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Russian Anti-Spam Advisor Accused of Spamming
Keith noted that Krebs has an interesting story on a Russian businessman being accused of running a spam ring while serving as an anti-spam adviser to the Russian government. It's a strange tale including an investigation in 2007 that was abandoned when the chief investigator was actually hired to work for the spammer. Not suspicious at all, no way.
In Russia it is quite common occurence, that official in charge of something makes something worse.
... not as I do.
Well, we are talking about government, aren't we? By definition, everything government does (i.e. employ coercion as a means) is unlawful for the common man to do.
In Soviet Russia, anti-spammer spams you.
CEO of ChronoPay, the ultra shady payment "processor" that functioned more like an account hijacker. Looking to partner with Paypal for Russian transactions as well as online Sino-Russian transactions.
If you used the illegitimate MP3 site allofmp3.com you may want to investigate whether or not your transaction went through Chronopay as they might have retained a copy of your records *cough* *cough*. Krebs outed this guy in the first report and Vrublevsky tried to play it off like someone higher was trying to drag his name through the mud for political reasons. I don't need anymore accusations: Vrublevsky's a crook.
My work here is dung.
Kinda like a Republican running on a "family values" platform, only to resign because he had an extramarital affair with a staffer?
Living With a Nerd
corrupt government adviser spams you!
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
doesn't this happen all the time? When there isn't a market for something then the company creates one and then profits
In Soviet Russia, anti-spam advisor spams you!
In Soviet Russia.... oh wait. Someone else beat me to it. Damn.
“We have here a merger between a criminal element and the government power which is unacceptable and inadmissible in any civilized society,” Ponomarev wrote. I don't see how it is much different from most of the rest of the system. In Russia, mostly the corruption is not just in the system. It is more like THE system. Quite a bit of Russian news coverage (mostly internal) is all about that.
Someone who has successfully operated a spam business will understand spam a lot better than someone who has not.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
... make money.
As much as some people like to think otherwise the simple truth of spam is that spammers send spam to make money. And this guy was just taking it to another level; he was working to improve the rate at which his spam gets through. This really shouldn't surprise anyone who has one iota of sense regarding how spam works and why it actually exists.
Hell we could actually call this "a victory for western capitalism in Russia". Alternately you could say he is just a newer iteration of Viktor Bout.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In Soviet Russia, they never hear about the In Soviet Russia jokes. It's sad, really.
Go Obama! Go! Go! Go!
Is this a sign that Obama got to pick the Russian cabinet posts?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
...they managed to find someone that actually knows what he is talking about. I mean, if you want a spam expert, how can you beat a successful spammer?
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
IronPort used to play both sides of the street back in 2002. They sold rackmount "spam filter" boxes, and they also sold, er, "email delivery appliances". These included mechanisms for using hundreds of different IP addresses, to avoid triggering spam filters. IronPort was also behind "Bonded Spammer", a scheme where they paid ISPs to whitelist their spam. They even bought SpamCop and built Bonded Spammer into it.
Cisco finally bought IronPort, and they got out of the spamming business. Bonded Spammer lives on as ReturnPath. If you have anything to do with mail processing, it's worth understanding how to identify ReturnPath email (the IP address is tagged in DNS) so it can be moved to the "bulk" folder. If you use SpamAssassin, it comes with a big negative value for ReturnPath emails to get them through filters. Change that to +2 or so; if somebody paid to use ReturnPath, they're a bulk sender.
You do not spam in Soviet Russia! In Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia spams you!!
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
In soviet Russia, spam advises YOU!
I'm sorry, but I don't see how the ReturnPath program is for spammers. I've gone through the process for real companies (i.e. not spammers) sending newsletters and transactional email. The complaint rates you have to maintain to keep their service are extremely low. I don't see how a spammer could maintain those complaint rates and keep using their service.
Just because somebody is a bulk sender doesn't mean it's spam. I really doubt you'd consider this website a source of spam, but it would be considered a bulk sender.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
If a "newsletter" needs help to get through a spam filter, it's spam. If you want to distribute updates to real "subscribers", use an RSS feed. The user then has total control over their subscription. But most "newsletter" spammers don't want that.
I'm sorry, but you're completely off tune with reality. The majority of the people in this world aren't computer savvy and would struggle with RSS feeds. They signed up for updates from the companies, because they wanted them in email. Something even the most computer inept people can use now. One company I work with just sent out an email to their investors, guess what it's a newsletter.
If you were to go create something that got mild success in it's first month say you got 20k users and you're sending email that a normal person would expect from you (sign up confirmations, updates, etc) you wouldn't get through to the major free email providers even though people requested the information. That is a legitimate use of email and you'd be considered a bulk sender. Unfortunately spammers have caused this, but just because you don't like something you signuped for doesn't mean it's spam. There's a simple solution tell them you no longer want to receive anything from them and I'm pretty sure most places won't ever contact you again.
*No I'm not talking about the people send out email to lists they buy, rent, or how the fuck ever they get them so they're "CAN-SPAM complaint" and then flood you're email with diet offers, pills, and god knows what else*
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
John Levine is an owner/direcot of Whitehat. Whitehat is a spam company. Levine is head of the ISOC Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Anti Spam Research Group (ASRG)
http://www.iadl.org/whitehat/whitehat-story.html
http://www.av8.net/IETF-watch/People/JohnLevine/index.html
Other owner/directors of Whitehat include Rodney Joffe and Paul Vixie (or MAPS fame)
http://www.iadl.org/vixie/index.html
http://www.iadl.org/maps/maps-story.html
http://www.iadl.org/RodneyJoffe/rodneyjoffe.html
Vixie's ISC (root server F operator) is currently being funded by Rick Adams (uunet founder)
It turns out the Vint Cerf (widely recognized as father of the internet, along with others) has been connected to Vixie through Adams. Cerf is also connected to the SEX.COM thief Stephen Cohen, as a childhood friend. Cerf apparently also induced Ray Plzak to assist Cohen's flight from justice. Plzak formerly worked with Cerf in the early days of the internet. Plzak was CEO of ARIN and used ARIN funds to resist court orders to transfer number resources belonging to Cohen in the SEX.COM case. ARIN transfered Cohen's resources to LACNIC, where they were no longer under US Court jurisidiction, even though ARIN remained in control of LACNIC, and could have transfered the resources back if the transfer was in error.