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Alan Ralsky Gripes About Can Spam Act
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Dec 30, 2003 07:48 PM
from the $3k-is-chump-change-to-ralsky dept.
from the $3k-is-chump-change-to-ralsky dept.
fdiskne1 writes "The New York Times has an interview with Alan Ralsky, commonly known as the world's worst spammer. CNet News.com is running the same interview. Ralsky admits using open relays and virus-infected PCs and not honoring unsubscribe lists. He complains about having to comply with the new CAN-SPAM law will cost him an additional $3000 in costs to set up a genuine opt-out list. Anyone here feel sorry for him? Okay, I'm biased, but I can't wait until we see him in prison."
Related Stories
[+]
IT: Spammer Alan Ralsky Indicted 206 comments
Several users have written to tell us that notorious spammer Alan Ralsky has been indicted along with ten others on 41 counts of spam-related illegal activity. Ralsky has had trouble with the law in the past, and the current litany of charges includes mail and wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and violation of federal spamming laws. From the Detroit Free Press:
"The 41-count indictment said Ralsky ... and others used unsolicited e-mail to pump up the price of largely worthless stock in Chinese companies and sold the stock reaping huge profits and leaving Internet subscribers who purchased it holding the bag. The operation also used illegal methods to maximize the amount of spam that could be sent while evading spam-blocking devices and tricked recipients into opening and acting on advertisements, prosecutors said."
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Well duh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The law was not written for a commercial e-mailer," he said. "I don't think what they are doing is fair."
I think that's the point, Mr. Ralsky..
Re:Anyone have his pic, and an address? (Score:4, Informative)
Alan Ralsky's brand new 8,000-square-foot luxury home near Halsted and Maple in West Bloomfield has been a busy place this month.......It's an operation still very much in business, despite last month's much-hyped settlement of a lawsuit against Ralsky by Verizon Internet Services. The suit used Virginia's tough anti-spam laws to get Ralsky to promise to stop using Verizon servers and pay an undisclosed fee for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails to its customers.
Parent
Re:Anyone have his pic, and an address? (Score:5, Informative)
Want to bet that was Windows Messenger? (no, not the IM service, the net send command in DOS)
Parent
Re:Anyone have his pic, and an address? (Score:5, Informative)
Name: Alan Murray Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Dr,
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
AKA: Alan Ralsky
5016 Patrick Rd. West Bloomfield, MI 48322
248-661-3355
photograph [cmsconnect.com]
more [wonker.com]Parent
Re:Spammers create jobs (NT) (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Breaking windows creates jobs too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bastiat, the ~1870s French economist, was probably not the first person to explain this fallacy [wikipedia.org], but he's the best-known. Sure, successful spammers create some jobs, but they also destroy other jobs, as well as wasting everybody's time and annoying everyone.
Parent
Re:Spammers create jobs (NT) (Score:5, Funny)
The same way as viruses writers create jobs at antiviruses companies.
The same way as wars create jobs, and it's a billionaire industry. Yes, at the expenses of human lifes, but what's some measly human lifes compared to gross money ?
Parent
All I can say is... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, ok maybe he doesn't deserve death. But he definitely deserves a very hefty fine and prison cell with Bubba.
A face to match up under cross-hairs... (Score:5, Funny)
The geek way to stop spam:
Step 1: Create a mod for a popular first person shooter game involving a list of prolific spammer and relistic weapons.
Step 2: Distribute said game to those "evil teenagers that plays too much video games and get influenced and shoot up their classmates".
Step 3: Wait for problem to take care of itself.
That way loosers who shoot their classmates and random people are *educated* to shoot the actual varmints of this society instead of random innocent people. And for the rest of us who can learn to differentiate a game from real life, it does sound like a fun game...
Parent
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire system of crime and punishment, at least in the USA, has been the notion of "let the punishment fit the crime". In it's purest form, the concept of modern law is to "set right that which was wronged", in other words, allow the law to compensate a person or other entity to the point before the offense. That is the concept of compensatory damages; punitive damages awarded the wronged serve to further punish the offender.
How a rational person can equate being wronged by receiving unsolicited emails calling for the death penalty for the sender, and say, the punishment that will befall the killer of Laci Peterson is beyond me.
There will come a time when some overzealous anti-spammer will decide to take the law into their own hands, and physically attack a spammer. A taste of that was seen last spring at the Federal Trade Commission summit on spam in DC. Others have made thinly veiled threats to destroy computer server centers, and it is only a matter of time before someone decides to act on their impulses.
If nothing else, any lawyer would counsel against making statements on public Internet sites that may come back to haunt a person later. The First Amendment is fine, it's up to the individual to decide when their statements are free speech, or incriminating evidence.
What punishment (provided Ralsky would be convicted on an offense) do I believe he should get? Compensatory damages equal to the total cost of bandwidth, server space, etc. that he has used sending out emails over the years, and punitive damages ten times the compensatory amount. In the end, instead of living in Bloomfield Hills, he'll be on the corner of Second and Forest, bumming for spare change.
Parent
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, there are about 2.5Gs in an 80-year human lifetime. Ralsky boasts of something like 70 million spams per day. If it takes a human being 1 second to delete a spam, that's one human lifetime wasted per 36 days of spamming. Okay, filters help a lot -- but those filters also cost people-time to create. Aside from that, even if only 5% gets through to a human, he's wasted 1 whole human lifetime in 2 years.
So, what would be a compensory penalty? The 80 years (more than the rest of his life) at community service would be a start. But that doesn't account for all the cleanup of the zombies he relayed through, nor the ISP resources (mailbox space and bandwidth). It also doesn't compensate the public for the loss in usefulness of email.
In Ralsky's case, he cannot possibly afford to compensate for what he's done. But there is more to justice than compensation and punishment. Justice also requires Mercy.
He's 57 years old now. He can collect social security in five years. Let him. (In the mean time, he can sell his big house and move into a small appartment thats easier to afford. Maybe Sanford Wallace is looking for a roomie?) But after he has to start tagging his spam, it'll be so easy to filter that nobody will pay him to send it. I cannot imagine anyone hiring him to work. So, he'll fade into obscurity, and justice will be served by his repentance and remorse.
Except, he's a spammer, so he'll more likely break the can-spam law, and do those next five years in prison (I assume, based on his open admission to news reporters that he uses zombies, that there will be some wiretaps in place by Jan 2 at the latest.) When he gets out, he has the same choice to make all over again.
Parent
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
>
>
Hardly.
I mean, some poor mass murderer is actually going to have to fuck Alan Ralsky!
Where's the justice in that? The guy's already serving life in prison for mass murder, shouldn't that be punishment enough?
Parent
Re:Prison Rape (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
What an ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Or,
"I personally hate clubbing old ladies over the head so I can snatch their purses. It's rough. But you do what you got to do."
I hope somebody clubs Al Ralsky over the head in a dark alley... Jerk.
Re:What an ass (Score:3, Insightful)
No, of course not. Someone like Ralsky is most likely a sociopath (Antisocial Personality Disorder [mentalhealth.com]). He can't grasp the concept of responsibility for his actions.
Best to throw him in a dungeon and never let him out again, IMNSHO...
Re:Calling him an ass for those quotes wreaks of.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you can try an experiment and steal some electricity. By your way of thinking it doesn't exist in physical form either so you should be just fine.
Parent
You'll find the same thing all over... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every spammer says this, but remember the first rule of dealing with spammers: Spammers lie.
Spammers say they don't want to send spam to people who don't want it, then come up with ways to subvert spam filters. If the really didn't want to send spam to people who didn't want it, then why subvert a spam filter? Someone using a filter obviously doesn't want spam (by definition), yet spammers keep bitching about filters, and how they're making their line of work difficult.
Parent
Re:You'll find the same thing all over... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
1-800-WAA-AAHH! (Score:5, Funny)
In Prison? (Score:5, Funny)
In congress? Senate? No! Whitehouse! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like the ideal candidate for President...
Parent
Logically..... (Score:5, Funny)
+
Ralsky is a pammer
=
Ralsky is stupid
Ralsky is stupid
+
Ralsky says "it would be stupid to violate" [the law]
=
Ralsky will violate the law
But I'll bet you'd figured that out anyway.
Back up a second, here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Back up a second, here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just not Alan Ralsky. It's there to help folks like the DMA do *their* kinder, gentler spam. That it gets rid of the current competition is merely a side benefit that I'm sure they made some sizable campaign contributions to ensure.
Spammers were given a choice (Score:3, Insightful)
If they aren't going to play fair then i dont see why we should. We need to make sure that the financial penalties outweigh the potential profits to be made. If it's a small penalty per email sent, then it'd take a while to whittle away ralskys fortunes.
We need to make an example of people breaking these laws to act as a deterrent. Perhaps a 3 emails and your up for life in prison....
That's nothing. These new laws. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, the price controls on recreational drugs and prostitution are a partial compensation, but the state monopoly on gambling really put a crimp in my style.
What's the world coming to.
Well, at least I'm not a scum sucking spammer.
KFG
personally (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell does anyone think some low life e-tard in Nigeria or South America care about American laws and spam, nada. Zilch zip nada. The law is a farce and being that its coming close to election, I'm wondering if it was solely sent through for whoring purposes...
Contact your AGs NOW (Score:3, Informative)
Laws can't fix something this broken. (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that SMTP has got to go. We need to get wide adoption of an e-mail protocol with authentication that the "from" address being claimed belongs to the sender of the message. That's the only way to make sure that spammers lose their ability to send e-mail without reprocussions. The face-value "from" address has to be much more relaiable than the current system lets it be.
Worst spammer? (Score:5, Funny)
From that description it sounds like he's a pretty damn good spammer. The world's worst spammer is probably some guy trying to send spam through his AOL account.
- New e-mail
- Paste address
- Paste body
- Send e-mail
- Dismiss popup ad
- New e-mail
- etc etc
- Profit!
No, I think ol' Alan is good at what he does. Of course that's like arguing who was the best serial killer...So HE thinks it's unfair...?! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be very interested in hearing how "fair" the owners of all those resources think the new law is. Oh, granted, said law is far from perfect. However, if it helps to force criminals like Ralsky out of business for good, I will be the first to give it a round of applause.
Ralsky's misguided belief that he has any right at all to abuse property that does not belong to him is typical of the spammer mindset. The sooner he, Scotty 'Snotty' Richter, Eddy Marin, and all their spamming ilk get shut down permanently, the better off the Internet will be.
Ralsky isn't the problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
What we need is to get rid of the "demand" end of this issue. Tighten up email so it requires at least some level of authorization to send to someone else, even if it's just by having a certificate of trust or something.
I didn't mean to kill the family... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Ralsky said that he was uncomfortable about this deception, but that he had no choice. "Is putting bogus information in your registrations the right way to do business?" he asked. "No. But the Internet world has forced me to do that."
Why do people still think this is a valid excuse. I am sorry I killed my husband but he didn't use a coaster. I am sorry i killed my child but she kept crying. I am sorry I killed one million people, but they were in the way.
No one makes you do something. You make a choice. You make a choice to go to school or not. You make a choice to go to work or not. You make a choice to live an honest life or not. You make the choice, and you should be man or woman enough to stand by them and take responsibility. Not be yet another sorry excuse for a human and say "I don't recall" or "I didn't know" or "I was ordered to".
Re:I didn't mean to kill the family... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
He's playing the media and lawmakers like a fiddle (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Ralsky is openly complaining about the slight inconveniences this law has caused in order to affirm this law as effective, hoping to avoid tougher legislation that would actually hinder his "business" practices.
What about the FBI or IRS? (Score:4, Interesting)
In every interview with Ralsky that I've read, I've seen him mention that he had to use open proxies, open relays, etc, etc. He doesn't seem to ever admit to having any systems that do the actual mail sending, instead he has always stated that he hijacks other systems to send out his garbage. There are many computer tresspass laws on the books here in the US already, and Ralsky is in the US. With his public statements, why hasn't the FBI picked him up for computer tresspassing charges?
With all he has done, it would not surprise me in the least if the examination of his computer network revealed the source for at least a few of the worms/viruses used to turn an Outlook Express user's computer into a spam sending drone. Again, there are laws on the books already that cover these sorts of illegal activities in the US.
Another thought that popped into my head, is why the IRS hasn't come after him for tax evasion? With all of his wealth, and his admitted morals, you know he hasn't claimed all of his income on his 1040's. A nice tax audit in the face of an FBI investigation would likely reveal all of those companies that are paying him to break the law and send their garbage out through these (essentially) hacked systems. They could also be brought up on charges as accomplices in any computer tresspass actions.
I guess the biggest problem is that there would need to be damages shown. Well, having run a regional ISP's mail servers for the last 10 years I can tell you, there are a lot of damages to be accounted for that are the direct cause of spam. The countless hours writing and implementing anti-spam filters, the angry customer phone calls, and all of the emails we get accusing us of selling our customer lists to spammers, etc. Not to mention the lost revenue from people switching providers because they were getting too much spam. The damages to our company over the last few years alone amounts to tens of thousands of dollars if not more. The AOL's, Verizon Online's, etc. have lost a lot more.
Its next to impossible to quantify in exact dollar amounts though. The process goes like this, "our mail servers need to be upgraded because the volume of mail is higher". Can it be attributed directly to spam, or to a growing customer base? Things may get easier after January 1st for us, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.
So if anyone out there sees this, and has a cousin or friend that works for the FBI or the IRS, you may want to turn them on to Ralsky and crew. Make him an example and others may (but probably won't) be deterred from entering the same line of (ahem) "work".
Victim? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he should figure out that those are not his networks he is sending the emails over.
And the "if you don't like it unsubscribe..." bit is funny. How about, if I want it I'll subscribe?
Tom
You guys make spam too complicated.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Buy yourself a domain and setup a default alias that you check...
2. For each website you goto that needs an email, give them their own.
yahoo.com gets yahoo@yourdomain.com
cheaptickets.com gets cheaptickets@yourdomain.com
monkeysex.com gets monkeysex@yourdomain.com
and so on. If one happens to sell/use your address, big deal,
Address and Phone Info!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like meat's back on them menu boys!!! (that is for the /.'er who referenced eating his flesh)
6747 Minnow Pond Rd
West Bloomfield, MI
48322
His home phone# is 248-926-0057
His work phone# is 248-926-0668
He also has two celluar phones which I traced back as AT&T Wireless numbers. Not sure if both still in service - give a call, don't forget to block your numbers!!!
248-766-5996
and
248-766-6362
Send SMS Here [mymmode.com]
I suggest we all gather our junk mail/coupons/fliers and start mailing it to his house, and all start making collect calls to his house/work and cell's. We pay for OUR internet access - and he uses our time/money/bandwidth without consent, its only fair that we return the favor.
If anyone has any viagra (I'm sure someone does) - pleaes mail him some - with a lovely note attached on how to enlarge his penis. Maybe his boyfriend will thank you...
Cheers,
Anon
Opt-Out one list and find yourself in another (Score:5, Interesting)
The e-mail adddress is valid
The message slipped thru the filters
And the e-mail owner reads their e-mail
him (Score:5, Funny)
I'm also biased. I'd like to see him strung up by the balls and used as a pinata.
I guess that's why I'm not a Judge in a criminal court. Oh well. Might be fun though...
Criminal Charges? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this make him liable for criminal charges if anyone can find one of those hijacked computers? IANAL, but even admitting to a crime without any evidence should still have a prosecutor sniffing around, shouldn't it?
Re:Criminal Charges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Good for you (Score:5, Interesting)
Good for you, but not so good for others
In other words, you send out over fifty thousand "challenge" emails a month, most all of which will be to innocent third parties who were unfortunate enough to be joe-jobbed. Not only are you bombarding others' inboxes with crap they never asked for, you are effectively doubling your own bandwidth consumed by spam. TMDA not only doesn't solve the spam problem, it actively makes the situation worse.
Parent
Re:Take the Spam Lists with You (Score:5, Informative)
I can NOT operate a mail server in this day and age without the use of these blocklists. We use a highly elaborate system rbls - spamhaus, njabl, ordb, along with others and some of my own design - as well as spamassassin and virus filters. Of the > 1000000 emails we process dailt, better than 85% is spam by every metric you choose to go by. I still get tons of it in my mailbox since the 'postmaster' and other administrative addresses are posted in spider-friendly plain text on our websites (I've complained to no avail).Think about that - I get 1 milllion emails a day running through my mail server, 850000 of which are spam.
A few weeks ago, easynet.nl's rbls were taken down, whom I was using as my only means of blocking mails from dynamic ranges, as well as one of my open proxy lists. The load on our mail server went through the roof as we were flooded with hundreds of thousands of junk mails poring in from dynamically assigned ip ranges and hijacked proxies, all of which have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER sending my users their garbage.
You have to understand that Ralsky and his criminal contemporaries are costing businesses like mine billions of dollars. Billions with a "B". The authorities have so far proven incapable of dealing with this problem, and this new law won't change a fucking thing. While blocklists are hardly perfect, it's one of the most effective tools I have at my disposal to limit the ammount of money Ralsky and his kind can steal from me and my employers on any given day.
I don't give a rat's ass if you and your "online business" can't adequately manage a confirmed opt-in mailing list. Either hire someone to do it, or get off the 'net until you can.
Parent
Re:easy now killer (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I get nearly 200 spam messages daily. I know people who get spam into the thousands. He is costing me, and my associates, a *LOT* of resources.
- Bandwidth -- That junk mail, more specifically all the images in the email, take bandwidth. About 20K per message. Multiply by trillions (quadrillions?) of spam each year. Multiply by the number of hops that messages must go through, from my ISP, through my shared T1 where I pay per megabyte. Hint -- It's a lot of wasted bandwidth.
- Direct Time & money -- Thanks to my business, I can't run a spam filter, for fear of it catching stupid people's email. I've tried it, but I just can't configure SA such that it blocks the spam and doesn't block the idiots who have open relay ports, speak in ALL CAPS, and include a few URLs in their messages. I spend probably a few hours each week on spam, which costs my company a lot of money. Repeat for millions of internet users. I've heard the cost here in the 13 or 14-figure dollars per year.
- Indirect money -- I think just about everybody has deleted a legitamate message when culling out the spam. How many important messages have been accidentally deleted? How much money has this cost? Nobody knows.
I have no problem with the ads you mentioned (billboards, TV, radio, junk mail, etc.) Why not? Because the person who sends it pays all the cost. The net cost of sending a trillion spam is nothing; it costs more to collect and maintain the list of names. The cost of putting up a billboard is several thousand bucks. The cost of a radio ad (locally, in a fairly popular show) was $15,000 for a series of 15-second spots, to run for two months. The cost of a TV ad is similarly priced, I'm sure. My company has sent out mass mailings to its customers, and and that also costs us thousands of dollars. I've seen checks cut to the post office for thousands of dollars in postage.The difference is clear. Traditional ads cost the advertiser. The spammers cost society more money than the US national debt -- every year.
These people are essentially embezzeling money from every corporation and individual who has email. You don't think that deserves jail time?
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