International Spam Ring Shut Down 243
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."
Exxxcellent (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?
Re:Jeez you people... (Score:4, 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
Re:Jeez you people... (Score:5, Interesting)
*
If age >= 18 then can get a credit card;
else only with parental consent.
Where do they get the crap that they sell? (Score:2, Interesting)
In all seriousness, how do these people stay in business? Are they just charging and not delivering any product? If not, where are they getting the shit that they're selling?
And why can't some authority just make a purchase and then trace where the money's going to track them down? Is selling this pseudo-medical crap and prescription drugs even legal?
Jail time? (Score:4, Interesting)
Please, please, please, please, please, please!
Running a botnet's gotta be a jail time worthy offense, right?
Follow the money (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How does this work, exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Jeez you people... (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?
Re:Exxxcellent (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, there is. The problem is that it's close to an impossible task. I report comment spammers on my blog, and some comes from zombies. And I am no longer amazed by replies to abuse reports like: "Oh, I guess a computer got hacked, why don't you put the IP address in your firewall?".
Another common one with reporting comment spam is: use a CAPTCHA like everybody else, it's your fault that you get spam in the first place...
Really, in my experience, too many people don't give an F, especially not if they receive money monthly, how ever little it is. As long as they can make it your problem, which is as easy as shrugging their shoulders, and if you get persistent, to add you to their spam filter.
Re:Jeez you people... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Jeez you people... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
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.
Re:Exxxcellent (Score:4, 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.