Slashdot Mirror
Leaked Online Chats Expose Author of Largest Spam Botnet
An anonymous reader writes "New analysis of financial records and online chat logs retrieved from the operators of Spamdot.biz — until recently the most notorious spam affiliate program — provides tantalizing clues about the identity of the man behind Cutwail, currently the largest spam botnet. Brian Krebs tells the story of 'Google,' the screen name used by the now-27-year-old botmaster who was part of a team of programmers in Moscow. Over the years, Cutwail has shifted from a spam cannon for male enhancement pills to a major vector for distributing malicious software."
But those pills totally work! I tried them and my dick got 69% longer in just 3 short...
Hey, what's with all the laughing?
...how they grow up so fast!
How fitting name!
The US Government knows where they are, why not just go and black-bag them? Repeat until the spam stops, no matter what country.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Please arrest him now for terrorism (of small penis owners).
Now i am no more wondering how such a monster like SOPA, PIPA was created...
Should we do the same for pirates?
Unlikely, they serve the govt by compiling lists of gullible people; in other words they know who is an ideal voter / jurist / consumer.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
he meets the same fate as Vardan Kushnir
Then the name would be more fitting.
Just because the US government has power to do a lot of locally illegal things around the world doesn't mean it should use that power every time we see something annoying. What's next? Nuking Justin Bieber?
Normally I'm not a fan of Mossad style kidnappings in foreign countries, covert CIA flights and water boarding.
This time I'll make an exception.
Ok, I will not. Just arrest him and pwn his ass :)
Privacy is terrorism.
I hope you meant "juror" instead of "jurist".
Maybe we should all send him mail...
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Because the pill-makers and end-salesmen are tax paying lobbyists.
Whether the profits are pocketed by the mafia or "honest" businessmen is irrelevant, mostly because it's hard to tell one from the other.
Funny how, when it's (suspected) terrorists, drug lords, etc., most posters here argue for a fair, open trial, legal rendition and all that. Shut down Gitmo, stop the drone killings, stop the indefinite holdings, because we're becoming that which we fight.
But a spammer? Call in the CIA, call in DEVGRU, call in Jack Bauer, that man needs to be dead YESTERDAY, no matter the cost!
because we're becoming that which we fight. But a spammer?
We're becoming spammers?
Sure. What are the Somalis going to do about it?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Spam cannon not large enough for your payload to reach people's inboxes? Try some herbal V14gr4.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
http://slashdot.org/~SharkLaser
http://slashdot.org/~bonch
Hmm ... not sure I'm following the point you're trying to make
No, he's from Holland, where 'jurist' means 'lawyer' or 'attorney'.
bjd
<marked as spam>
Newsflash: different people on the same site have different opinions! Freaky, I know.
Dilbert RSS feed
Yeah. do that. And the next day we are back to stone age.
...
Exaggeration ? Dont think so. the mafia that runs russia is as strong as the mafia that runs u.s.. And neither mafia would allow the other to kill their important assets in the dirty games they play.
You'd think that the author of world's largest botnet would be dealing in just viagra spam ? think again
Read radical news here
Is anyone arguing that the guy shouldn't get a fair, open trial, legal rendition, and all that? I know I'm not. Learn the difference between, "We should identify people committing crimes," and, "We should string people up without due process."
It means something similar in American English. I was hoping that such people were not that gullible.
"... provides tantalizing clues about the identity of the man behind Cutwail, ... Over the years, Cutwail has shifted from a spam cannon for male enhancement pills to a major vector for distributing malicious software."
You just had to go there, didn't you?
Spammers are fronts for fraudsters, and that generally means organized crime. Spam costs industry billions of wasted revenue fighting it with umpteen services and third party add-ons to get it under control.
Seeing as it's not real companies selling real products, all that money is being stolen. Death penalty seems pretty reasonable.
yeah he would .... hahahahaa ....
Read radical news here
IMHO, those companies paying for these spammers' services should be prosecuted as well. Because, if these companies were not there in the first place, these spammers should not have existed.
Dead by our hands? No.
Just get them in a less fraudulent jurisdiction such as the US, then offer them the following choices:
They can tell all and get a long prison sentence in a well-protected facility within the US.
They can be turned back to the country that they came from, where they would most likely end up dead by fellow criminals.
If anything, you would be saving their lives and taking out a conduit for malware and spam.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Just think... for only $1 donated from each geek/victim of spam here on /., we could "incentivize" (sp) a "contractor" to take care of this guy...
Maybe someone needs to open a kickstarter fund for this activity...
The spammers do more damage to the economy and the average american than any nutty muslim
Well, I am affected daily by not only spam, but the need to have an antivirus program "control" my actions. So, Yes, Die you Spamming Commie
The people who say 'black-bag them' probably aren't the same people who talk against Gitmo.
The goal of terrorism isn't the actual damage, it's to instill fear and provoke self-destructive reactions. I don't know what the direct damages caused by the terrorists were, but indirectly they caused the 2 wars, which have cost (correct me if I'm wrong) in excess of 1 trillion dollars. I seriously doubt that spammers have cost the economy 1 trillion.
I'm spanish. I'm truly sick of the fearmongering this sorry excuse for a technology website keeps spewing. In this particular case the summary is wrong and retarded, the 'articles' it cites are retarded and there's nothing to see here. The Sinde law will not be 'implemented', there is no such thing as 'implementing' a law. This is only ridiculous. Maybe it makes some sense to information-deprived shit-overloaded US-centric morons who read this website and go ZOMG the sky, it is fellings, it's the end I tell ya!
There has been a change of government in Spain. The incoming idiots want to make a statement. That is all. There have been tens of lawsuits where the only websites closed where the ones who profited, if only by having google ads, from their pages. And the closed sprout again with same content under a different name, with no ads, in a couple of hours, case closed. If there are no ads the page is considered not for profit and spanish courts have never considered P2P any more illegal than lending a magazine. I wish the fucking stupidity about this would go away. But I digress.
In Spain there is still due process for everything. We don't have a MAFIAA, we have a smallish group of whiny artsy retards who get 50% of the budget of any 'spanish' (read ingrown, incestuous, embarrasing shit that should never cross our borders) movie from our taxes. One of the linked articles say that Spain has 'emerged' as a 'safe-haven' for 'piracy'. It didn't emerge, the legal standing of lending things you own has always been the same and it was legal to copy a Phillips Cassette in the 50s and it's legal to make a torrent of a movie today if you own it. What was punishable by death was to use Fe-grade cassettes. But still. Spain is also not a 'safe-haven' for piracy, but same story: we have rights across Europe and we like it that way. Where is The Pirate Bay hosted? Several places now. Has it been closed? Not that I know, just as not one of the small pages in Spain will not be closed as long as they steer clear of making any profit off sharing.
The natural state of the art industry (an oxymoron in itself) is small, very small. Prices are too high for the crap that's selling and it's okay, only kids (or underdeveloped adults) with too much money on their hands buy said crap. I myself stick to music that was written some centuries ago. Yesterday I had some silly fun out of IBNIZ, give it a try, with a week of practice anyone capable of understanding some assembler concepts like stacks and basic bit wrangling can churn a trance track every 4 hours.
If communism was still in place, you'd get no spam from Russia. It's capitalism that begets spam, not communism.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
I give you that point, but then they would move to less oppressive area/islands/counties
you've been watching wayyy to much television.
FTFY
Seriously, how could you let this chance for a headline slip?