What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
$52 and Up—Airlines Slash Fares On Peak Holiday Flights. view!
travelzoo.com - This year, waiting until the last minute is NOT the best strategy. See why.
72 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+69What I want to know is if these people are known, like names and whereabouts, why are they not being hunted down and shot. Sorry, located and interviewed by the authorities is obviously what I meant to say. Maybe :-)
- gardnmi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32Sucks to have the same first and last name as one of those guys.
- praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -2/+28Yes, their life spans have just dropped dramatically.
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19direct link to the original story
http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/spammers.lasso - L0t3k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17 1. Alex Blood (aka Alexander Mosh, AlekseyB, Alex Polyakov)
2. Leo Kuvayev (aka BadCow)
3. Michael Lindsay (iMedia Networks)
4. Ruslan Ibragimov (send-safe.com)
5. Amichai Inbar
6. Pavka (aka Artofit)
7. Vincent Chan
8. Alexey Panov
9. Jeffrey Peters (JTel / CPU Solutions)
10. Tim Goyetche
Is it just me, or is there a bizarre over-representation of eastern European / former Soviet Bloc type last names in here? - lustre, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16A lot of Russian names on the list.
- Dallas70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Simple, a spammer that sends out 10 million spams will usually get about 100-1000 suckers to buy their product. Depending on what the profit margin is (we'll say $20) then you're looking at $2,000-$20,000 just on one day of spam. Not counting costs you're looking at $60,000-$600,000 sales per month.
And at 10,000,000 spams per day wouldn't qualify me for the top 10 list. Scott Richter bragged about sending 40,000,000 per day. - TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14They post pictures of people that don't pay their child support on the net. They post the addresses of sex offenders on the net. Why not spam kings?
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Your not thinking ironicly enough : "Death by Penis Enlargement Pills" is far more fitting
- Ben - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Good point well made.
It would have been nice if the list included the spammers personal and business email details, then we could have invited them to invest in some unlikely sounding penny stock or give the opportunity to have the penis they always wanted. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8What? no obligitory "In soviet Russia" jokes?
- Jansson, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12The most annoying thing is that these are probably the only people who get absolutely no spam at all.
- Ehrgeiz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8+digg, very cool story and information.
- Dallas70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Spamhaus has always had a top 10 ROSKO list (Registry of Spam King Operations) and it's updated on a monthly basis. This isn't anything new, what will surprise you is that as people get removed off the list new ones quickly take their place. That's the problem, too many pink contracts and shady deals that protect the spammer while ignoring the users (MCI hosing Send-Safe while denying they don't, Comcast ignoring spam complaints, etc.)
- Jansson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Leo Kuvayev:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=73427938
From a blog:
"During one hour I sent ONE BILLION emails today over ONE MILLION zombies using ONE THOUSAND fake DNS servers."
I wish I could snip his stupid little fingers off. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Although both your post and the one you refer to are wrong, in that it is not 10 people who are responsible for 80% of all spam, it is 200.
At least get your facts right. Anyone can do that...
FWIW this post, far from being 'just another blog repost' managed to go into a lot of detail, explain the situation intelligently and was also an entertaining read. The number of people commenting here and digging the thing would seem to suggest I am not the only one who thinks this. - Sonic_Molson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Say that ummm, uhh, a few of these guys from the top 10 list "dissapeared", would you guys be mad?
- Dallas70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"why not crash their servers with the power of the digg effect?"
You could spamvampire it, but spammers already expect their sites to disappear within hours (If they're lucky they'll get 2 days) so they're prepared to constantly shift their sites around. Alex Polyakov is known to register at least 2000 domain names at once so you can imagine the frustration of taking out his sites only to see it quickly reappear elsewhere.
Best thing to do is the "Kick a Spammer in the Nuts" idea which was a program that inputed fake data into the form fields. Unlike most programs this one gave realistic information, idea being:
- spammer gets his mortgage refinance info, sells it to mortgage company
- mortgage company follows through, finds out list is utter crap
- mortgage company cancels contract with spammer
In the case of Alex it was working (SpamSlayer even posted an mp3 of Alex begging for mercy), too bad it hasn't been updated in a while - moovitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i'll chip in for a hired thug. :)
- DonCarcharo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I saw this story the other day and looked into it. Specifically I wanted to learn more about Michael Lindsay of iMedia Networks since he was US based and seemingly the most easy to investigate.
If it's the same Michael Lindsay of the same iMedia Networks, it looks like he operates a streaming media service and, get this, hosted the webcast for the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles in 2000 and the International Web Page awards a year earlier. He's not exactly a low-profile guy.
http://www.community-newspapers.com/archives/campbellreporter/08.30.00/marketplace-0035.html
Moreover, his business has a working public website complete with contact information. So either this is completely the wrong guy or no one cares enough to look into it. He's not that hard to find. - triplehelix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Okopipi, the open source Blue Frog replacement, can always use more help:
http://wiki.okopipi.org/wiki/Volunteer_Signup - Haplo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Afaik it's ROKSO, Register of Known Spam Operations. Unless the top 10 is named that.
- ZaNkY, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I take back my claim.
I re-read the Digg that I posted, it was misleading. I guess that the 1862 people that Dugg that article were also duped into a lie.
Thank billandad for kindly pointing that out, I was wrong (I will also edit my blog post now lol).
Again, I apologize for being so condemning, I will give the article a chance.
I friended you btw, thanks for the info. - Pilot85, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Somehow i doubt that info is listed, or that it remains the same for more than a short while.
- KIERANMULLEN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Since a bunch of nerds aren't going to physically do anything. Why not just pool money together for a bounty on their heads?
- osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So verizon is to blame, got it. Maybe they should be more discerning?
- appy77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If everyone ignores spam then why do they still keep sending it?
Then, not everyone ignores spam, that's why they keep sending it. - razei, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You would think that he would have ***** of friends on myspace to send even more spam.
Fake. - macbookpromat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If I could find out where these bastards live, I would gladly cut them up into little pieces. I don't need dental insurance or a penile enlargement.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cool, thanks for the honesty my friend. It is a shame that the Inside Edge poster today didn't pick up the story a day earlier and get that extra diggage (is that a word?)
That said, I would rather wait a day and get a better quality of writing, and this chap provides that - I read his stuff in PC Pro magazine here in the UK and it is usually good stuff. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Named and shamed? They couldn't care less. I'd rather that they were gaped and raped.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I guess I just don't understand the point of spam. Are these people making money off of sending it out? I'd think that's the only reason they'd do it. Unless they just get their jollies off of annoying the hell out of people. If in fact they do make money, how does it work?
- Dallas70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bahh, I knew there was a "Known" in there somewhere. That's what I get for not confirming my post before sending it out.
My bad. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most of them are in Russia! If we each chipped in a dollar, it might be possible to arrange a local contract killing, or two, or three, to remove these SOBs from the gene pool.
- TheKillDoctor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If it's possible to have a bright side to spam, it keeps geeks employed maintaining banks of content filtering servers for medium to large businesses.
And if one more work associate asks me,'Why did I get this weird email with a picture of some stock numbers'. Arrrrgggg!!!!! - Haplo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So much anger. And what are we going to do? I guess updating our filters, so the spammers don't stay 5 steps ahead, but just 4.
- macbookpromat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Ok when I saw his face, I got sick. He talks about how he loves the Internet for the money he makes. I just want to kill that bastard now.
- inmatarian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's too bad that they don't give us the email addresses of those spammers. It'd be fun to give them back what they give to us.
- imsteve22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i cant believe canada came 5th. i could see being behind japan and the states, but 5th. i dont believe it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1BURN THEM!! :-)
- MajorD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Here is his Wikipedia info...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Kuvayev
and he's allegedly behind online casinos that never pay out...
http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/elkasys.html - LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, well, the worst spammers seem to be from Eastern Europe, or Russia, however, in numbers, most spammers are actually here within the United States.
- JoeWall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1am i suprised that he has friends from nigeria, they are complementing each other how thy have done good work
- Dog_Paddle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1,gfiftc
- scottmoss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@L0t3k I agree but when you read the article they still say that the US is at fault. I get about 200 spams a day (put into junk folders), if NO ONE responded to the spammers offerings they would be out of business. So we can really only blame ourselves.....
- smohan123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1String those bastards up.
- videoCT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The thing I don't get is some spam does not even have a link - many of them are just gibberish - what does that accomplish?
- jedikv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why not crash their servers with the power of the digg effect?
- KB1775, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Today I heard a statistic that 9 out of every 10 emails is spam, 90% of the very thing that was supposed to make our life so much easier is probably the most annoying thing next to pop ups. I always wonder what the point of the incoherent spam emails really is, just to piss people off? Who in their right mind even clicks on this crap? PT Barnum is probably rolling in his grave repeating that there is a sucker born every minute with each revolution. I guess congreemen and senators dont get emial otherwise they might actually do something about this rather than just fine people and let them flee the country.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not bizarre, just a matter of fact. Since spam became big business, or rather big criminal business, the organised crime folk have stepped up to the plate bigtime. No surprise that Eastern Europe gets plenty of action as a result, with no offence intended to anyone from that region - just another fact of life that organised crime, and online organised crime in particular, flourishes in that part of the world.
That said, the US isn't doing too badly on the produing spammers ratings :) -
Show 51 - 72 of 72 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is