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Authorities Shut Down One of the Biggest Spam Rings

nytimes.com — An international spam network was ordered to shut down, stopping what the authorities say was one of the most prolific spam gangs on the Internet.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 15, 2008

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  • doiveo, on 10/15/2008, -4/+127we'll see. Tomorrow, if my in box count plunges like the DOW, they did something.
  • webyatri, on 10/15/2008, -4/+90From: ispam@internationalspamring.com
    To:authorities@shutspam.com
    Sub: DO YOU WANT TO SHUT DOWN A SPAM RING
    Cheap Canadian solution will shutdown any spam ring you want click here
  • yaddayaddayoda, on 10/15/2008, -3/+66International spam ring shut down. Three seconds later, 10 more pop up in their place.
  • Lula87, on 10/15/2008, -12/+72The Feds busted 4chan?
  • blacktriangle, on 10/15/2008, -4/+61Those guys were just trying to help enlarge everyone's penises.
  • Jaime2000, on 10/15/2008, -1/+51The same people who used to use AOL
  • andyb747, on 10/15/2008, -3/+39how did they stay in business....who the ***** actually reads their spam
  • Homerr, on 10/15/2008, -3/+36death penalty
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -2/+27whooosh...
  • VodkanLemons, on 10/15/2008, -4/+26No, I don't want to enlarge my penis !
  • dajuggernaut, on 10/15/2008, -0/+21i didn't want to say anything cause i didn't want to hurt your feelings, but maybe you should.
  • stutimandal, on 10/15/2008, -4/+23Just shut down? How about punish them for contributions to greenhouse gases, global warming, unsolicited emails, child porn links, viagra links, prohibited items selling (like ivory etc), selling/promoting imitation fake watches, selling/promoting pirated software, sending trojans, sending viruses, spoofing, phishing, impersonating, financial scandals (Nigerian emails), fake lotteries, and the list is endless.

    Just shutting them down is not going to help.
  • Wryly, on 10/15/2008, -1/+18Nigerian bankers everywhere are laughing their asses off.
  • redcatalina, on 10/15/2008, -0/+16I have one I can give you. Nudge...nudge...
  • cgibbo, on 10/15/2008, -1/+1650MG C1ALIS for 50$$$!!
  • arkaycee, on 10/15/2008, -1/+15i didn't want to say anything cause i didn't want to hurt your feelings, but maybe you should.
  • Atertract, on 10/15/2008, -0/+13That's because drugs, despite being potentially hazardous to your health, can also be awesome, something spam can never be.
  • wassim2k, on 10/15/2008, -0/+13"it cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone" who are the idiots that buy the stuff?
  • ExSlashdotter, on 10/15/2008, -2/+14Good question.

    Say youre sending junk email via actual postal mail. Theres a cost associated with each mailing. Of all the mailings you send, a certain (low) percentage will bring business. Lets say 1%. You send 100 mailings, you get one customer.

    Now say you can send 1 BILLION emails in one fell swoop, all completely free. Sure, the success rate goes down to .001%, but hell, in that case just send 100 BILLION emails. I mean, its free and effortless anyhow with your new botnet army at the ready.

    $.000000000000000000000000001 * Infinity = still worth your while

    (its like superman 3)

  • azhura, on 10/15/2008, -0/+11I don't even have a penis !
  • Atertract, on 10/15/2008, -0/+11Day of mourning for vaginas.
  • dajuggernaut, on 10/15/2008, -0/+11spam gangs?
    what are they the "Three 6 inch penis enlargement mafia?"
  • birdly, on 10/15/2008, -1/+11I hope this doesn't affect the deposed king of Guam. We have a delicate financial agreement in the works.
  • geniuslocimusic, on 10/15/2008, -2/+11You've obviously never worked on a helpdesk.
  • dullnation, on 10/15/2008, -4/+13Yet more seems to get through on my gmail spam filter than ever before..
  • zenithmbr, on 10/15/2008, -1/+9if i have 50% less boner pill emails, i'll be happy.
  • abajaj2280, on 10/15/2008, -1/+9diggers, save yourself the pain and don't click. even firefox 3 can't control it.
  • Albumen, on 10/15/2008, -1/+9Back in the day, when Melissa or I love You hit, our machines were W95 and didn't execute VBS files. One user tried to open it by clicking on it. When that failed he tried Word. When that failed he tried to open it with PowerPoint! Never underestimate the ability of peoples' ***** momentum.
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -1/+8Yes, but will the members do the honorable thing and kill themselves and their families in a murder/suicide, like the other spam king?
  • CrazyEddie041, on 10/15/2008, -0/+7Okay, fake watches are one thing, but IMITATION fake watches? That's just low.
  • whahaa, on 10/15/2008, -1/+8actually when i checked my email this morning i had no spam waiting for me. it was a pleasant surprise to be sure. hard to say if it was just a lucky morning or if it can be attributed to this bust.
  • Atertract, on 10/15/2008, -0/+7Idiots being the operative word.
  • martinherrera, on 10/15/2008, -0/+7You know, if idiots would just stop buying the ***** the spammers are selling, they would not make any money from it at all.
  • sirjimithy, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6I have. to. push. the. PRAM A LOT!
  • ridelesteambolt, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6*still use*
  • hawkspur, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6A huge majority of people just delete spam messages. The problem is the 1-2 percent that are too retarded to know better and end up buying the stuff. Spam is horribly efficient cost wise, with hundreds of thousands of messages costing almost nothing.
  • doctechnical, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6According to the article they were raking in upwards of $400,000 a month in sales. P. T. Barnum vastly underestimated the situation.
  • cgibbo, on 10/15/2008, -6/+12Oh... I get jokes.
  • jehan60188, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6beats the heck out of a 42 cent stamp...
  • divinediva, on 10/15/2008, -3/+8It wouldn’t be a surprise
  • travbrack, on 10/16/2008, -0/+5Gmail caught 147 spams in my inbox just today. None made it through. It's working just fine for me
  • Bith8654, on 10/15/2008, -1/+6It wasn't until you compared it to superman 3 that I realized to how evil spam rings truly are, thank you.
  • oda1, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5who will recommend my penis enlargement pills now!?
  • MScrip, on 10/15/2008, -1/+6If it's that easy... why don't the spammers just go ahead and pop up 10 more anyway, and get 10 times the coverage?
  • barstegry, on 10/15/2008, -3/+8Start the clock ticking on the Monty Python jokes
  • Goochman, on 10/15/2008, -1/+6Its not the spam rings we need to worry about - its the identity thief email we need to watch for. 8 more Viagra emails blocked at the gateway doesnt bother me - virus laden emails do and those rings continue.
  • aimhelix, on 10/15/2008, -2/+6ouch. too soon.
  • baldboy7, on 10/15/2008, -3/+7buried as spam
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -1/+5Spam is bad enough, but even worse is when these ***** spoof the return email address with a legitimate one and some poor ***** gets 10,000 returned, undeliverable email messages in their inbox. I had this happen to me the other day. I actually had to block all incoming messages for the entire day as about 50 returned emails per second were coming in.
  • PunkRockGeoff, on 10/15/2008, -0/+4Even if that's true, infecting other peoples computers with a bot is probably similar to stealing a megaphone to shout whatever at a protest.
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