Russia, China World's Biggest Spammers

An anonymous reader writes "According to this ZDNet article, The Spamhaus Project has warned that organised cirminal gangs in Russia are supplying U.S.-based spammers with details of compromised PCs that can be manipulated to send junk mail. According to Spamhaus director Steve Linford, the Russian gangs aren't constrained by any anti-spam or cybercrime laws in their home country and have no respect for legislation implemented in other countries. Also, apparently 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam outfits who in turn have hosting arrangements with Chinese ISPs."

its great...

[drfrog]

to see them embrace captialism so readily

we should be proud!

so lets see...

[ForestGrump]

Russia for mafia controlled zombies
China for high quality spam warez
Africa for business relations about that recently deceased relative.

GOT IT!
-Grump

freakish nominee

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember you asked me about a new home purchase. I just got $300,000 l oa n for $250 per month payment and can stronly recommend a new company. Follow this URL if you like to get app rova l in several hours like me.

Sincerely yours,
Abigail Fernandez

PS: Let me know about your success.

Start Bombing

[rstidman]

President Bush just outlawed China forever. We start bombing in five minutes.

Surprise, surprise...

[ImpTech]

Seems like every day we have a story about such-and-such is the biggest cause of spam. In fact, I bet we've accounted for at least 400% of spam with all these stories combined.

If these trends continue, I'm afraid that one day soon I'll check slashdot and find out that 97% of all spam is coming from my IP.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir,

It is common known that Russia and China are the source for White and Chinese mail-order brides. However their population has not the African type to satisfy your cravings. Therefore I and my colleagues who have the contact you for V aig r a already have prepared a business venture in which you can test your new supply. For only a small investment we will connect you to the premium provider of African mail-order operating out of our Locations in Congo, Liberia, and Somalia. Please reply post haste with your reply.

Sincerely yours,
DOCTOR M. BOKUZUWANDI

Outsourcing SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

If 70% 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam outfits, wouldn't that make the US the biggest spammer?

That's exactly what it is, only we in the U.S. like to outsource everything we possibly can--tech support, call centers, software development--and that now includes everyone's favorite e-mail marketing substance, SPAM.

Outsource! It's the trendy thing to do!

Re:Conflicting stories

[twistedcubic]

So which is it, then?

It's both. They use non-Euclidean statistics.

Re:Surprise, surprise...

[serutan]

Yeah, I wonder what percent of the Russians and Chinese who generate 70% of spam are using the Windows zombie machines [slashdot.org] that distribute 80% of spam?

NEXT!

[humankind]

The USA is quite obviously the source of the spam. It is up to the USA to legislate in some way to stop the flood of spam that is hurting people all over the world. The real question is: how do you stop the spam when it is being sent from countries like China where the USA has no power to arrest spammers?

Hey, what a brilliant idea. We currently have only a hundred or more [spamlaws.com] anti-spam laws across the world, most in the US. Let's pass a few more. I am certain that when we pass the 500 anti-spam law mark, spammers will suddenly start to cower in their boots and realize that 500 anti-spam laws that aren't being enforced or have no legal/civil/criminal teeth are a formidible obstacle to overcome!

Oh no!

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"According to Spamhaus director Steve Linford, the Russian gangs aren't constrained by any anti-spam or cybercrime laws in their home country and have no respect for legislation implemented in other countries."

Criminals with no respect for the law! This world is surely going to the dogs!

Spam

[Sinful_Shirts]

I have gotten quite a bit of spam that is actually written in Chinese. I don't think I have gotten any spam in Russian. I actually got a piece of junk mail that I thought was funny once. The subject was "Hard times ahead!" and I thought it would be about saving money, but it was for viagra or something.

Re:Surprise, surprise...

[spacefrog]

If 97% of the 400% of spam comes from your IP, then you are only responsible for 24% of the total spam.

And, likewise, if there is only 400% spam quantity, and you are responsible for 24% of it, that is only 6% of the total spam.

Continue extrapolating, and you will quickly see that you are not responsible for any spam whatsoever.

High Volume E-mail Deployers

[CHaN_316]

Did anyone see that awesome interview with Scott Richter [slashdot.org] (spammer overlord) on the Daily Show? It was so hilarious. He calls himself a high volume e-mail deployers that send useful services to people.

The best is when they posted Scott's e-mail address on national TV, which is: [e-mail]

This site here [ahved.com] has the video available of that Daily Show clip. Please try not to slashdot the site, maybe someone setup a mirror or something.

Re:Spam

[Guy Harris]

I don't think I have gotten any spam in Russian.

I have, although it's more obvious when reading it with Mail.app on my Mac at work than with Mutt on my machine at home - it shows up in the Cyrillic alphabet in Mail.app but not in Mutt in my boring old ISO 8859-1 xterm.

Messages in various Chinese/Japanese/Korean encodings look, when viewed by software assuming ISO 8859-1 encoding, like a different form of noise than messages in Cyrillic script, so you might be able to reconize Russian spam that way as well.

I actually got a piece of junk mail that I thought was funny once. The subject was "Hard times ahead!" and I thought it would be about saving money, but it was for viagra or something.

One of the funniest spams I saw was one posted to alt.sex.nfs (which I was reading at the time as I was working on NFS at Network Appliance) - it had the subject "Men needed for lesbian lust", which is somewhat of a Special Extra Bonus Unclear On The Concept subject line....

Reply to your business proposal.

[Dimensio]

Dear Dr. Bokuzuwandi,

Your prosal intrigues me, as I am always seeking to expand my business to new countries whenever possible. You must understand, however, that I cannot simply blindly enter into deals with people who I have never met. As such, I will require a sign of TRUST from you, in the form of photograph identification. Please understand that I will not be able to accept normal government ID cards or an international passport for this endeavour, as such things are easily forged. Instead,I shall give to you a password phrase, and you must have a photograph of yourself holding up a large and clear sign that displays this password phrase. Scan this photograph in and email it to me as an attachment. When I have received it, I will be 100% ready to trust you with your business proposal.

I do apologize, but until I receive this form of identification from you, I will not be able to provide you with any further information about myself.

The password phrase is "I LOVE ARSE FORKING"

Yours Very Truly,
Pastor Phil McCracken

(Hey, it worked [iglou.com] before [iglou.com]!)

Now if only I could find a way to similarly humiliate the spammers who advertise pirated software or penis pills...

Re:What is the best way to stop this?

[1u3hr]

Most appear not to have read even the summary here, let alone the article. Let me draw your attention to: "organised cirminal gangs in Russia are supplying U.S.- based spammers with details of compromised PCs"> Aside from the atrocious spelling, note that the spam relays are "compromised PCs", probably mostly in the US. So geographical blocks aren't going to stop them. One part of the problem that could and should be fixed is to prevent the "compromises". I suppose these are email "click me and see a movie star's tits" trojans, or maybe more devious direct probes into Windows. In both cases there are simple solutions. Though we'd like to say "DON'T USE WINDOWS YOU MORONS", it will take a while for that to come to pass. But otherwise, a basic firewall and anti-virus, both available free, will prevent almost all these attacks, regardless of patching the OS, and thus reduce the number of zombies.

Re:70% from US?

[Tristandh]

If 70% 70 percent of spam is sent from China

Brought to you by the Department of Reduncancy department.

Re:US biggest Spammer!!!!!!!!

[palutz]

"70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam outfits" The same scheme over and over again! Stick your homophobia somewhere and keep to the facts.

-- Its those damn gay russians spammers again. Luckily your average persons xenophobia takes care of the straight spammers as well.

When will they learn?

[ThatsNotFunny]

The Spamhaus Project has warned that organised cirminal gangs in Russia

When will they learn... Cirm doesn't pay...

Re:What is the best way to stop this?

[marsu_k]

Heh, your analogue about the war on drugs (which, in my opinion, is being fought just as you described, by harassing addicts and small time pushers) just awoke the conspiracy theorist in me.

<tin foil mode>
It's a known fact (among a certain crowd) that the CIA, contrary to common belief, is working right along with the Columbian cartels to get extra funding, ditto for Afghanistan (sans the cartels, and heroine instead of cocaine).

Now I've just come to realize it must be the same with spammers. So instead of trying to get to them, they just taxing them, ever so slightly. Plus I heard the male agents have much larger genitalia nowadays. Coincidence? I think not.
</tin foil mode>

Shitty Russian mob

[Anonymous Coward]

Dmitri: So Vladimir, whatever area do you specialize in these days?
Vladimir: Smuggling, my friend. Vodka, narcotics, humans... If it can be smuggled, chances are I smuggled it some time...
Dmitri: Sounds good, how about you, Ivan?
Ivan: Weapons trade, of course. Got a few good high-up friends in the Red Army that are willing to relinquish some surplus material to me at a good price, which I sell in Africa and the Middle East.
Dmitri: Good to hear you two are making a nice profit.
Vladimir: How about yourself?
Dmitri: I rent out hundreds of cracked computers to US based companies.
Ivan: ...
Vladimir: Dmitri, you suck.