Russia’s Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment

[Renew Deal]

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Kushnir, 35, headed the English learning centers the Center for American English, the New York English Centre and the Centre for Spoken English, all known to have aggressive Internet advertising policies in which millions of e-mails were sent every day.

In the past angry Internet users have targeted the American English centre by publishing the Center’s telephone numbers anywhere on the Web to provoke telephone calls. The Center’s telephone was advertised as a contact number for cheap sex services, or bargain real estate sales.

Another attack involved hundreds of people making phone calls to the American English Center and sending it numerous e-mails back, but Vardan Kushnir remained sure of his right to spam, saying it was what e-mails were for.
<snip>

http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.shtml

[Raster]

1. Perhaps someone should publish the names and addresses of

America's largest spammers. Not advocating violence, of course. I'm just saying...

[wli]

5. doesn't spamhaus.org do something like that?

[youspeakmylanguage]

18. Any information Spamhaus posts is public information...

If the spammer scumbags want to violate my privacy every day by bombarding me with their crap, then I don't have a lot of sympathy if their privacy is violated as well.

[youspeakmylanguage]

14. International spam is most likely related to organized crime...

Anti-spam crusaders are the ones being legitimately targeted. I predict this will involve some sort of organized crime dispute.

I have no sympathy for the human scum that actively work to break the back of the Internet for their own profit. That includes this POS.

[Taxloss]

2. Well, he'll be missed.

Tragic death and all, but what a way to make yourself popular.

[mogster]

3. Hm, OK, I'll try to say something nice

Re,st in Pe@ace xcfv

[Endangered Specie]

11. oh thats funny!

:rofl:

[wli]

4. as wrong as murder may be

I'm not shedding many tears over this one.

[Lochloosa]

6. No Comment

:spank:

[SlipperySlope]

7. He should have put his name on the "do not bludgeon to death" list.

If only he had "opted out", then none of this would have had to happen.

[Xipe Totec]

9. * SPEW *

:spray:

[Hawkeye-X]

28. So you're implying that you're SPEW? :)

[Xipe Totec]

36. Ha! Not quite

Though technically, we all are...

I just spit my coffee on the screen when I read the caption.

:P

[rocktivity]

8. No one has to convince ME that spamming sucks

but, REALLY!!!!!

rocknation
:wow:

[youspeakmylanguage]

15. Spamming is just a means to an end for international gangsters...

Most likely this scumbag was killed for the same reasons that gangsters kill each other - money, women, money, insults, money, etc.

[ironman202]

10. I dance on his grave!

[Ian David]

34. Do you think at any point during the beating, he thought to himself...

"Damn, now all the anti-spam people are going to laugh at me when I'm dead."

[LisaL]

12. Seems like Russia found a simple way to deal with those

things.
But my god, how it changed since communism. All those murders for hire. It was unheard of when I lived there.
The human life obviously doesn't have much value down there anymore.

[Endangered Specie]

13. Couldnt have happened to a nicer guy...

:sarcasm:

[Straight Shooter]

16. Wow, that's harsh.

I can almost see it now:

"Stop sending spam, Vardan!"

"No."

Whump!

"I said, stop sending spam, Vardan."

"I said no!"

Whump! Whump!!

Repeat until you get the answer you want, or the decedent is no longer able to respond.

[Ian David]

17. Here are some non-violent ways to strike back at spammers

These are some "Anti-Spam Vigilante" methods of dubious morality.

But at least nobody gets bludgeoned to death (sigh).


There's Project Honeypot
http://www.projecthoneypot.org/

and

Blue Frog
http://www.bluesecurity.com/


On edit: one more

WebPoison.org is an open source project, the goal of which is to contaminate internet "spambots" and "spam spiders", by giving them bogus HTML web pages which contain bogus email addresses. (Actually, the real goal is to make spambots and spam spiders obey the HTML "robots" meta element, but we'll get to that later. )
http://www.webpoison.org/about.html



See:


Spam block has its own ethical issues
By Hiawatha Bray | July 25, 2005
A couple of years ago, this column featured the prediction that the junk e-mail problem would be coming under control right about now. So much for clairvoyance.

<snip>

Blue Security's system, called Blue Frog, is available free at bluesecurity.com. Blue Frog registers the user's e-mail address, then creates a dozen or so fake addresses linked to the real address. The phony addresses are ''honeypots," designed solely to trap spam. When junk mail turns up, the Blue Frog system analyzes the spam to identify not its sender, but the advertiser that uses the spam to sell his wares -- cheap Viagra tablets, for instance. These sleazy entrepreneurs put Web links in these e-mail messages, so they're easy to find.

Then Blue Frog generates a program that goes to the site's order page, and types in a message demanding an end to the e-mails. Every time a Blue Frog user gets a spam message at any of the honeypot addresses, the system automatically complains. Reshef is betting that if he can get a critical mass of 100,000 users, Blue Frog will overwhelm spam advertisers with a relentless barrage of complaints, eventually driving them right off the Internet.

It sounds deliciously nasty. But in the view of expert spam warriors, it's a lousy idea, and perhaps even illegal. ''How the heck he got funding for this is a mystery to me," said Anne Mitchell, CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy.

More:
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/07/25/spam_block_has_its_own_ethical_issues/





The Do Not Intrude™ Registry

The Do Not Intrude™ Registry puts you in charge of the spam messages you receive in the same way the national Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about receiving telemarketing calls.

Rather than waiting for spam to arrive and then trying to filter it out, Blue Security’s bold innovative approach actively deters spammers from sending unsolicited e-mail to your mailbox.

With the Do Not Intrude Registry you no longer have to worry about personal messages going to your Junk e-Mail folder, while spam messages continue to flood your Inbox, wasting your time and creating a hostile computing environment that exposes you to offensive content and raises security hazards.

Active Deterrence™

The Do Not Intrude Registry is enforced by the Blue Community and uses Blue Security's Active Deterrence, a patent- pending technology that disrupts the business of merchants, advertisers and spammers who choose to ignore the Do Not Intrude Registry.

For those spammers who ignore the Do Not Intrude Registry, Blue Community members use Blue Security’s visible source Blue Frog client software to automatically send complaints to the advertised Web site about the spam messages reaching their mailboxes.

Due to the sheer number of concurrent complaints from Blue Community members, non-complying spamvertised sites become overloaded, and are unable to respond to customers. As a result revenues sharply decline and both merchants and the spammers they employ are obliged to comply with the Do Not Intrude Registry to stay in business.

Active Deterrence is an ethical solution to spam. The Community reacts to spam it receives and warns advertisers and spammers before posting complaints on their sites. Merchants and spammers can easily avoid the consequences of Active Deterrence by using a simple set of Registry Compliance tools that removes addresses that appear in the Do Not Intrude Registry from their mailing lists.

[Solo_in_MD]

30. Which dubious anti spammers are you speaking of?

Not clear in your if you think web poison, honey pots and Blue Frog are "of dubious morality" or you meant unmentioned tools

From my direct experience, SPEWS, Spamhaus, and blackholes.us are the most effective lists to use for preemptive blocking.

Challenge/Response is worse than spam itself and Blue Frog will have similar issues.

Prolly the best example of how to run a list is Spamhaus.

Bray is mostly regarded by the antispam community as something between and idiot and a stooge for the DMA.

I realize that EFF and others decry blacklists, but until something else better comes along, I will use them.

I've been called a vigilante in this area a few times. I wear the moniker as a badge of honor.

[Ian David]

33. Well, the Blue Frog uses something akin to a DDOS attack

Personally, I have no problem with that or most other forms of anti-spam vigilantism.

When I said they were "of dubious morality," I meant that I was taking the position that I may or may not endorse these methods as good ideas.

In other words, don't blame me if you think it's wrong. I'm just the messenger.

FWIW, I am a big fan of SpamCop and Netmails.net.

I had my own idea of how to solve the spam problem, but it would require either a completely new system of routers, or else everyone would have to run new software on their desktop to send or receive mail.

[Vinca]

19. I swear I haven't been out of the country.

Shame they can't take out the pop-up ad people as well.

[mixedview]

20. poor guy, he's been deleted.

No seriously, while they are annoying, spam and pop-ups and and other junk communication are an integral part of a free internet - they have been there from the beginning and I suspect will be there til the end. Just like cockroaches and telemarketers.

[jobycom]

24. Used to be easier to self-police, though

I remember the old days when a spammers had to use their own emails, and everyone would retaliate by replying a 10 meg Doom file, or hitting the reply button 300 times. The anonymity has changed it.

[SlipperySlope]

38. They were NOT there from the beginning.

I assure you that advertising, spam, and pop-ups were NOT there from the beginning.

The first web browsers couldn't handle graphics, let alone pop-ups.

Cantor and Siegel are generally credited as being the first spammers in 1994. By that time the internet was over ten year old. Coincidentally, 1994 was also the year of the first banner ad.

In case you don't remember, at one time commercial activity was prohibited on the internet.

[mixedview]

40. well, from the beginning of the internet as we know it,

as something more than just a non-commercial, academic network.

The rise of spam parallels the rise of the world wide web, and of the 90's tech revolution itself. Advertisements/business are a neccesary evil which drive growth, just as it did with TV and every other major technological revolution before it. Of course lots of good people gave and still give their time and efforts for free in the spirit of community. But without commercial interests, the internet would've stayed in academic/government circles where it was conceived.

[MadisonProgressive]

21. I think they may be on to something here...

[Miss Chybil]

22. I wish somebody'd find the "grow your penis" and the "Viagra" guy... nt

[sakabatou]

23. Perhaps it was the lady who kept saying, "I don't like spam!"

[StaggerLee]

27. Monty Python!

Loved that skit.

[nine30]

25. What took so long ????

I thought a rival spammer would have taken him out a long ago !

Anyway I just hope the racks of CDs containing the email addresses are buried along him for a not so unhappy ending.

[AngryAmish]

26. We used to fear spammers

Now spammers will fear us.

[pitohui]

29. where there is no legal recourse people take law in own hands

the law was perceived as doing nothing about this jerk's spamming and so some vigilante stepped up to the plate -- not the right or moral thing to do -- but a consquence of frustrating and angering millions of people -- one out of those millions will be a nut

[Solo_in_MD]

31. I've never seen antis threaten let alone commit violence

However I have seen lots of threats (physical and legal) from spammers.

As someone else offered earlier, it sounded like a Russian Mafia hit. Lacking anything else, it would be the most likely case.

[SoCalDem]

32. Behold.. the Ultimate Spam "Filter"

[Ian David]

35. OK, the next time I get a spam, this is what I'll do

I'll go to CNN and use the "email this article" button to send the spammer a copy of this story.

[Lars39]

39. That might could be construed as a threat.

Dunno if that'd be a good idea. :shrug:

[donco6]

37. Damn, that karma can be a real beeyotch. eom

[Pied Piper]

41. I have a question...

This past weekend, some MF spammer spoofed my personal email address. For you newbies, this means that somehow (most likely through some computer program) he discovered my email address (@verizon.net) and started sending out spam which appears to be addressed from me, but actually isn't. The end result is that spam filters at the receiving end have blocked the message (regarding Cialis, of all things) and have bounced the email back to me, even though I am not the original sender. I see this happen all the time at work.

So now I have over 3K worth of bounce-back messages that are coming into my inbox. I know that I can disable my Verizon address (Verizon gives you some wacky inbox address, and you can set up your own preferable email addy that is received by your wacky address), but that means that I have to notify everyone on my white list of my new email addy. What a fucking pain in the ass!!!

Anyone have a shortcut around this fucking mess? Or should I just abandon all hope and set up a new personal email addy?

[Renew Deal]

42. Create a filter that deletes everything with the word Cialis

in the subject line. Or something like that. It shouldn't be hard.