Spam can get you killed these days...

[Knoxville]

Alexey Tolstokozhev a Russian spammer, was 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). 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).

Somebody in Russia is obviously very touchy about the state of their inbox...

[IBM]

Can't say I blame them....fairly certain I've thought about killing the people responsible for all the crap in my inbox on more than one occasion.

[moogle]

good for him, thats 30% less viagra spam from him.

[Saracen]

Do I have a lot of sympathy for one of the world's premier spammers? Nope, not a lot. Well, none actually.

[moogle]

talking of spam, what really annoys me is when i see a unsubscribe link at the bottom of a newletter or the sort, and when you click it, it asks you to login. why do they need you to login all the time, they should just include a code only you have in your email link!

back ontopic, spams against the law right? yet no one does anything about it.

[MadduckUK]

is a clear mark of russian hit men (known as “killers” in Russia).

there creativity is overwhelming

[IBM]

Well, they used to like being called 'the representatives of true social justice' but nobody wanted to hire them

[Optical668]

I dunno what to say really the words Ave It Spammer & Get Some comes to mind.. To think he made millions of monies from spamming peoples computers with crap would serously make alot of people very angry. Whos the suspects? Errrr the entire Internet community.

[IBM]

millions of monies

I wish I made millions of monies....

[Optical668]

You can, i have recently discovered that you are entitled to 2,000,000 Ubanko Dollers if you just give me your bank account details and sort code i can wire you the monies from our bank in the Country of Ubanko from our Ubanko Main Banko to your account.

[usxhe190]

Alexey Tolstokozhev a Russian spammer, was 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). 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).

Love how the journalist links spamming and death together with one clean swoope.

Alexey = Dead. Alexey = Spamming. Spamming = You will die.

Wow!

[Guy]

No real lose tbh.

[Saracen]

.....

back ontopic, spams against the law right? yet no one does anything about it.

Well, yes and no.

There are laws in the UK, and supposedly they are the implementation of an EU directive that harmonises EU law on the point, but it's a soft directive that allows a considerable degree of scope in how member states implement it.

Even then, it's a UK law that prohibits unsolicited marketing mail (and SMS messages) unless the consumer either opts in or has a previous relationship with the supplier. So it's not a total prohibition on junk mail.

But even then, there's two problems. Firstly, unless you can get it tried before a jury, the maximum penalty is £5000, and that's peanuts to junk mailers like the one in this thread.

But the second problem is far more significant, and that's simply that no UK law, or EU law for that matter, has any form of jurisdiction over someone operating from, in this case, Russia.

So yeah, there's laws that will constrain junk from legitimate UK (and probably EU) citizens, and some other countries (like the US) have similar or even more draconian laws, but they do naff-all good in relation to where the vast bulk of spam actually originates. It's a bit like King Canute. He can legislate all he like over when tides come in, but his problem is convincing the tide he has jurisdiction over it. Most spammers will pay about as much notice to UK or EU law as the tide paid to Canute.

[MadduckUK]

Well, they used to like being called 'the representatives of true social justice' but nobody wanted to hire them

perhaps "The A-Team" would get better results - id hire them then

[Stoo]

TBH it's the complete bozos that actually buy stuff from the spam mails which causes the problem..

The guy made $2 million over the last year? That's a whole lot of idiots!

If nobody bought anything from them then there'd be no profit, and if there's no profit in it then they wouldn't spam.. simple!

[WannaPiEcE]

Spammers > Telemarketers > Lawyers