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.

Comments

That explains it

[ackthpt]

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:

It won't be surprising to hear of an Organizatsiya connection, should the authorities probe the murder deeply.

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 Murdered

Posted 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."

Re:That explains it

[modecx]

Personally, I doubt that he got assassinated because someone hated him. He probably got whacked because he refused to pay the mob for his cut for illicit activities on their turf--and being an asshole was simply icing on the cake.

Not the first time

[billstewart]

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.

Re:Not the first time

[Ash Vince]

The last russian spammer who was killed specialised in Russian language spam advertising his own "American Language Center". The idea was that they taught you American (ie - English) and then you used that to get your own job (yup, no placement or visa included).

Apparently this guy sent out tons of spam inside Russia and managed to annoy too many people with the sheer volume, making a small fortune in the process.

Then he was found beaten to death. According to the Wired article I remember reading some time ago (link posted below) the people who killed him really took their time to make sure he suffered. No bullets are mentioned, although a lot of blood and a very sound kicking is. Then the police just swept the whole thing under the carpet.

I really would recommend that anyone who gets pissed off when they receive spam read the link the below. It cured me as I actually felt sorry for him by then end:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/spamking.html

Re:Not the first time

[Eric Smith]

The rational part of my brain says "yeah spamming is bad, but the punishment should fit the crime."

Sure! How would we do that?

Suppose a spammer sends 300 million spams in a campaign, and 10% reach people's inboxes. The average recipient takes 3 seconds to look at the subject line and delete the spam. The spammer runs 100 such campaigns a year. In total, in the course of one year that one spammer has wasted 285 person-years of other people's lives. If someone kills him, he's gotten off lucky compared to a punishment that would truly fit the crime.

A truly just punishment would be to torture him continuously, while using every known medical means to keep him alive indefinitely (as far beyond a normal human life span as possible). And even that wouldn't really do it, because it would probably just drive him (more) insane and catatonic in a few weeks or months.

Perhaps the appropriate form of torture would be the spam equivalent of the Ludovico Technique, but carried out for as long as the spammer can be kept alive.

Fake Story?

[XenoPhage]

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.