I start shitting on your porch -- and the porch of everyone in your neighbourhood, village, town, city, and state -- every day for the next 10 years? When you and your 10 million friends get done cleaning it off after the 3650th day, and someone fucking snaps and beats me to death, I utterly DEMAND you feel remorse for my unnecessary death.

Never mind that my sole purpose and goal in life at that point was to piss you off. You had goddamn better feel remorse that you're not going to get your porch shit on tomorrow.

People like you are the reason people like him are allowed to continue existing.

And that, my friend, is truly sad.

p

Re:Three Cheers!

[drakaan]

Mod parent up +1 Funny!

Seriously, I expected to see a bit more tempered response from a reasonably sensible user community.

Damn, you almost made me cry, I was laughing so hard!

hmmm

[pizza_milkshake]

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(x) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business


Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(x) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
(x) Wow, this might work!

Murder weapon

[breon.halling]

This just in! Police have release a photo of the murder weapon!

Re:All those Punch the Monkey solicitations...

[MynockGuano]

...finally come back to haunt you.

In Soviet Russia, monkey punches you?

Re:When geeks. . . .

[indifferent children]

The spammer was beaten to death with an artifically enlarged and artifically erect body part.

Here it comes...

[paranode]

In Soviet Russia, spam assasinates YOU.

Re:Why would it be the mafia?

[Golias]

The mafia wouldnt beat a person to death, they'd simple make the person vanish off the face of the earth. You'd think the mafia would do a professional hit.

People are beat to death by mafia goons all the time.

The "single pistol shot through the eyeball" execution is the stuff of movies. Mob thugs are no better at crime than regular thugs, they just have infrastructure in place to make it easier.

Yes there is a russian mafia, but if this is the most profitable spammer in russia its simply illogical for them to kill their cashcow.

Now it's my turn to get all Hollywood:

"You're only as good as your last brown envelope."

Well...

[abb3w]

..would it be irony or poetic justice?

Judging by the way my ceremonial can-o-Spam reacts to a magnet, I would say Irony.

spam assassin

[Anonymous Coward]

This gives a whole new meaning to SpamAssassin.

Re:That shouldn't happen. Likely just new owners

[Herschel Cohen]

It's a game played by many "businesses", let someone develop the market then take it over by any means.

Your new spam might read like: "Read This, Buy or Die!" Where every word is meant to be taken in the literal sense.

Re:Why would it be the mafia?

[Artfldgr]

russian mob is not the same as the italian or other mobs... first of all its top heavy with phd's!!! engineers, programmers, chemists, etc... what the hell do you think happens when you have a disenfranchised highly intelligent group? duh.. its one thign to disenfranchise the poor and stupid.. antoher to do it to the people that are smart... no they would beat the shit out of him and leave him as a message... no reason to hide it, or anythign... its out in the open.. and the person who was to get the message surely got it.. probably lack of pay off, or threat of cooperation... done deal after that

I can identify

[overshoot]

/me opens inbox.

/me reaches for hammer. Resists.

/me goes to wall. Remebers last drywall repair bill. Resists.

I can see how in a moment of weakness it could happen.

Re:Three Cheers!

[Swamii]

I expected to see a bit more tempered response from a reasonably sensible user community.

You're new here, aren't you?

I can see it coming now...

[Teppy]

I bet he's made a lot of money with all that spam. And as any Russian will tell you, don't fuck with the Mob. If only there were some way for his relatives to inherit the money without attracting attention...

Hey, I have an idea!

DEAR SIR,

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM MR. VLADIMIR NATREVSKY, COUNCIL TO ONE MR. VARDAN
KUSHNIR. I HAVE IN MY POSESSION FOURTY-TWO MILLION US DOLLARS ($42,000,000.00) IN VARIOUS
BANK ACCOUNTS, FROM MR. KUSHNIR'S ASSORTED BUSINESSES. Due to the violent nature of Mr. Kushiner's
death, his reletives do not wish to attract attention to themselves by claiming the money. they
have enlisted my aid in finding someone outside of russia to help them. the money will be deposited into
a bank account of your choosing in the unites states. once this has been accomplished, and with great
sadness, Mr. Kushiner's family will flee the russia that they love to start a new life. the money,
less your commission, will them be transferred to them in their new homeland.

FOR YOUR HELP, YOU WILL RECEIVE 30% OF THEIR FORTUNE ($12,600,000), AND 10% ($4,200,000) WILL BE SET ASIDE FOR
EXPENSES.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,
Mr. VLADIMIR NATREVSKY

Sure there is...

[sheldon]

It's just that the letter H sounds like N. :-)

Re:That shouldn't happen. Likely just new owners

[Scaba]

It was Bill Gates. He couldn't figure out what CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet did, so he "bought them out" to avoid competing with them.

It has to happen.

[Secrity]

Are you joking?

No

Has human life lost all sanctity...

No

that you think it is justifiable to end a man's life because he sends you unwanted email?...

In the quantities that he sent, yes

Is spam that much of an annoyance to you that you are filled with satisfaction when a man is bludgeoned to death, only because that man was a spammer?...

Yes

Re:Three Cheers!

[anonicon]

"If I find your post sufficiently objectionable, should I be permitted to kill you too?"

Hmmm, a single post to Slashdot being compared to some professional asshat who spammed millions of people and mail servers around the world. Now THAT'S Slashdot for you.

As for the spammer, I gave you this abridged Clerks retort:
Blue-Collar Man: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?
Randal: The ending of Return of the Jedi.
Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.
Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Randal: Like when?
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal: No way!
Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet.

The spammer should have listened to the roofer.

Re:That shouldn't happen. Likely just new owners

[Scaba]

And who among us is not a nerd? Let him be cast out.

Re:Why would it be the mafia?

[droptone]

Simply making someone disappear doesn't send the kind of shock like seeing someone else's brutally mangled body and knowing that that could be you if you decide to screw around with the perpetrator.

Depends on if this was done by the actual, and extremely organized, Russian mafia or just some thugs. I have to say the thought that people who annoy an organization just disappearing is frightening. Gulags anyone? The more organized sort of Mafia's do not have to make a spectical to show people their power. It's only the up-and-coming groups that try to be extremely brutal. Once a group has control they want as little publicity as possible.

Numbers, and points to ponder

[Thaelon]

I seriously doubt this guy was killed just for spamming, but let's assume he was for discussion. While on the surface it may seem that the punishment (death) far exceeds the crime (spamming) let's do a little math.

Say I spend 10 seconds managing my spam every 2-3 days. That's 28 seconds a week. No big deal right?

Say I've been doing it for the last 5 years and will continue to for the next 55.

(5 + 55) * 52 weeks * 28 seconds a week = 87,360 seconds (24.266~ hours). Still not that bad, just one day.

Someone who lives 80 years only gets 700,800 hours to live.

That means spammers only have to annoy 28,879 people ( 700,800 / 24.266~ = 28,879 ) before they've wasted an entire (long) human lifetime worth of time. Now I know it's a bit of a stretch to equate a human lifetime worth of time to the life of an actual human being, but I begin to wonder. My time is very valuable to me and I'd rather not waste a single second of it deleting unwanted advertisements from my inbox.

But let's take it a little further. According to this there are 6,454,864,470 people on earth at the time of this writing. Say spammers only annoy 5% of them (a low estimate I would guess) for their entire lives. That's still 322,743,223 people who lost a day's time to spam.

24.266 hours per person * 322,743,223 people = 7831902223.6 hours wasted.

That's 11,175.66 human lifetimes!

If you want to equate those to actual deaths here are some comparisons:

"British Medial Journal indicating that passive smoking kills over 11,000 people in UK." (http://www.sdlp.ie/pr2march2005.shtm).

"To take prostate cancer as an example, although it kills over 11,000 men a year..." (http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/releases/cancerchip.ht ml)

"Gun violence kills over 11,000 Americans every year..." (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/11 /08/opinion/6293.shtml)

These were extremely low estimates, the world's population is growing, and the amount of spam is growing.

Still think the punishment didn't fit the crime? I'm not sure anymore myself.

Re:Why would it be the mafia?

[Glonoinha]

Once upon a time I had connections in the Russian mafia.
They don't generally make people mysteriously disappear.
They do, however, make examples of people by messing them up in a most brutal and bloody fasion.

I'm not saying this was a mob hit, but I will assure you that it isn't surely 'not a mob hit' (if that makes sense.)

Russian Spammer murders in New Jersey

[billstewart]

A few years ago, a couple of Russian immigrants were found murdered in New Jersey. They were apparently spammers involved in a pump&dump stock scam. I don't think the crime was ever solved, but it was generally believed to be a Mafia deal (not sure if Russian Mafia or New York Traditional Mafia) by some investors who got burned.