Slashdot Log In
The Russian Mafia Doesn't Like Spam Either
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Oct 11, 2007 06:51 PM
from the think-twice-before-sending dept.
from the think-twice-before-sending dept.
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.
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
That explains it (Score:5, Interesting)
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: [securitypronews.com]
To do that they'd probably need a supply of pills conventiently and discretely distributed.
BTW, here's the original source of the news [loonov.com]
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."
Not the first time (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Not the first time (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wired.com]
Parent
Re:Not the first time (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be my take as well. This just rings of organized crime "moving in". You saw the same thing in the olden days when the rum runners were "consolidated" by guys like Al Calpone.
The message here is clear to all Russian online scammers; give us a cut or they'll be picking pieces of you off the floor.
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
For spammers this may become known as Death by Natural Causes.
"That's odd I feel strangely different, there's a dead body in here and blood everywhere."
"YOU HAVE MAIL."
"Who are you? Do I know you, have we met?"
"I USUALLY MEET EVERYONE ONLY ONCE."
"Uh. Ooooohh...."
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, it's pretty clear-- imagine telling Tony Soprano his dick is small! You would be lucky to get off with a quick shooting.
Parent
Gives a whole new meaning... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gives a whole new meaning... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Gives a whole new meaning... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russian Mafia, like all such organisations, love sharing profits. In fact they love it so much, they'll come round from time to time to your place of business, for a friendly discussion about sharing profits and why it's a great thing to do.
I suspect the late spammer was not the sort of person who liked sharing profits, alas.
Parent
Oops (Score:5, Funny)
The implications are staggering? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's haul out the checklist! (Score:5, Funny)
( ) 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.
Big Prize? (Score:5, Funny)
Fake Story? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Fake Story? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Spammer assasination story a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
http://loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm# [loonov.com]
Domain Name: LOONOV.COM
Registrar: ESTDOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.estdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.estdomains.com/ [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 [taint.org]
Domain loonov.com registered Oct 11th... FAKE!!!!
Re:What is the deal with spam? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Eh, one more to the pile of dead (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:And this is good...why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:And this is good...why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And this is good...why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, but "should" doesn't have the force of law everywhere.
They used to hang horse thieves, I hear -- interruption of someone's only means of communication. And that was for just one horse. Property is defended by force, whether or not that force is legal, because people will react emotively, not always rationally, to things that affect them directly.
So -- is an attack on your bandwidth, your personal inbox, annoying? Say that it is, for a few million people. What percentage of those people are not merely annoyed, but enraged? And of those, who with the will and the means will carry out a vengeful act?
The point is if you annoy enough people, you can expect common justice, rough or smooth.
Parent