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The Russian Mafia Doesn't Like Spam Either
wattrlz writes "Apparently the current champion of v1*gr4 spamming solicited some of the wrong email boxes. Alexy Tolstokozhev was recently found murdered in his palatial spam-bought estate near Moscow. The implications of this hands on method of system administration are staggering." Update: 10/12 15:28 GMT by Z : Good story. Unfortunately, probably a fake.
I noticed a drop in spam over the past week and figured another big arrest had been made, which would be in the news. Well .. an arrest of sorts.
While I don't advocate the killing of spammers, it's hard to argue with results. What I do wonder is if this is a hit from a rival spammer. Where do we see evidence spam was sent to the wrong person? Begin notorious in Russia is a bit unhealthy, particularly when you have large amounts of money and no bodyguards.
From another source:
To do that they'd probably need a supply of pills conventiently and discretely distributed.
BTW, here's the original source of the news
Russian Viagra and Penis Enlargement Spammer MurderedPosted on October 11th, 2007 by admin and filed under Uncategorized.
Wow, just saw this on TV, so I decided to translate this story into English so my readers will be first to learn this. Sorry for mistakes in my English, I'm doing this in a hurry
Alexey Tolstokozhev (btw, in Russian his name means 'Thick Skin'), a Russian spammer, found murdered in his luxury house near Moscow. He has been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of russian hit men (known as "killers" in Russia).
Who hated Tolstokozhev so much as to hire a hit man to assasinate him? Well, I guess you have about one billion e-mail users to suspect. Tolstokozhev was a famous spammer who sent millions of e-mail promoting viagra, cialis, penis enlargement pills and other medications. Links in these e-mails usually led to some pharmacy shop, which paid Tolstokozhev a share of its revenue. This is a well known affiliate scheme employed by spammers worldwide.
Tolstokozhev is estimated to be responsible for up to 30% percent of all viagra and penis enlargement related spam.
In order to send millions and millions of unsolicited letters, Tolstokozhev employed a network of infected computers (so-called "botnet"), which he rented from hackers.
How profitable is spam? Well, the authorities say that Tolstokozhev has likely made more than $2 million in 2007 alone. (in comparison: average russian monthly salary is $400)
This is a second murder of a spammer in Russia. Another russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir, was assassinated in 2005.
"Violent murders is a clear sign that spam becomes a serious criminal activity" - the officials say. "Easy money attracts criminals, which bring their own version of "justice" with them."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
to "Spam Assassin"!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Mob spams YOU!
More like the Russian Mafia doesn't like sharing profits.
Looks like there are more ways than just v1agr@ for you to end up a stiff.
Send me the physical addresses of any known spammers and I'll take care of them in a like manner.
I know that nobody likes spammers, but why does that make this murder justified?
Derive Politics
...against many people. balanced with one huge crime against one person. sort of makes sense?
The article mentions a 2005 murder in Russia, but there were also a couple of spammers in New Jersey who got murdered a few years ago, and the general rumor was that they'd annoyed some New York City Russian mafiosi in a stock scam.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I know someone is going to get on their high horse and say that spam is annoying but not a cause for murder.
Maybe I should feel the same way.
However, I'm only slightly surprised to find that my conscience doesn't have any problem at all allowing me to feel happy at the news of this man's death.
Can we _please_ for the sake of sanity put ALL the Soviet Russia jokes into ONE thread?
please?
Mafia conventiently and discretely deliver YOU!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The implication is that if you piss off the wrong people, you could end up dead. Quite how that's surprising (let alone staggering) I don't know.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Mafia does not kill for spam - they kill for not sharing the profits of the venture. The guy probably thought that just because his business is virtual it is immune from racket, big mistake but I won't shred a single tear for this bastard. Maybe a hitfund should be setup - $1 mln per head of top 20 spammers in the world.
Can someone make sure this guy is next?
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Unfortunately the bullet in the head probably wasn't earned because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder but because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder who didn't pay up.
It doesn't justify the murder, but hell, people die every day. Thousands of people will die in the time it takes to read this post. Of those thousands of people that are moments away from dying, I would say it is a safe bet that at least a few of them are truly wonderful and good people and that the world will be a worse place for their leaving it... and chances are you won't give two shits about a single one of them.
Now, some ass hole spammer is dead. Is it sad? Eh, it is sad in the way that anyone dying is sad, and well, people dying is not that sad. We manage to make it through each day cheerfully despite the massive amounts of death going on the world. So one guy who has made a name for himself by being a complete asshole is dead. It is hard to drum up any sort of negative feelings when plenty of completely good humans dropped dead within hours of his doing so and most people didn't shed a tear for them either.
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, anywhere other than Russia
( ) 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, asshole! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
(X) THANK YOU! ONE DOWN. MANY MORE TO GO.
Get off my lawn.
Does Tolstokozhev's killer get the SysAdmin Of The Year award?
For what it's worth, this story appears to be fake. The story appears to have originated from this site : http://loonov.com/
If you check the whois info on this site, it was created on October 11, 2007, today. Yet the site shows archives going back to February 2007? Archives which are "disabled' because of high traffic..
Next, if you search for both the name of the spammer, Alexey Tolstokozhev, or the site, loonov.com, you only get links pointing back to loonov.com as the originator of the story.
So it appears that this story is a fraud.
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
1. Find out the name of some Russian kingpin.
2. Register his name as your address at GMail
3. Make sure that all interested authorities know that you're not him and that you only did it to stay away from spam.
Don't omit step 3 or you might have more problems on your hands than spam could ever mean.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hardly seems worth the effort when you consider the number of e-mail he must have sent. I thought these spammers were billionaires. When you consider the value of all the wasted bandwidth and disk space, I am sure it would amount to much more than that. Any idea how much botnets cost to rent? Do you pay by time or # of e-mails?
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
The world is round, and what goes around comes around. :(
And what came around for this guy was more spam than his body could handle!! (get it? the spam is bullets!!!!)
Nevermind.
You sir, are an idiot. Can I take it that you like getting paper junk mail too? What's your address? I have a load of crap to send to your house. What's your e-mail address? Let me send you some e-mails. Are you on the do-not-call list? I would guess you aren't: what's your phone number?
I go to the USPS website and look up any address in the US. Does that mean I should send random people loads of crap they don't want? According to you, that's the fault of the USPS since the mail isn't traceable -- just like e-mail. E-mail was modeled after post: both are more or less untraceable. Just because e-mails are untraceable doesn't give others the right to abuse that.
Unsolicited paper mail, phone calls, or e-mail are all in the same category. They are rude, disrespectful annoyances. If you want to get that crap fine; in your case, the advertisements, spam, and phone calls at dinner time would be solicited.
To live in a free and peaceful society, people have to respect the privacy and rights of others. We should not purposefully annoy our neighbors or cause them harm. These are basic rules of social conduct.
I hope that I never have to be your neighbor. Your reckless disregard for the well-being, time, and privacy of others is shocking.
In fact, we have a few hours yet before deadline, do we not? Let us mobilise the /. effect and get this public champion the recognition he deserves! Click here and explain why you think the Russian spam-slayer should get the award. You know it makes sense.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
if they can off those ass clowns that send out the spam about wanting you to be their monetary liaison here in the states. Although I have never actually opened one of those, our company gets a butt load of them so I have to waste time deleting them. Hell i'll pay for them to be offed.
GO RUSSIAN MOB!!
OK -- well, at least they shouldn't say that I put them up to it.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Your comment made me laugh. Right on.
I mean, click here
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
For years now, I've always given out "Don B. Sonozi " as my 'register so we can spam you' address; looks like it finally paid off...
It's Alexey. With an e before the y.
Simon would be proud.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
All you that say spamming doesn't justify murder obviously haven't had the task of stopping spam sent to 300+ users thrown on top of your already overburdened "things-to-take-care-of-that-aren't-my-job" list.
End users don't care why I can't stop every single message from hitting their inbox. They don't care that I'm catching 99.997% of the incoming spam while still meeting their requirements of looking through it and picking all the "not spam" out of the mess. All I hear is complaints about "constantly delayed emails" (which have been incredibly rare since I took this over) and "tons of spam" (less than 5 per day) clogging their inbox.
On top of that there's real money my company is losing because of this. If it weren't for spam, we could get by on 1/10th the server power we need for the Exchange server (yeah, I know the fact that it's Exchange is a big part of it, but you work with what you've got) to handle getting 1-2 messages per second on average, then having to run them thru the (very CPU intensive) spam filtering gauntlet for nonexistant addresses, Bayesian filtering, OCR, blacklist lookups, whitelist lookups, keyword filters, etc etc.
I'd like to buy a beer for whoever killed that parasite.
(We're using GFI for filtering if anybody cares, overall I'm pretty happy with them.)
For what it's worth, this story appears to be fake.
If so, I would not be surprised if it inspired the real thing at some point in the near future.
Any bets?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
he didn't cut them in.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Basically, he wasn't murdered because of spam. He was murdered because he was a anuscluster who crossed the wrong people.
Though, I do think it would be wonderful if Don Boris' 18 year old nephew, who is also the "company's" sys-admin, came to him one day and said "Hey, you know what I want for my graduation present? {type type typitty type whois reverselookup tap-type-print} That snogmuffin off the Internet."
UTF-8: There and Back Again
From: http://www.rlslog.net/real-punishment-russian-viagra-spammer-murdered/
It seems that today someone invented a new way of fighting spam. The idea is simple--scare spammers to death by circulating a hoax that one of their ilk has just been murdered! It would not take long for people to conclude that such a poor fate might be related to the professional activities of the deceased. The following blog appeared today on one of the anonymous sites:
(http://loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm)
and immediately got wide attention.
Having received 900 spam emails in the last week I dont feel for this guy at all. Spamming is terrible and whoever does deserves to punished severely, and possible killed. Its sucks that you cant put your email on a form or in a application with out risking getting a million emails from a million different places. Unlike some places in Russia you do the crime and you get killed. Its as simple as that, no evidence will be found and no murderer will ever be convicted because they dont care. He was a spammer and no one there is going to investigate that murder. They are to buisy enjoying there newly freed up mail boxes.
It's a human life lost. But another spammer will take his place. Why do you think that drug trafficking never stops?
The only good solution is to change the infrastructure of e-mail delivery, and to start cleaning the botnets out there.
"I wonder how much it costs to get this kind of thing done - I'd be happy to start a donation pool to round-up as much funding as it would take to get all these guys wiped out. Maybe that will be the trick, in the end? Make spamming too dangerous for anyone to risk getting involved?"
I bet you'd get lots of funding if you sent out a mass mailing.
Wait a minute...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I've been saying this for years... the only way to get rid of spam is to make it justifiable homicide to kill spammers anywhere on the planet.
Original story is on
http://loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm#
Domain Name: LOONOV.COM
Registrar: ESTDOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.estdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.estdomains.com/
Name Server: NS0.HQHOST.NET
Name Server: NS1.HQHOST.NET
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 11-oct-2007
Creation Date: 11-oct-2007
Expiration Date: 11-oct-2008
Fake hoax information link
http://taint.org/2007/10/11/203243a.html
Domain loonov.com registered Oct 11th... FAKE!!!!
The voters. And with voters i mean this and the past generations. Like it or not, we're ALL partially responsible for SPAM.
That is one of the more articulately written troll rated posts I've seen in recent memory. In response to it, I have two questions for you:
/. community will happily arrange for many more exciting spam related products to be sent to you at no cost to you (unless you have a pay as you go net service.)
/. community will happily arrange for many more exciting spam related products to be sent to you at no cost to you (unless you have a pay as you go net service.)
1) Are you just trying to be contrary, or do you really feel this way?
If yes, you truly feel this way, and you enjoy reading about ways to make your p3n1s b1gger, or you'd love to help nimbimbo in receiving his dead uncle's fortune, or perhaps are interested in knowing more about stock ez2? If so, go to question 2) if not, thanks for trolling, here's your prize: If you'll be so kind as to post your email address and the
2) Are you rather old? Perhaps your family is no longer coming to visit? You're looking for more interaction with people? Then go to your local bingo hall where you'll find many other people looking to make contact with other like minded people. Perhaps you're housebound, in which case, if you'll be so kind as to post your email address and the
Seriously, you're complaining that email is a) untraceable (I'll let the forensic experts weigh in on how traceable or untraceable it is currently, but the only real way to fix the spoofing back door is to centralize "email". Do you have any concept of what this would mean? *All* email, world wide... yes, that's doable, in a heart beat; just sign here to give up any expectation of privacy you might currently have, as mistaken or justified as that expectation is, and please convince your neighbors to do the same... er, I digress.... where was I... oh right!), and b) free. Yes, that's the problem with spam. If we just charged people 2 cents per email, then spam would never get through. This would however only work if "email" was centralized, with mail servers only accepting connections from "white listed" servers... Yes, again, easily done.... convince your local ISP to start doing this, I'm sure you'll be successful. After all you're a master of logic.
People buy things online because (by and large) people like to shop. I suspect that the 90% figure you're quoting purchased something they *actively* sought out, not something that was emailed to them from Jennydirty@yahoo.com (I'm sorry jenny, but you shouldn't have slept with Jeff... I warned you, but no, you wouldn't listen, feel my wrath! mooohahahahh, erm... sorry again, where was I?) Right, shopping, people, advertising. Online you can compare similar products between sellers without driving or calling all over the country/world. You will often save substantial amounts of money by conducting your purchases online. While buying something online (e.g going to a virtual store, or say, ebay.) you are shown advertisements by the company you're buying from (or in the case of ebay like places, items from other rival products/sellers, much like going to a bizarre albeit a VERY large one.) While you're surfing for enjoyment, you deal with pop-up adverts (by clicking or blocking them), but when you are passively allowing communications to come to you (e.g. checking email, answering the phone, looking at the fax machine) you tend to get annoyed when people tell you about their wonderful products unsolicited. You see, there is a very fine line between advertisements and spam, and this line is currently very widely recognized by most people to be the point at which people are intentionally exposing themselves to advertisements. Say, going to a ball park to watch "professionals" play (instead of 5 a side at the park), listening to the radio (instead of non-advertisement supported satelite radio, CDs, tapes, 8 tracks, records, wax cylinders, whatever), going for a walk by department stores (this used to be called window shopping for a reason.) Taking public transportation, driving o
The "Bell Box" was essentially a computer, designed to accept anonymous wagers, cryptographically signed with an included public key, as to when, where, and how, someone would die.
The point was not really to wager on someone's death. No, the point was that very unpopular people would have such a large pool of small wagers accumulated, that at some point, the risk of getting caught for the murder would be perceived to be less than the payoff for predicting the exact circumstances of the death and seeing to it that they occured.
Combine the Bell Box with the banking secrecy laws in some countries, and, well...
IIRC, the inventor was arrested for having invented it, as a terrorist, but I have no evidence to back that up. No known prototype was ever made.
In Liberty, Rene
I my sysadmin dreams I wish that he was in my mail server sorting through all of my messages. I would like to wish that this would put a tiny dent in the spam but he doesn't need to be alive to send spam since he has this millions of his bots doing it for him. Killing this female donkey external orifice will stop the money, I hope, but we need to get his system to stop his bots from sending out all of his fecal matter.
Please post an update saying this story appears to be a fake.
I know I'm feeding a troll, but it bears relevance to the discussion at large. Hear me out.
.1 % concentration will take care of the toot decay problem, Tartar and overall cleanliness are provided by the mild abrasive inside
I buy things. This is true. But, I do not look at any ads ( sorry Taco, I'll get a subscription soon, or something. Ever wanted a fruit basket sent to your home? I know I would like one too. If you could send me one that would be great) How do I learn about products I wish to buy? I research them. I need a touthpaste, I'll invesitgate the problem wholisitcaly. Lets think about tooth brushing.
What is the end result desired in tooth brushing?
Clean teath, reduce plauque, tarter and prevent gingeovitus
What is the solution involve?
It typically involves a tooth brush, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash.
Ok, Now you need touthpaste, part of the system what parts are already covered by existing materials?
Mouth wash prevents gingeovitus, reduces plauque.
Ok need a touth past that will fight tartar clean teeth and prevent tooth decay. What ingredients do the bet job?
Soidum Floride of a
OK, Which products contain these ingredients?
brands a, b & c
Do they also contain the ada seal of approval and what is the price per ounce
All have ada except for brand c that was made in China and is spelled toutpaste. Price varies by store.
Which store has the B or C at the best price?
Karl's Krazy Korn & ToothBarn has A for 10 cents an ounce!
uhhm Ok, are they having a sale soon?
No, they keep there prices low the year round!
Do they fund any evil orginisations that trample on human rights, or for that matter do the makers of B or A?
oooh Karl's is apparently a front for the Klu Klux Klan, don't know how I missed that. But Mom & pop's Good Store of things, has B for 11 cents an ounce.
Cool, Yo. I'm there. Yeah, thats how it works for me. Now if I could get ads sent to me that had that information, I might even pay for it. But, they don't. They always want you to BUY BUY BUY PRODUCT X AT STORE Y with no information about the problem space. Utterly utterly useless for me.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Taking the reins off those US teachers who were "hamstrung" when they couldn't hit kids in class anymore. One of the benefits private school has: my trig teacher actually drew on some sleeping kid's face when he was snoring in class. Nobody in class actually minded, and nobody was sued. Hopefully a) this is a fake story as noted and a) spammers will take note, though prolly not.
I take it you've never been to either the US or a former soviet union nation.
As of 2000 or so:
Murder rate:
-US: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
-Russia: 0.201534 per 1,000 people
I've got enough people on my list already. Now where did I put my stapler?
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Put me on the jury. I don't care if there's video evidence, a signed confession, and an open court confession; I just couldn't bring myself to convict the guy responsible. Heisenburg and quantum mechanics both provide enough "reasonable doubt" in this case for me.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Looks faked.
How sad.
What you are saying makes no sense. There are tons of things in this world that are "flawed" or imperfect. Do you really want to legislate or create a fix for all of it? For example, doubt it's practical to come up with a "traceable" post or e-mail.
Here's my point. A criminal can walk up to you and kill you right now. Yes, we have police, but nobody's really going to stop someone who is determined enough. With your mentality, we'd be forced to say that any system that lets someone kill someone else is "imperfect". The solution? Let's give you a body guard 24/7 to protect you from any would-be criminals. Does this make sense to you?
The point is that we can't prevent every unwanted action others can perpetrate in society. Would you really want to live in a society where this is the case? Basically, you'd be giving up a whole lot of freedom. At some point, we have to rely on the goodwill of and trust of others for society to run smoothly.
At some point, we have to draw the line at how much restriction we can tolerate to prevent others from doing harm. I wouldn't say that e-mail or post are flawed at all any more than I'd say that a society in which someone can kill someone else is flawed. We have to rely on moral values taught by parents and society to each our children to do the right thing. And the right thing to teach our children is that Spam is a scourge on society.
I would like to see Tony Soprano's crew regulate on The McAfee Gang
Hey, pal, just because YOU like being spontaneously kicked in the gonads doesn't mean the REST of us do.
Spock said it best: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or one.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
While I generally don't think the death penalty does much for crime prevention,
I don't think that Death is lacking in deterrent power. This spammer death will quite likely persuade many people not to run spam operations out of Russia, because the killing was sudden and highly publicized. I imagine that here in the US, the death penalty would be more of a deterrent if the same held true. If no one was ever on death row for more than two weeks and when the execution happened it was on the front page with a picture of the body. I personally disagree with the death penalty, but if we must have it then we should have to be conscious of it every time it is used. Both for it to be an effective deterrent and to acknowledge that someone was killed for the good of society. To have someone killed but not wanting to be made aware of it is the epitome of cowardice.
We are all just people.
Now that Blackwater has had to cut back in Iraq due to their excessive violence, they may have some excess capacity available that could be hired out to deal with spammers.
Well, we changed the scores on a few spamassassin rules on our mailserver yesterday. I guess the changes were far more effective than we had anticipated.
according to this it seems that the story is fake
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
That is too rich! All the assholes cheering on the murder of another human being are actually just being duped into viewing an ad supported web page! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Serves you right, you sick bastards. Ever heard of the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution?
What is "this better system" you would like us to convert to? A little more detail would be helpful, I was unaware of an alternative email system.
I think a study asked a bunch of questions about the internet to people to look for correlations and what they found was striking:
90% of people who think spam should be "eliminated some time in the future" have bought something on line. Does that make ANY sense whatsoever? You hate getting ads in your email, but you're all so eager to buy on line?
Gimme a break!
I buy things online, but I never buy things in response to unsolicited email. For example, I buy things from Amazon. From time to time Amazon sends me email telling me about things they think I might be interested in. This is not spam, I signed up for them to send it to me. If I decide I no longer want to receive it, I can go to Amazon and ask them to stop sending it and they will. I get email from several other vendors that I have done business with. In every case there was a check box to mark (or in most cases unmark if I didn't want) to indicate that I want them to send me notifications of products they think I might be interested in.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Its like performing certain other criminal acts like dealing drugs, you are doing the wrong thing and you are in the running to get clipped either by rival criminals or by vigilantes.
It had to happen, sooner or later. Given that he was a person who preyed on other weaker people, I'll save my tears for a more worthy cause.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'd like to buy a beer for whoever killed that parasite.
(We're using GFI for filtering if anybody cares, overall I'm pretty happy with them.)
Does anyone here see the irony?
who was beaten to death in 2005... http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39210800,00.htm
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Good riddance. Hopefully there is more to come
Well, make the punishment stiff enough, ( and follow thru ) and the risk of getting caught high enough, it will reduce the #'s of people that have the balls to do it.
Today, punishment is a mere slap on the wrist *IF* they get anything at all.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
why don't YOU go tell that to the criminal organizations. See how they'll consider your humble opinion. ;)
While I don't advocate the killing of spammers, it's hard to argue with results.
Actually it is easy to argue with the results. This is not justice, but a crime. We must be wary about attitudes which condone vigilante justice. When justice escapes from the hands of the state, and becomes a matter of criminal organizations or private individuals to administer, to the cheers of the mob, society will become dangerous not only for those who find themselves target of this sort of justice, but also those who cheer.
anon
Good analysis.
Of course it's also possible that he took an existing amusing checklist and added the references to Russia to it because they're relevant to this particular story. You can work this out by any of the following methods:
a) Comparing the posted version to the original linked above.
b) Noticing that the additions were made in crayon.
c) Getting a sense of humour, or borrowing one from someone who isn't using theirs.
It's also possible that not every attempt at humour is a thinly veiled assault on the former Soviet Union.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
There wasnt a whole lot of violence around when the mafia was in town... Just things that needed to be done... Even though I am against killing, I do not want something to increase my p3n15 size, I need penile reduction surgery... Josh
Just because it works, Doesn't make it right. - JTM
In Soviet Russia, humour assaults you!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Justice is being given what you're due. He wasn't due death, he was due prison time and a huge fine.
After wasting 385 people years of time per spam, plus aggravating contless millions of people at the same time, and ripping off countless old people probably eating dog food now, death was really too good for him. A painful death at the hands of the notorius Russian mafia? That's what I call a good start.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In Soviet Russia, spam deletes you!
http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2007/10/11/two-dead-spammers/
And the other spammer in 2005 wasn't killed for spamming.
But.. Spock was wrong. His incomplete understanding was the basis for two additional films.
The needs of the one sometimes outweigh the needs of the many. Otherwise you end up with everyone just being a drone in an ant colony.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Even if this spammer really was killed by the Russian mafia (and I severely doubt it), it wouldn't make squat for difference. Considering there are other spammers who are known to operate with the Russian mafia, at best this just created a power vacuum for Russian spam.
Just take a look at Leo Kuvayev / "BadCow" / "Alex Rodrigez". Three names (out of many) for one evil man who pumps tons of spam. He's largely suspected to have ties to the mafia.
So while people can celebrate this possible murder, its meaningless at best. There's an equal chance it will just up the collaboration between the spammers and the mob, which would be all the worse for all of us poor bastards that are being endlessly pounded with offers for discount v!@gr4.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Actually it is easy to argue with the results. This is not justice, but a crime. We must be wary about attitudes which condone vigilante justice. When justice escapes from the hands of the state, and becomes a matter of criminal organizations or private individuals to administer, to the cheers of the mob, society will become dangerous not only for those who find themselves target of this sort of justice, but also those who cheer."
That's true. That is why government must be effective at protecting the public. Otherwise, as the Founders of the U.S. noted, it is the right of the people to change their government.
Vigilantism is a horrible, frightening thing, and you have to ask yourself if you want to live in that kind of world. But, there comes a point, when someone has been abused enough, that vigilantism is the lesser of the evils.
We must have a way to tell people to stop that will make them stop.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
I'd do it in an internet second.
The fact is, rather than ticking off someone in the Russian mob with spam, I suspect that the root cause of this murder is due more to the spammer cheating the mob than to general pissoff with spam. Criminals don't get that excited about having their email box stuffed full of quack pills that don't work, they do get very excitable when they don't get their cut of the action, real or perceived.
It may turn out that some mobster got sucked into the scam, tried the pillz, found they didn't work, and Alexey tried to use the fact the goomba bought the pills to embarass and influance the wiseguy. Said wiseguy, rather than knuckle under, simply whacked Alexey rather than be rousted. Face in the mob is everything. Lose it and you are nothing.
But the real situation is that right now, there isn't any real information made public for anyone to draw any intelligent conclusion from. Wild speculation is always cheap tender on the internet, but effective solutions to spam are more rooted in fact and evidence than in wild speculation. I'll sit back, wait for more real evidence and information before I draw any conclusions.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Now how do I find out about special offers on Viagra?
If that phrase is utilized in a positive context, yes. Spock was "brought back to life." Many people would like to be revived as such. However, in a negative context, you'd be harder pressed to convince people.
Try this... Ask your male friends if they think you ALL should also be kicked in the nuts just because someone ELSE in their group liked it.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Jim Bell was arrested for stalking an IRS agent, and sentenced to two consective 5 year terms. It's widely believed by those the government would term "the tinfoil-hat crowd" (read: realists) that his prosecution and sentencing was actually for "Assassination politics".
Why do people make spam out to be some kind of menace? Isn't it *our* fault for relying on such a crappy, corruptible system of communication in the first place?
Why do women make rape out to be some kind of menace? Isn't it *her* fault for wearing that low-cut top and short skirt in the first place?
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Snotty Scotty Richter? Is that you?
i predicted years ago that one day a spammer would piss off some mafia boss - perhaps offended by all the spam telling him he has a tiny penis - and (very briefly) live to regret it.
unfortunately, this is probably a turf-war incident rather than a pissed off spam-victim.
All of the Google results for the name Alexy Tolstokozhev point back to Slashdot (specifically this item) or other sources who feed off of Slashdot. A search for the name at spamhaus.org comes up empty. If he is such a notorious spammer why is he not listed on Spamhaus Rokso? Is this a bogus story?
"Russian Viagra and Penis Enlargement Spammer Murdered"
Maybe someone's penis grew too large.
Then I guess I'll have to mod down some of your other posts, then. Your karma is fucked.
yes, but this is a spammer we're talking about.
Have gnu, will travel.
That was quick.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
Funny joke, asshole. Yes. Someone deserves to die because they have a different viewpoint than you. ChuckSchwab deserves to be brutally murdered because you're inconvenienced by spam and he espouses a viewpoint that you do not agree with. People like you are what is wrong with the world. Accuse me of having no sense of humor all you want, I accuse you of having no sense of decency. In some jurisdictions your comment would even be considered a threat, an actionable offense.
Is the sanctity of your email really so important as to sacrifice someone's life? Go back to your fantasy world.
.... or Spam 101 You can spam some of the people all of the time And you can spam all of the people some of the time But never spam the wrong people any of the time
Its not the years, its the mileage
Zing!
So the next time I get stuck in a traffic jam for hours with thousands of other people because some poor bastard in a beat up el Camino knocked off on the freeway, I'm free to shoot him? I don't think it works that way. I think you're just a sick fuck. No, really, you need help. People like you end up doing crazy shit like bombing olympic events and such. If unsolicited email advertising bothers you that much, you are in serious need of psychological evaluation and some kind of anxiety medication. You should see a shrink. Soon.
But first, why don't you go read the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution while I quote a few words out of your own hypocritical mouth:
He got what he deserved. Hopefully, it was a slow, painful death.
Spammers like him make their money by harassing and annoying everyday people, clogging inboxes, and taking work time away from people trying to make a legitimate honest buck, simply to hawk bogus products and/or services.
It's like decking the kid who bullied you in elementary school. Wrong, but WELL-DESERVED.
If you don't want to suffer the possible consequnces of your actions, then don't commit those actions. Plain and simple.
Would you like someone ringing your doorbell every 5 seconds trying to sell you crap or hawk services? People are eventually going to fight back. Apparently, the Russian Mob got done what courts in the U.S. and abroad don't have the will to do - STOP SPAMMERS.
If you push someone, expect them to have a breaking point, don't sit and complain about what they did to you - you asked for, and deserved it.
At least he'll never spam again.
If spammers get caught spamming, ALL of their assests should be seized and given to schools, while they are shoved out onto the street and prohibited from touching a computer ever again.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
In response to a comment I can't seem to find anymore which says that the Russian mafia will go after any cash they can get and not just profits.
The smart mafia actually do limit themselves to profits. Unlike petty crime, their vision to racketeering is more long-term, and they understand that there is no point stealing so much from a business that it will go, well, out of business, because then they won't have a source of cash anymore.
One (not the only one, but an important one) of the reasons organized crime keeps flourishing in Russia is because it is tolerated by those who are racketeered as a "lesser of evils". The mafia is smart about the amount of money it taxes you, and always leaves you with enough so it's still profitable for you to operate and make a living, even if just barely. They also form pacts with other big mafia groups about the "turf" - each group only "milks" their own turf. And finally they, through use of force, protect businesses from petty non-mafia criminals, often with much better efficiency than police.
Faced on one side between a corrupt and inefficient police protection, the potential deadly hostility of the mafia, dirty (and violent) practices by competitors, and a huge amount of petty criminals who would tear your business apart if not controlled; and on the other side paying a large but still survivable "tax" to your "roof" in return for not only being left in peace by that mafia, but who (with lethal efficiency) keep petty criminals out, ensure neighboring mafia also leave you in piece as a respect for their neighbor's turf, businesses rationally choose the second option, since it is the only way they can survive. Heck, the mafia may even help you monopolize your market by putting YOUR competitor out of business as well.
This problem can only be solved on a national level by combating the highest echelons of crime, increasing police power and pay, seeding out corruption, and restoring faith in the government. That's what Putin has been doing for the last few years, which did greatly improve security in Russia (what we see now is peanuts compared to what it was in mid 90s), but of course the only think the West knows about Putin is his anti-liberal oppressive stance, abuse of power, and polonium-armed spies killing political enemies half-way across the globe. Well, I guess every politician is only remembered for the bad things they done.
"Can I take it that you like getting paper junk mail too?"
Not liking something is different from calling death penalty for it. I obviously miss some important point about Spam (I'm sure some people are happy to have jobs designing Spam filters at Google) because I don't understand the feeling of this thread. Reminds me of old people raging against paper junk mail, but a younger and nerdier version of it.
Maybe I'll get it and wish death to people I don't know nothing about, to thereafter learn that those people only live in a hoax that only exist to fulfill some nerd rage; it'll be great.
Lets say, deleting one days of spam is equivalent of a needle prick.
Now, do the math, add them up for all the people on the world receiving the spam.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Googled the guy's name in Russian - no spam- or even internet-related mentions.
to see tech-junkie nerds of /. behave like hormone-driven mothers who'd cheer at pedophiles being castrated
Because in Soviet Russia, ...
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I suspect that the truly successful spammers are smart enough to hide their identities. Even in a country where laws concerning this abuse of the internet are lax or non-existent, one should be smart enough to know that their anti-social behavior is going to attract unwanted and hateful attention.
Spammers don't deserve death. They deserve a punishment that will strip them of their property and most of their money, put them in jail for running botnets (theft of someone else's online connection fees), and forever bar them from using PCs under pain of further prosecution, and subject them surveillance to make sure they stay compliant with the terms of their convictions.
Loss of wealth and property is torture enough.
Maybe if we were talking about poor people, or minorities I could believe you, but in the US, the cops care about the murder of rich white people.
to a few friends. . . with the subject line "feel-good story of the day".
Tech Public Policy stuff
I find it funny that all of us are so into this story and no one has bothered to verify it. The guy claims he heard the news on TV and decided to translate it for us. The thing is that if you speak Russian, and check out the TV channels, or the Russian news agencies - none of them mentions such a case. For instance, http://lenta.ru/internet/ is silent about it.
I must say this was a job well done by this bogus artist, he managed to spawn a classic slashdot dispute with many insightful posts, bravo! Well, maybe this will make spammers feel a bit uncomfortable...
Morale of the story: 10 thousand lemmings can be wrong.
The saddest poem
Ah yes.. back in the day.
Actually we could make this dead simple: Let the people vote. Realizing this internationally may be a wee bit complicated, but imo possible. If somebody's sentenced for life and/or popular demand ensues for shorter convictions, the whole world can vote to relieve said felon of all charges, keep him for whatever sentence he's been given or decide to kill him. All that could be included nicely in some kind of web portal where you, right after the usual check of /. each morning, check whom you want to see dead today. After a few days (like 96 hours of voting per candidate) or a few (hundred?) million votes are cast, the votes are counted and whatever's been voted for the most is done :)
Means let them read it. I wouldn't let a stranger read my mail leave alone a spammer.
A small bullet for a man, a giant leap for mankind. (The Mob)
"ChuckSchwab deserves to be brutally murdered"
Slashdot user oncehour (ID #744756) on Friday October 12, 03:43AM
Anyone know where his grave is? I'd like to go and dance on it.
register is reporting this as a hoax. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/russian_spammer_murder/ tsk tsk tsk
i know not what weapons the next world war will be fought with, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita ? As of 2000 or so:
Murder rate:
-US: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
-Russia: 0.201534 per 1,000 people Keep it up, you may soon be a safer country than Armenia (0.042), India (0.034), Yemen (0.034), Dominica (0.029) and maybe Azerbaijan (0.028).
I lost my sig.
In soviet Russia spam kills you
Well, see, the old definition of "liberal" (before in the US conservatives managed to redefine it to be some commie-mutant-traitor kinda pejorative) meant... well, the best way to explain it, is what nowadays is called "libertarian". Sorta. Conservatives were for the good ol', tried-and-tested power of the land-owners and top-down way to run an economy (with the king and landowners being "top" and you being "down"), liberals were for a more laissez-faire kind of economy. Let private initiative and the free market take care of everything. That kinda thing.
;)
That was the kind of liberalism that produced (and was produced by) the industrial revolution, which repelled the corn laws, etc.
And it seems to me that this case is as liberal as it gets there. The government wasn't involved, private initiative (of a rich mafioso) led to the optimal solution, and I'm sure that a free market and supply-and-demand economics were involved somehow too. (E.g., he has to pay a competitive wage to the hitmen, based on supply and demand;)
Heck, you can pretty much see Adam Smith's "invisible hand" metaphor in action there. To someone it the death of a spammer was worth more than whatever else he could have bought with that money -- and with the prices and wages in Russia, that must have been a lot of other stuff that could have been bought with the money -- and someone provided a supply for that demand. That's the kind of thing the wealth of nations is built upon.
Caution: some sarcasm may have been involved. I know that's not exactly what Adam Smith was advocating, but hey... An invisible hand beating the snot out of a spammer. Now that's a metaphor I can't resist
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You've got to be trolling. From the article you link to...
"Twenty-five million emails a day generated enough new clients to subsidize Kushnir's heroic bouts of clubbing and sex, indulging himself in a way that was remarkable even in a city known for its profound lack of shame." 15 year old girls are also mentioned...
Beaten to death? Pretty fast compared to a lifetime ruined. (Abused children rarely fully recover).
Especially if we get equally unreliable statistics reporting methods, we might pull way ahead! Yeeeah!
Well, there's justifable homicide, battered wife 'syndrome', etc, but nothing quite where Spammer=justifiable killing. Hypothetical situations aside, I don't see this as vigilantism in action.
I mean how many divorce attorneys would we lose... Um, you know forget I said anything.
I'll say I actually do agree with that statement. Spam has a tremendous profit margin for the spammers, as it has close to zero cost per potential customer.
However, I don't agree that the spam problem lies in the hands of those who are spammed. The problem is in the middlemen that make it work. There are too many complacent people that make the whole enterprise work - registrars, ISPs, etc... Likely becuase they are of course getting a cut of the action as well.
As I've said before, spam will be brought down by an economic shift. Spam will cease when it is no longer profitable to spam.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's not a hoax, it's a message.
I hate spam as much as the next guy, but . . .
.0000950642
.00950642% of your day in deserving of such a torturous death?
3 seconds to delete the spam x 100 successful spam campaigns per year = 300 seconds/year
60 seconds/minute x 60 minutes/hour x 24 hours/day x 365.25 days/year = 31,557,600 seconds/year
300/31,557,600 =
So wasting
Shit, I'd hate to see what you do to the Jehovah's Witness' when they come knocking at your door!!
In soviet russia, spam sends YOU!
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
I have wondered how much trouble it would be to set this up. Once a month a military team hunts down and kills a spammer or group of spammers on Pay-Per-View. I bet people would pay money to see that. Entertainment and social good! What could be better? :)
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Not to be a troll but.... I vote for all the black people.
In Soviet Russia ... spammer kills you!
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
From the register.. A yarn that a prolific Russian spammer was whacked by Russian hit-men is increasingly looking like a hoax. The supposed assassination of one "Alexey Tolstokozhev" in Moscow, was first reported on a website run by "Alex Loonov". Loonov's account (at loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm) seemed all too plausible to the casual observer, especially since it played into public perceptions about the Russian mafia. Alexey Tolstokozhev (btw, in Russian his name means 'Thick Skin'), a Russian spammer, found murdered in his luxury house near Moscow. He has been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of russian hit men (known as "killers" in Russia). The story was picked up by blogs and spread rapidly across the net. Unfortunately, the tale is a load of cobblers. First up, the name Alexey Tolstokozhev doesn't appear on Spamhaus' ROKSO list, an odd omission for a supposedly prolific spammer. Perhaps he's managed to dodge ISP takedown orders, if not assassins bullets. Or perhaps not. Alexey Tolstokozhev fails to show up on any web searches either, except in the context of his supposed assassination. Informed parties, such as Sunbelt president and chief executive Alex Eckelberry, have never heard of him either. Eckelberry did a little digging and discovered that Loonov's website, where reports of the hit first surfaced, was only registered on Tuesday and with EST Domains, an operation that has attracted complaints about hosting malware. Loonov's website is free of malware (at least at the time of writing) but distinctly whiffy. Bloggers who first took the story at face value have begun to reverse their positions. ®
Does this posting count as spam, or is it a fake?
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
You are in denial and need to admit you have a real problem. Just because slashdot mods are just as fucked up as you doesn't make you right.
I suppose you thought Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" was serious?Now you're trying to claim you weren't serious. It's pretty clear that you don't care if spammers are killed for no other reason than sending unsolicited email. You can either defend everyone's civil rights or you're no better than the ones taking them away. What's next Eric? Lynch mobs killing all disruptive advertisers? Going by your method of calculating damages, I'm sure it could be "justified."
nor am I inciting anyone to apply "vigilante justice" (though that's apparently already happening).Fortunately, it was a fake. The rabid anti-spammers on slashdot, in their zeal to see spammers DIE, were duped by the spammers. It seems they've outsmarted you guys again. You're just like the anti-abortionists that cheer for clinic bombings or the anti-americans that cheered 9/11 in the streets of palestine. You're a sick person. Seek help.
No, that's why I chose the El Camino guy. He's had that piece of shit car for years. It breaks down all the time. He should buy a roadworthy car, but he never does. He's constantly wasting thousands of people's time! So I can shoot him in the face next time, right? Huh? Huh? Can I? Please, can I? I wanna shoot him in the face jedidiah!!!
Spammers do what they do over and over again, to millions of people with the intent to abuse everybody for their own selfish gain.Wow, this is sooo awesome! Not only can I shoot El Camino guy, but now I can waste a few tobacco farmers, abortion doctors.... is it ok if I mount a few human heads on my wall at home? I'll make a rug out of El Camino guy though, since I'm shooting him in the face.
<sarcasm />
Nothing about it in the Moscow Times crime section. But don't feel bad, there is this story instead: Filmmaker Murdered, Flushed Down Toilet
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The concept however, is a sound one.
In Liberty, Rene
How the fuck do you get a Score: 4, Insightful mod for comparing apples to oranges?
So, you don't see how it is different for one person to spend 385 years deleting spam, as opposed to 30,000,000 people spending 3 seconds deleting spam? Please don't tell me you (or the mods) are that stupid.
I think you should be answering the question of why you think it is equally as bad to spread the task amongst many people.
LOL :)
Thanks abb3w for the laugh!...
Now that on the other hand is a half decent and funny joke. Although a pretty poor troll if that was the intent.
You don't need to torture spammers - just make them spend as much time deleting spam as their recipients have, or triple that as punitive damages, kind of like making litterers clean up trash as punishment. Put them in front of a machine and make them hit DEL until either all the spam is gone.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Or give them the stream of email from other convicted spammers to wade through.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Jim Bell's sentencing: http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/08/46341
Because if one person thinks it's OK to send hundreds of email messages to me that take me three seconds each to delete, then thousands more people will think the same thing. Maybe one spammer doesn't waste too much of my life but collectively they sure do. You can model it as a utility function. It's basic economics; there's nothing complicated about the analysis.