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International Spam Ring Shut Down

Posted by kdawson on from the spamhaus-top-ten dept.

smooth wombat writes "An international spam ring with ties to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and the US is in the process of being shut down. Finances of members in the US are being frozen using the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 while the FBI is pursuing criminal charges. The group sent spam advertising male enhancement herbs and other items using a botnet estimated at 35,000 computers, and able to send 10 billion emails per day. The Federal Trade Commission monitored the group's finances and found that they had cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone."

35 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Of Spammy Ring... by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Of spammy ring"
    In the shower we sing,
    While suds we fling,
    Cleanshaven chin bring...
    Burma Shave

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:Of Spammy Ring... by smittyoneeach · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, the process involves some doggerel and typing...
      But the real point is to escape briefly the election season.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    2. Re:Of Spammy Ring... by aproposofwhat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Some doggerel we pen
      Despising both men
      If McCain wins, what then?
      Vietnam Shave

      --
      One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  2. Jeez you people... by JustNiz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    just stop buying stuff advertised by spam already.

    1. Re:Jeez you people... by ari_j · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I want to punch every one of those assholes who buys products advertised by spam e-mail in his face. I've been saying for years that, if the supply of gullible idiots with credit cards dried up, the spammers would reduce their efforts drastically.

    2. Re:Jeez you people... by shotgunefx · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hear hear!

      I look at the spam and I get and I think why would anyone respond to this crap? Porno aside, why would anyone think it's a good idea to buy medicine, products or anything else from some shady stranger?

      The other surprising with this story, is that efficiency aside, it seems that the makers actually included an attempt at a shoddy (and probably dangerous) pill. I would have just guessed they used sawdust. LOL

      --

      -William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
    3. Re:Jeez you people... by master5o1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Maybe to apply for a credit card, instead of beiing age>=18*, there should be a gullible test.

      *
      If age >= 18 then can get a credit card;
      else only with parental consent.

      --
      signature is pants
    4. Re:Jeez you people... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry but you, on your own, will find a cure for AIDS which involves duct tape and a toothbrush before you get rid of the idiots that buy things from spam email.

    5. Re:Jeez you people... by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The supply will never dry up.

      Look at the current banking crisis. Bankers, realtors, appraisers, all conspiring to convince some gullible idiot that he or she can afford to not only buy a house 3X their yearly income, but said house would become a magic money machine. The ARM mortgage would be no problem because the laws of conservation no longer existed, and the double digit growth in value would continue forever, and the house could be sold at a profit at any point.

      Then there were the gullible idiots who bought the magical risk free packaged investments based on the magical mortgages. These magical financial instruments were another guaranteed trove of never ending money generation.

      Of course, like spammers, the only people who made money were the criminals, and, like spammers, should be in jail.

      The flaw in your logic is easy money is that only thing that makes people stupid faster than easy sex. Tell people that a magic fairy will give them money, and most will believe it. That is why our presidential candidates primary sources of income, alcohol and gambling, are so lucrative.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    6. Re:Jeez you people... by amRadioHed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if pig's could fly...

      The OP's point was pointless. An astoundingly small percentage of the population responds to Spam. There is no way imaginable to magically stop every single ignorant, insecure, chump with a credit card from using it for herbal penis pills.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    7. Re:Jeez you people... by antic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And those people are not going to be reading Slashdot. That's why I'm surprised that the government and ISPs have not cooperated to mount a branded effort to discredit spam (risk of stolen credit card, product not showing up, etc) and educate the masses.

      If spam is a burden for ISPs (extra bandwidth, plus complaining users) surely they'd jump on board a campaign if a government or organised group could provide good educational materials.

      We watch awkward anti-piracy spiels in cinemas before movies, why couldn't ISPs incorpoate anti-spam messages into their sites, marketing material, bills, etc?

      --
      'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
    8. Re:Jeez you people... by Phroggy · · Score: 4, Informative

      why would a company pay spammers to send out emails if it doesn't make them money?

      You're forgetting Rule #1: spammers lie.

      The company believes that the spammer has been very successful in the past with their double-opt-in targeted marketing campaigns and the spammer's other clients have been very satisfied, because that's what the spammer tells them. They don't find out the truth until after the spammer has been paid.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    9. Re:Jeez you people... by volsung · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've seen a number of "Chinese factory" spam emails. These tend to be Chinese companies which specialize in things like engine parts, motors, giant inflatable fabric store displays, etc. I would classify these as gullible merchants who are desperate to find American customers, and have been convinced that spam is the way to do it. The hit rate for industrial water pump spam has got to be even lower than drug/herbal enhancement spam....

    10. Re:Jeez you people... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Funny

      why would a company pay spammers to send out emails if it doesn't make them money?

      I'm glad you asked. You see... I was once like you; confused and uninformed. I worked a 9-5 dead end job. But then I discovered the miracle of "unsolicited guerrilla electronic advertising" and made millions! Wouldn't YOU like to be like ME?!

      For the first time ever, I'm willing to let you in on the secrets to my success with my spr0cket-Style Spam Success Strategy. To keep this offer exclusive, I have to charge you $2000 for the kit. But you'll make that back in the first HOUR of working at home, as you learn to apply the spr0cket-Style Spam Success Strategy!

      I will even throw in a 3month supply of Herbal Pants Enchancers absolutely FREE. Could I afford to do this if my system wasn't successful?

      Order today.

    11. Re:Jeez you people... by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe to apply for a credit card, instead of beiing age>=18*, there should be a gullible test.

      There already is. The consumer credit companies want the most gullible customers they can find, so they can hit them with double-digit interest rates.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    12. Re:Jeez you people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if pig's could fly...

      The OP's point was pointless. An astoundingly small percentage of the population responds to Spam. There is no way imaginable to magically stop every single ignorant, insecure, chump with a credit card from using it for herbal penis pills.

      We could lace the herbal penis pills with cyanide. Then they'd only buy once.

    13. Re:Jeez you people... by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Funny

      You could use spam "Super Brain Cleaners - they make you SMARTER!"

      They come in .22, .357. and ultra deluxe .50 sizes.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    14. Re:Jeez you people... by halcyon1234 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've said it before, I'll say it again:

      1. Bust a couple spam rings
      2. Sieze the customer list
      3. Send each customer a free sample of cyanide-- labeled "Viagra"
      4. The market dries up

      Less customers means less money flowing to scummy companies. Less money flowing to them means less money being given to spammers. No money in spamming means people stop spamming.

      And for the inevitable and snarky "here's why your idea won't work list" post to follow: I know that it isn't legal. That's why your hire a plausible deniability, like a merc company, to do it for you. Geez.

      --
      UTF-8: There and Back Again
    15. Re:Jeez you people... by jimmyhat3939 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The thing that confuses me is there are less than 10B people in the world. So.....

      --
      Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
  3. We got mentioned! by MavEtJu · · Score: 5, Funny

    An international spam ring with ties to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and the US is in the process of being shut down.

    China: > 1 billion people.
    India: > 1 billion people.
    USA: > 300 million people.
    Australia: > 21 million people.
    New Zealand: > 4 million people.

    But the most important thing, we got mentioned!

    --
    bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
  4. This won't solve anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your post advocates a

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

    ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
    ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
    (x) Open relays in foreign countries
    ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
    ( ) Asshats
    (x) 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
    (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
    ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
    (x) 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
    (x) 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
    (x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
    ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
    (x) I don't want the government reading my email
    ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

    Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

    (x) 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!

  5. Exxxcellent by ohtani · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hopefully this will turn out to be excellent news if they can indeed keep these folks shut down and away from continuing their spamming.

    My concerns though are the 35,000 computers being used to spam. How long before they're found again. Or maybe they already are being all used by others. Is there any way of getting these machines repaired or otherwise reported to their ISPs? I figure if they have stats on how many machines, they have info on the machines themselves. Heck if they're setup to "receive updates" for software or holes or whatnot, maybe a nice white hat hacking to "update" the software so it self destructs the wide open hole and patches exploitable holes so they're safe?

    --
    Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
    1. Re:Exxxcellent by totally+bogus+dude · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are lots of hacked computers and ISPs just don't have enough resources to contact every user, convince them that there really is something wrong with their PC (most users would see it as an annoying intrusion at best, and insulting at worst), and then walk them through fixing it. Maybe governments could step up here and provide funding for ISPs to perform this function, so it would become a profitable exercise and therefore something ISPs would want to actively engage in. That then raises the question of how much money taxpayers would be willing to put into such a scheme. A lot of people will argue that it's a waste of money because most computers are in other countries so it won't make any difference to spam etc.

  6. How does this work, exactly. by blhack · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anybody know how exactly this spam works?

    Say I own a widget company...i want to sell my widgets!! I know of this thing called "internet" that a lot of people are using, and decide that I need to utilize it to sell my widgets.

    Do I just google for "email marketing"? Do I contact an advertisement agency?
    Is there ANY sort of legitimacy involved in spam trafficking?

    Do these spammers operate like real live businesses? Can I demand statistics on penetration from them? Do they have offices with receptionists and accountants and shitty corporate art?

    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
    1. Re:How does this work, exactly. by WK2 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Do I just google for "email marketing"? Do I contact an advertisement agency?

      Try it. You can find some places pretty easy after googling "email marketing".

      Is there ANY sort of legitimacy involved in spam trafficking?

      Short answer: no. Long answer: yes, but only if you define "any" broadly and "legitimate" loosely.

      --
      Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
    2. Re:How does this work, exactly. by CorporateSuit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the business world, direct email marketing is not considered "intrusive" or "invasive" by the hoards. It might be frustrating to entry-level programmer or minimum-wage Pete, or even Upstart-Business-Guy to get offers from other businesses, but for people who rely on knowing what's new and what's available to make proper decisions and get their jobs done, direct marketing is the first attempt at bridging the communication gap between two companies and starting a successful/profitable business relationship.

      It's typically the undirected, consumer mailing and scamming that have given email marketing a bad name; i.e. 3nl4rg3 t3h pen-fifteen. Though, from an outside standpoint, even those are less time-intrusive than television commercials, but oddly not from a social acceptance standpoint.

      However, direct email marketing businesses are like the used-car dealerships of today. Most of them are very shady folk selling nothing but rusted nuts and bolts. There are good ones out there that the Fortune 1000 companies rely on as their latest thousand-man rolodex, but you have to do your homework to find them.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
  7. Good thing there's a money back guarantee... by Chapter80 · · Score: 4, Funny
    Who's buying these male enhancements? As I mentioned earlier today, read your guarantee carefully...

    If you still have a small penis, simply get a notarized note from your doctor stating it is so, and you can get your money back!

    My favorite recent scam (not TFA mentioned above), as reported in the press:

    Warshak told him that customers seeking a refund should be required to get a notarized statement from a doctor certifying that their penis had not increased in size.

  8. Fines for those in NZ by The+Ancients · · Score: 5, Informative

    $200,000 fines are being aimed at three of the offenders here in New Zealand:

    http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/8D970CCB86C6155ACC2574E200636699

    --
    The Mothership
    1. Re:Fines for those in NZ by tulmad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A $200k fine for people involved in a business doing $400k/month in transactions. Yup, that'll teach 'em!

      --
      "In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
  9. Jail time? by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please, please, please, please, please, please!

    Running a botnet's gotta be a jail time worthy offense, right?

  10. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  11. Three Rings by plover · · Score: 5, Funny


    Three Rings spamming the Elven-kings for Cialis to buy,
    Seven for the Dwarf-lords to refinance their home of stone,
    Nine for Mortal Men lacking in size,
    One for the Dark Lord reading his pr0n
    In the Land of Mordor where the Spammers lie.
    One Ring to spam them all, One Ring to find them,
    One Ring to fleece them all and in their greed bind them
    In the Land of Mordor where the Spammers lie.

    --
    John
  12. Myanmar-Shave by tepples · · Score: 4, Funny

    How can you make a Burma Shave joke on Slashdot, where most of the users were born at least a decade after the last sign came down?

    Besides, the name of the country has changed since then:

    DON'T BE
    A SLAVE
    IN LABOR'S MAW
    WHEN YOU CAN WORK
    FOR TATMADAW
    Myanmar-Shave

    1. Re:Myanmar-Shave by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · · Score: 3, Informative

      Only if you are a military junta. Most of the rest of the world still calls it Burma.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  13. New York Times Manual of Style says... by patio11 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Myanmar is the preferred usage, Burmese is acceptable, and to remind readers it was once called Burma when appropriate.

    I will refrain from the obvious Times-bashing jokes.

    See also: http://www.slate.com/id/2191002/

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.